Teacher Training & Classroom Management Past session

Game-Based Learning Strategies in the Classroom

Name: Game-Based Learning Strategies in the Classroom
Start: 2025-03-24
End: 2025-03-28
Location: Ema Budapest

This session has already taken place. The dates below are the next available runs of the same course.

Session dates24–28 Mar 2025

LocationEma Budapest

Duration5 days

FundingErasmus+ eligible

About this course

A worksheet with points and a leaderboard bolted on isn’t game-based learning — it’s gamification, and the two get treated as interchangeable in most staff-room conversations about using games in class. That confusion isn’t harmless: it’s the reason so many “gamified” lessons end up feeling like homework wearing a costume. In 2003 James Paul Gee…

Methodology

Play First, Then Name It

Sessions start with a short game played by the whole group, and the group then names what the game made people do — that list is what Gee’s principles are checked against.

Take It Apart, Build It Back

Participants pull a gamified lesson apart, rebuild it as a game-based activity, and design their own on paper before any screen is involved.

Tested on Colleagues

Every prototype is played by colleagues acting as students, so the problems show up in the room and not in a classroom.

What you'll take home

Explain the difference between game-based learning and gamification, and use a short list of Gee’s learning principles to judge a lesson.

Take a gamified lesson apart and rebuild it as a game-based activity.

Design a game-based activity for your own curriculum that works without a screen, and adapt it to a screen where that helps.

Test your activity with colleagues acting as students and revise it from what you observe.

Plan how to use the activity with your own students, including a shorter first version and what to change if it does not work the first time.

Full course details, programme & how to apply

€80/day€400 total · 5 days

Choose your session

+ 7 more planned dates

Apply for this session Cancellation & refund policy

No payment now — we confirm your place first.

Plans change — we're here to help.

Don't see a date that works? Request a custom date

Google Calendar

What's included

25 hours of training & materials Certificate of attendance Europass Mobility document Half-day guided city tour with a local guide

Not included

International flights / travel to the host city Accommodation Travel & health insurance

Questions? Message us on WhatsApp

Registered Erasmus+ provider · OID E10304561

Where our participants come from

Aggregated across all EMA courses, not specific to this session.

Romanian 23%

Polish 14%

Lithuanian 10%

Spanish 7%

Portuguese 7%

+ educators from 20 more countries across Europe and beyond

Taking two courses? Book any two EMA courses on the same trip and save €150 off your combined price. Just tell us both course names when you apply — no separate booking needed.

Questions about funding or group bookings?

Write to us

€80/day

Apply