Learning made Fun: Gamifying the Classroom

“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and SNAP, the jobs a game!”
– Mary Poppins

Perks of play

To gamify the classroom is not to lose out on content, but rather to make how students engage with the content more meaningful to them. For those who are into video games, think about the purpose of the tutorial, game progression, and even failing a level and retrying it. If you make it through the game without any setbacks, it would be a waste of time. If you cannot beat the first level of a game (I’m looking at you NES and SEGA!), you can get overwhelmed and frustrated. Just as people have different preferences in games, the same can be said for learning and assessment styles. We may know what it is like to be left out of a game, so why should we allow feeling in the classroom as well?

Gamifying the classroom allows students of most backgrounds and skills to participate and engage with content in a way that is familiar to them. For example, through gaming elements like quests, challenges, and rewards, students are motivated to think critically, collaborate, and experiment with new ideas. Matera and Meehan emphasize in “Fully Engaged” that when students feel invested and have the freedom to explore, they become active participants in their learning, sparking imagination and a drive to innovate. Inherit problem solving skills that are intertwined with video games play a factor for students as well, allowing them to become more independent in the classroom as well. If you are curious about the benefits of gamifying your classroom from a different perspective, please check out what Bill Kearney’s (representative of McGraw Hill) blog says by clicking here. For even more information, especially for the history of modern gamification, please watch the video below!

TCE Thresholds:

• Curriculum is more than standards, textbooks, or courses of study: Gamifying a classroom goes beyond standards, textbooks, and courses of study in how multi-dimensional games are. To gamify, students will go beyond just basic classroom content to work on soft skills that typical classes do not offer. While some students may ask for help as soon as a worksheet is put in front of them, gamifying the content can put that same student in a familiar realm to where they can problem solve on their own. By gamifying the classroom, students now engage with content in an atypical way that can push how they think (ex. doing math for a history game). Teachers look to challenge students every day in order to push their thinking, but many students do not want that push. Gamifying can help go beyond what the course of study is, and change how students perceive not only challenges in class, but in life as well! Through gamifying, students may have more opportunities to show their thinking in order to attain a team goal. The goals, or learning objectives, become more concrete with gamification as well, making the student more focused on what they are trying to accomplish/win!
  
• Teaching is/as intellectual engagement: If you play video games, what is the reasoning? Most may say that they play to relax, or that it is fun. People may get frustrated with games, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoying themselves. What if we could say the same about education? Through gamifying the class, we produce engagement that is able to incorporate students at all levels and backgrounds. Teachers are able to deliver content in a variety of ways that allows students to take risk, learn as they go, and hopefully reach a point with their class that hits each pillar of engagement (pictured below). No matter the game, if students are thinking about the content AND having fun, should we not foster that? The philosopher Rene Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”; gamifying a class only pushes this quote further for our students’ growth through purposeful goals, an entertaining class, and most importantly, engaging our students.
  

Game in the classroom

This week I had planned on doing the “Social Media Smackdown” game, but as some things took longer than expected, I pivoted to using the “Image Battle Royal” instead for all of my classes. I have never used this game before, but I am happy I did. For my 7th grade classes, we were starting to talk about the Punic Wars and tell how Rome gained control of the Mediterranean, so I gave my students one minute, once logged into a computer, to find a picture that best described “control”. Once the minute was up, I had students turn their computers around, as I walked around to look and listen to their rationale. Between my 7th grade classes, I found that many students saw “control” in a negative light, with many choosing pictures of puppets being controlled by strings. A few standout images however were a superhero controlling fragments of rock with their mind, a young girl with a caged dove that had hands reaching into frame tearing at the bird, and a political cartoon with two slave owners directing a slave. I had those students explain their reasonings to the class, and we discussed how control can be good and bad, it is just dependent on the situation and those involved.

For my 8th grade class I took a different approach. As we were looking at the Battles of Lexington and Concord (the start of the American Revolution), I had students find of a picture of what “tension” may look like, to connect to the tension between the Colonist and British. This time, instead of just myself walking around, I had students walk around to see what their peers had. While the majority was a mix between people in various stages of an argument, or showing a string being pulled to where it’s about to tear, there were a few out of the box pictures that I enjoyed seeing. On the funny side, a small group of students showed pictures of a math equation, and talked about how they get frustrated with math and the tension it takes on their brain. Another student had a picture of a diamond, and compared tension to pressure, and the positive outcomes that it can produce. Lastly, a student showed a picture of the global conflict map (pictured below), and talked about the countries with the darker shade are at tension with other countries.

Looking back, I enjoyed this game quite a bit, and it definitely had students engaged and thinking. I preferred having students walk around to see others thinking as opposed to just me walking around. An unintentional positive outcome from this game was students asking each other why they chose the pictures they did. I felt like this really made the class feel equitable in the sense of no matter who it was, if they had an eye-catching picture, they were asked about their thought process. While I am not sure of any minds being changed, I was happy to see the advancement of students learning others perspectives that came with this game. I did not initially do a “winner” for these games since it was their first time playing this game, but I could see myself having small groups and giving them time collectively to find an image. My major challenge, that I hope will fix itself over time, are the amount of students that had the same, or similar pictures. The next time I do this I may have a short list of pictures that aren’t allowed, in order to push student thinking, although I am unsure if that will have the opposite effect and lead to apathy. If anybody has any thoughts on this, I will gladly take them.

“For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun!”
Mary Poppins had it right! Gamify your classroom today for more engaging lessons by reading through my blog post!#tce623 #examplaryteacher @edutopia @educationweek https://t.co/jIDGbolRdS

— Andrew Parker (@AndrewPark83518) November 9, 2024