Educators worldwide strive to transform what are often perceived as "dull learning environments" into engaging ones. Although numerous studies explore gamification in education, few explore the gamification of class assignments. Building on the premise that individuals are more likely to engage with tasks they find interesting, our central research question was: What factors contribute to the interestingness of class assignments? We conducted a qualitative study (employing Thematic Analysis) involving Brazilian college sophomores tasked with designing assignments for their enrolled courses. Our qualitative findings revealed several characteristics that can enhance task interest. Furthermore, we found that interestingness varies based on individual factors, rather than adhering to a one-size-fits-all solution. Additionally, we profiled students according to their gamification user types (utilizing the Hexad framework) to understand assignments from the perspective of different user personas. This study offers valuable insights into the gamification of classroom assignments, contributing to the fields of gamification and instructional design.

Currently, an essential challenge in education in Brazil is to promote quality education that reaches all schools in the country, even those with limited technological educational resources. With this work, we have made a contribution to the field of gamified education by creating a comprehensive didactic booklet that has been translated into Brazilian Portuguese, English, and Spanish, thereby facilitating educators to gamify their classrooms in an unplugged and personalized way. We have introduced an innovative approach to designing unplugged gamified classes, aiming to provide engaging and enjoyable learning for students. This instructional material is based on a framework of five distinct gamification designs, offering teachers a versatile toolkit to gamify their classes, even if they never had any experiences with gamification. Our resources not only serve as valuable aids but also function as guides for teachers, empowering them to gamify their classes in a manner that is both student-centric and adaptable to different contexts, an essential characteristic with the possible variations of the students and places. This booklet is the result of an intensive training course provided to 15 Brazilian teachers, even in a short period of time, training them with essential knowledge and skills. These educators gained proficiency in several key areas, including i) understanding the fundamental concept of gamification and your more common definition, profiling their students and recognizing the pivotal role this plays in designing effective gamified learning experiences for the evolution of them, ii) familiarization with the various gamification elements and their organization into the five distinct designs, and iii) crafting context-free lessons that align with each of these innovative gamification designs. In an evolving educational landscape, our work stands as a beacon, enabling educators to harness the power of gamification and create dynamic, interactive learning environments for their students. This initiative has the potential to improve the quality of education and awaken in students a curiosity that transcends traditional borders. Such a transformation in the educational landscape could have far-reaching effects, ultimately contributing to the cultivation of an innovative, engaged, and motivated future generation, which will drive progress and innovation in various contexts.

This experience report addresses training that was offered to teachers in Brazil. The main objective of such training was to train teachers to be able to gamify their own classes, in an unplugged way (i.e., without the use of digital technologies), and student-centered (i.e., personalized). The external observation was used as the primary data collection approach. This initiative was proposed by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, in which 27 laboratories were made available (one for each state of the federation) with the aim of preparing teachers nationwide. However, although some educators have shown a strong interest in using gamification as a strategy in their classrooms, a second group has demonstrated some resistance to the incorporation of gamification within the scope of education. These different levels of receptivity among teachers highlight the importance of continuous support and professional development to ensure the successful integration of gamification into the educational setting.

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the world population in several ways. Schools had to modify their teaching methods, reinventing pedagogical practices and actions to students to continue learning in a new teaching and learning routine. In particular, gameful approaches (e.g., games, gamification, and simulators) were alternatives used to improve the quality of emergency remote teaching. However, the need to use these approaches on an emergency basis meant that institutions could not plan the application or analyze the impacts of these technologies. To fill this gap, we performed a qualitative study, in which four students and a teacher participated. Using thematic analysis, we explored their perception regarding the use of social gamification in emergency remote teaching compared to regular face-to-face teaching. The results indicate that some different gamification elements drew the attention of students during remote and face-to-face teaching. However, no differences were identified between the different teaching modalities. Our study contributes to the fields of educational technologies and gamification through insights into the application of social gamification in education.