A common problem in education has always been to get students to achieve an adequate level of motivation and engagement. Many evidences show that gamification has the potential to make learning more engaging, motivating and effective. However, it is essential to design gamified experiences thoughtfully, ensuring that they align with educational objectives and promote meaningful learning outcomes, and so the lack of established design methodologies can lead to unintended consequences.We are specifically interested in content-independent approaches, and several proposals can be found in the literature, but most of them are of high or medium level, i.e., not containing use guidelines for educators in integrating gamification as a pedagogical tool in a digital learning environment. And low-level design approaches are either too simple or do not take into account any of the motivation-based theories.To fill this gap, we propose APAR, a structural design framework for gamification in education. This approach is a gamification elements guidance, but very close to the implementation in learning platforms, and giving significant importance to motivation theories. APAR stands for Actions, Points, Achievements and Rewards, because these are the four elements that we consider essential for gamification in education.