Gamification in the Classroom

Gamification in the Learning Environment

Enhancing the Learning Experience

• Gaming addresses and caters to all learning types so that students who learn best through visuals, by hearing, or through hands on activities have the methods to do so with a variety of gaming applications
• Gaming in the classroom includes the use of technology as well as board/hand-designed games so the implementation of multimodality is present
• Gaming allows students to feel they are within a “shared space of play”, action, and adventure which satisfies their desire of entertaining engagement
• Students can build and work in a community with common goals/objectives; achieving efforts through teamwork
• Students can see their success in real time followed by an instantaneous sense of reward

Creativity

• Gaming responds to student’s curiosities, allowing connections to be made and consistency to be established from their lives outside the classroom to inside the classroom
• Gaming enhances problem solving and decision-making skills with an element of competitiveness and amusement
• Students have accessibility to out- of-the box ideas and are motivated to amplify their productivity and participation
• Gaming includes a variety of genres such as puzzle, sports, and strategy games that enhance critical thinking, visual memory, language, and leadership skills
• Students can personalize games, adding their own touches and spins which give them ownership and autonomy in the world of virtual reality

Innovation

• Gaming creates avenues of communication, providing those who struggle with social skills an outlet to work, play, and build relationships without the requirement of verbal exchange
• Students can learn in-depth material within their courses of study that allow for exposure to different career paths/aspects of the workplace
• In a gaming environment, student feedback to teachers is immediate and the pressure, from students, of wrong answers or bad grades is relieved due to other methods of communicating improvement
• Gaming helps bring novels, stories, and other content to life sparking student’s imaginations
• Gamification introduces our students to different aspects of society including cultural differences and norms and interest such as music, fashion, and writing

Two Threshold Concepts

• “Teaching is/an intellectual engagement.”

Knowing your students, how to teach them, and through what methods are best requires an intellectual engagement that is devoted to seeing the educational success of your students in whatever practices and fashions suit them best. As teachers, we must be willing to diversify our ways of instruction and meet the needs of our youth even if it causes us to try new things. Gamification is a strategic tool that caters to students’ playful spirits, allows them to work together, enhance their social and emotional skills, and bring fun into the classroom. Gamification allows the classroom environment to be more inclusive, pushing towards the establishment of equity and giving every student the necessary resources to thrive in their own educational journeys. To implement more socially just applications within our teaching, we must acknowledge the identities of all our students and seek ways that we can make them feel represented in addition to having a voice.

• “Both teachers and students have empowerment/agency.”

Through gaming, not only do teachers get to facilitate positive and playful interactions but our students get to assume roles of leadership as well. Because gaming allows our students to be expressive and take charge, they feel empowered to work harder which is simultaneously motivating them to learn more and more. Gaming opens teachers and students up to a world of choices from how they choose to play certain games to what successes within the games they desire to achieve. Gaming fuels our students to enact on their curiosities, ask questions, and accept challenges that they otherwise may not have been open to. Gamification allows for a good technological balance in the classroom and shows the students and teachers the many equitable ways that learning can take place.

Two Examples of Teaching as an Intellectual Engagement

• Teachers can bridge the gaps and increase student achievement by using games as techniques to see what our students care about. Teachers can also choose a specific subject that they want to focus on and use a game to help drive the student’s understanding of the topic. For instance, there are games where students use science to learn how to find cures to cancer. In this sense, our students are using gaming methods to learn about their core areas of study while also finding solutions to real world issues.
• Using gaming helps our students to master conflict resolution and solve complex/unique problems. Even games, such as “Wordle”, show kids how to strategize starting from nothing yet being able to create opportunities for success as they learn from their previous mistakes and try new methods along the way. Eventually through trial and error as well as some failures, our students see what works and what doesn’t, aiding them in what approaches are best for their decision-making needs.

Two Examples of Teachers/Students having Empowerment/Agency

• As stated in my discussion post last week, “Illustrated Choice Boards” are a great game that aligns this threshold concept with gamification. As an English teacher, the writing, speaking, and utilization of words have a large impact in our space, but pictures and visuals help us to bring those words to life providing more meaning and purpose. “Illustrated Choice Boards” aid our students in thinking critically, connecting what they see to what they read, enhancing their visualization skills, and giving them a creative means to choosing their assignments versus being assigned them by the teacher.
• Games aren’t solely successful when made and put into effect by the educator. Our students can make their “choose your own adventure” games or decide the result of the games through the parameters and circumstances they set. Through gaming, students have the power to learn educational content and make it applicable to real life situations while also developing better cognitive skills.

Gaming in My Classroom

In my classroom, last week, my students and I used “Graffiti Pages” as our method of gamification. “Graffiti Pages” is an activity where students illustrate, through drawing and writing, what they’ve learned and read about from a class text. Each student has a blank sheet of paper where they include sketches/pictures attached with a short caption for context, two words written “big” and “bold” that will represent the takeaways and main ideas the students had, and four direct quotes (cited correctly) that the students believe gave the text its significance.

The kids were out of school this day as it was Election Day, so for the educational part of our time together, I played a documentary on voting and used Graffiti Pages, as the supplemental activity, to still make the instruction engaging.

Impression

My initial impression of the game was that it would be an exciting way to indulge in reading comprehension and make the students not feel that they’re learning even though they are. Graffiti Pages isn’t too daunting of an activity and it’s very inclusive of all age groups, so I was pleased with being able to utilize this game with my 2nd-12th graders. I knew that with the kids having a day off school, they would more than likely not be in the frame of mind to engage in educational exercises but if anything, I figured it would bring some amount of success considering it included film watching, art, and writing which many of our kids take interest in.

Successes

• The students loved this activity! They were asking me if they could draw and write more on their papers than initially required because they found the fun in the personalization of their work and wanted to show me how much they learned through the presentation of their papers.
• The students didn’t try to shortchange their work by writing vague sentences or by finishing their pieces in the first five minutes of our time but instead spaced out their time to get as much information on their papers as possible.
• The students were actively going back and replaying certain clips and scenes which gave me great feedback in knowing that they enjoy learning when it’s coupled with films and videos.
• They were asking if they could color in their drawings and add creative touches such as stickers to liven up their papers and make them more vibrant.

Challenges

My only true challenge with this activity was a good one! The students were continuously asking for more content, but it was hard to find many appropriate videos and films to do this activity without it becoming too political or leading the focus of the history of Election Day into a different direction. I know that Election Day is one of those times where much controversy has the potential to rise, which didn’t want to the case in my classroom. My intention was to make this activity a learning experience for the kids and give them more insight into what the day is and what it means to people across the country, which was definitely a success, but having more material was where the challenge was presented.

Change? Stay the Same?

If I were to change anything, I would have found more time to research more videos on Election Day/Voting so that the kids could have more texts and materials to work with. I believe I underestimated the outcome of this activity and didn’t believe that it would drive this much interaction, so in my planning, I did the bare basics. However, knowing that my students are scholars who are willing to go above and beyond, I will provide more resources, in the future, that they can utilize and have more fun with. “Graffiti Pages” was an incredible method, so I would surely keep everything else I did the same and see how the outcome changes when I plan for more instruction.

Gamification Blog Posts

Gamifying Learning: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/epic-fail-win-gamifying-learning-liz-kolb

Gamification in Education: https://www.pbs.org/education/blog/gamification-in-education-tips-to-inspire-students

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