Gamification in the Classroom
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Transcript of Gamification in the Classroom
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
Using Gamification as an Intrinsic Motivator in the Science Classroom
Although this will be my first year teaching, I have many ideas as to
what leadership roles I would like to be involved in in my future. I am very
grateful to have experienced what I have thus far in my student teaching
experiences. A particular project that comes to mind was one that I
collaborated with my mentor teacher at the American School of Bombay
Middle School. The American School of Bombay is an exceptional school,
with technology that is through the roof. The leadership and students at
this school are outstanding which allows teachers to experiment with a
variety of teaching methods. This paper is the result of one such
experiment. For a teacher in training like myself, it was a great opportunity
and I grew so much as an educator from it.
A leadership role I assumed at the American School of Bombay was an
experimental unit on using gamification, or game-based learning, as
intrinsic motivation in the classroom. According to the Oxford Dictionary,
gamification is “The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g.,
point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of
activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage
engagement with a product or service”. In this example, the service is
learning. According to author Wendy Hsin Yuan Huang, gamification has
been found to increase interest and therefore student learning (p.5, 2013).
Hsin Yuan Huang writes about the fact that most cases of low involvement
and drop outs are due to lack of engagement in the classroom (p.6). The co-
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
teacher I taught with had spent a tremendous amount of time researching
what gamification can do for the classroom, many of what aspects can be
found in Vicki Davis’s article, “Gamification in Education”. We took into
consideration and we decided together to compile a unit plan based on it.
Administration was supportive of his ideas and told us to have fun. We
assembled a six week unit on evolution in our 7th grade classroom, and
intertwined gamification into it. Motivation and engagement are usually
considered prerequisites for the completion
Since our endeavor was somewhat complicated, I will explain it in
sections. Firstly, the unit itself. For our project, students were allowed to
work independently throughout the entire unit. Our school was a 1 to 1
laptop school so this made everything work very smoothly. My co-teacher
and I created dozens of activities and projects that met each evolution
standard students would learn. All students were required to learn each
standard, but they had the freedom to choose which project they completed
in order to do so. Projects ranged from creating a website about sexual
dimorphism to writing a poem about the Cretaceous Period. All standards
for the unit were listed online in a google doc for students to see, so they
were familiar with the standards and which ones they needed to complete.
During class time, we teachers circled the room helping students in any way
and constantly probed students with questions to get their brains going.
As for the game, we called it “Planet eXtinction: Evolve or Die”.
Students started with three animals in the environment of their choice.
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
Throughout the course of the unit they were able to evolve (divide into two
by making a new species, or, evolve a new trait, in turn making their
creature more fit in that environment). Essentially, it was modeling
evolution but we let the kids have fun with it, creating their own creatures.
Their basic understanding of evolution and our help allowed them to
replicate it fairly well, without many crazy misconceptions and things
throwing their ‘evolving’ off track. Three times we had a “death day” where
we would roll die and random creatures would go extinct. The students
loved this, and were always excited and hurrying to use their coins the day
before to make as many creatures as possible. After death day our
classroom was always full of mixed emotions. Some animals radiated while
others bit the dust. Students showed emotion accordingly. The point of the
game was to have the most creatures in the end. Students received awards
for who had the most creative, dominant, biggest, craziest, etc. creature.
As students achieved the standards necessary, they were able to earn
points. In our unit, we used coins. We offered students gold coins (these
were worth actual points towards their grade) and silver coins (these points
were freebies, only used for the game). Both coins counted towards points
to use for the game. Each time students earned 5 coins, they could create a
new creature or evolve an existing one. The more coins they obtained, the
more creatures they generated, which resulted in a better chance of
winning. Students soon realized it may be better to invest their money in a
creature by spending lots of coins on adaptations or traits rather than
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
creating twenty five animals that all had only one trait. There were many
other rules regarding the dominance and fitness of animals that came into
play as well.
Students had the choice to do the minimum amount of activities and
earn only their gold coins. This was fine, it meant they had met the
standard. However, if they did extra work and earned silver coins, it meant
they had a better chance of winning in the unpredictable world of Planet X.
Naturally, students in a 7th grade classroom are very competitive and
wanted to do all they could to beat their friends. Getting extra silver coins
meant doing extra meaningful, authentic work and earning those coins.
Students were able to see the amount of points they had on an online
spreadsheets, as well as how many coins their friends had in order to
increase competiveness.
We had students emailing us immediately after school on Fridays
asking questions about assignments. This made me ecstatic (but at the
same time weary, as many students at this school loved their homework a
bit too much!). I was flooded with emails afterschool and on the weekends
with questions about the activities and how they can earn more coins. I
remember a student coming in the first Monday morning and he had
finished almost all of the assignments we had created over the weekend,
and earned a whopping total of 115 coins. We had to make more activities
and projects related to the standards just so the kids could keep going!
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
Overall, the game was very successful. This game in particular was
more effective with the boys, as the girls did not care so much about
creating their own evolved monsters (but they did embrace it more than
not). They enjoyed the freedom of choice when deciding what projects they
wanted to do. We did find that allowing the students to work independently
to earn silver coins and evolve increased their interest and grade
percentage. It was a win-win.
From doing this project I learned many things. Something I thought
about a lot while doing it was how lucky I was to have such great students.
Going from a very low level class of high schoolers in Iowa to high level 7th
grade students in India was a huge change. There was no way I could
implement a project like this in the school I was prior. I think a lot of it
comes down to classroom management and respect. It is very clear that my
co-teacher was respected and loved by the students. He does not have to
do much to keep them on their feet. They are constantly wanting to learn
more and always go out of their way to do so. His fun personality, humor,
and passion for science brought out this interest in the students. I am so
grateful to have had him as a mentor teacher during the course of my
student teaching experience. I would like to think his creativity and ideas
have rubbed off on me and I carry them with me now. If it were not for this
experience in Mumbai, I am afraid I would never have been introduced to
the wonders of gamification so soon in my teaching career.
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
I learned that if I want to implement a project like this into my future
classroom, I have to be the same way. I must trust students, and they must
trust me back. The ability to do something like this is the product of
effective classroom management. Forming relationships built on trust,
responsibility, and accountability are necessary. In order for students to
work independtly on projects they need to prove it to you. My hopes are I
can provide an environment where all of this is possible.
As far as professional learning goes, this project went further than
just my co-teacher and I’s classroom. Our gamification unit addressed our
professional learning objectives about creativity as one of the 21st century
skills. We presented our work at our professional learning meetings to
share with all. Many teachers were interested in starting something like it
in their classroom. Shortly after this the librarian implemented
gamification into reading and earning points for how many books one reads.
Since it was my student teaching experience, I was soon off on my way. The
knowledge of this opportunity will forever stay with me. My co-teacher, on
the other hand, went on to share his experience at many conferences across
Southeast Asia. He has been asked by several people to share his ideas at
more as well. Since this time, my co-teacher has been able to implement
many games into his classroom such as ‘Attack of the Zombies’, ‘Game of
Stones: Extinction is Coming’ and many others. Since our experience, he
has decided to make it more of a science experiment and track the data
better to use for future research.
Jill ThompsonAugust 3rd, 2014
This project relates to the Teacher Leader Model Standards in many
ways. I feel it is basically the epitome of the standards. We advocated for
student learning by using research and collaborating together. We used
technology via google docs and 1 to 1 laptops. Creativity was at its peak as
we designed the game and created activities for the unit. Everything we did
during our unit honed in on student interests and focused on making them
want to learn. From doing this project I know the implementation of games
into our classroom can provide an authentic learning experience for
students, because I have witnessed it. To this day when I think of the
project we did my jaw drops at how perfect everything was. I truly feel that
gamification may be the answer to many things in the realm of education;
we just have to get there.
References:
Davis, V. (2014, March 20). Gamification in Education. Edutopia. Retrieved August 1, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/gamification-in-education-vicki-davis
Definition of gamification in English. (n.d.). gamification: definition of gamification in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US). Retrieved August 1, 2014, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/gamification
Wendy, H. Y. (2013, December 13). A Practitioner's Guide to Gamification of Education. . Retrieved August 1, 2014, from http://inside.rotman.utoronto.ca/behaviouraleconomicsinaction/files/2013/09/GuideGamificationEducationDec2013.pdf.