META TAG

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Epic Win!!! "Gamifying" Your Classroom


Games can be a very strong motivator for students in school. By “gamifying” your classroom, you can use game elements such as challenges, feedback, levels, creativity, and rewards to motivate your students to learn, and master concepts.  If you "gamify" your classroom, your students may benefit from increased motivation and engagement. 

Students are learning while having fun
+ Teachers can remediate or enrich in a game format
It’s a Win-Win!

Keep reading to learn about three easy steps to gamifying your classroom.

STEP 1: ASSESS YOUR STUDENTS
Identify your students’ trouble spots: Pinpointing student trouble spots will help you determine the best gamification strategies for your classroom. 
For example, if you notice PowerPoint presentations cause your students to not pay attention, add interactive elements.

STEP 2: DEFINE LEARNING GOALS

Set learning and behavior goals: To gamify education, you need learning (remediation or enrichment) and behavior goals that address the areas you identified.  I don’t mean behavior goals as if a student is misbehaving.  The behaviors I mean are working efficiently and concentrating on their work.

For example, you may set a learning goal to have students master a specific skill by a certain deadline. A behavior goal may focus on empowering students to ignore classroom distractions.


Video games typically allow players to make choices that challenge them and suit their abilities, so consider offering choices when it comes to projects.  For math, I typically set up Prodigy.com accounts for my students each year.  Then I use their teacher planner to assign specific work to each student.  Hello differentiation!  In my fifth grade classroom, I can tailor practice problems to student IEP’s or RTI targets.  Student A may receive single digit multiplication for 2 weeks, and Student B may receive fraction multiplication for a time period that I set in the planner.  Both students are playing a game, leveling up, persevering through challenges, and having fun!

STEP 3: STRUCTURE THE GAMES 

Use stages:  When you are looking at your state standards and the curriculum you need to teach, you help your student progress through skill-building all year.  You refer to your teaching units and topics all year long, but you need to use student-friendly terminology with your students. 
Try calling them stages.
While topics and units have provide clear focus for teachers, students may not easily see how they fit together.  On the other hand, it may be natural for students to understand that to reach the next stage they need to overcome challenges. You can highlight this by naming certain everyday classroom activities as prerequisites to reach the next stage.  For example, unless students do homework, participate in class and turn work in on-time, they won’t be ready for the next stage.

Hopefully after reading this post, you will agree with me that gamification makes learning fun.
And while “making learning fun” is cliché, I have found that there are three key points that gaming helps my students with:
  • Focus — Students who have a hard time focusing may find it easier when tackling an engaging topic.
  • Skill-Building — Students may shy away from building certain skills until they see the importance.
  • Content Delivery — Students may have trouble processing content presented through traditional methods, such as textbooks.

Have you gamified your classroom? Please share your lessons learned and best practices in the comments below.


No comments:

Post a Comment