Gamification Influences the Learning Experience
In 2023, students are no longer the “typical” learner. Sitting at desks and being told what to do on a worksheet or in a workbook. As a community, we need to meet students where they are. Coming out of a virtual world, students are used to technology-heavy learning. Now that we are back to in-person learning, using technology in the learning environment is critical to show students’ abilities. Gamification/gaming is a valuable tool to promote creativity in students learning.
Numerous games can be used to help students stay engaged with what they are learning. Games can promote critical thinking skills. Most importantly, it moves away from students being stationary in their seats. Competitiveness gets the students engaged and active because they all want to win the game. Creativity and innovation are necessary to incorporate gaming into the unit plan successfully. Not every game will work for every subject. Continuous adjustment and planning must ensure that the games maximize what the students need to learn.
TCE Thresholds
Teaching and learning honors people’s full humanity. Using gamification/gaming understands that students do not learn the same way. It recognizes that students may not have the resources to practice games at home and provides a chance to make learning fun in the classroom. Connecting with students inside and outside the classroom will help teachers in their creativity because they have created meaningful relationships to know how the students learn best. Gamification/games can connect to the student’s interests as well. The meaningful connections are vital to using gamification/gaming in the classroom.
Teaching is/as intellectual engagement. Gamification/gaming can be used to challenge the way students think about a topic. The point of gamification is to provide another outlet for student engagement and learning. To use this effectively, it needs to be an opening activity to introduce the next lesson. Since there are endless games, their difficulty would need to be increased to keep students thinking about their learning. We want students to be engaged, but we want them to think outside the box of what they are learning, which would need educators to construct and create various games to challenge the students’ intellectual engagement.
Blooket in Admissions
This week, I decided to use Blooket as an Admission Counselor. Blooket is similar to Kahoot. What makes Blooket unique is that you can compete in a fun game once you correctly answer a set of questions. This game reminds me of a reward system that can benefit students who love being rewarded.
I searched for College Admissions questions to allow my colleagues and me to test our knowledge as admission counselors. There are many pre-created questions that you could choose from. However, you can create your question set to use. Once you select the questions, you must decide what game you want to play.
Tower Defense 2
We played Tower Defense 2 on easy mode to get used to it. To play the game, you needed to answer three questions accurately. The first time you play a game, it walks you through it. Initially, I thought the game was fun, although I was not sure how the game worked because the instructions were unclear. Once I figured out how to play the game, I did have a great time. The only complaint would be that it is never-ending. The questions repeated, and it did not seem to end anytime soon. Also, I could not find the button to leave the game early.
Successes
- Since the questions were repetitive, it encouraged mastery of the subject.
- There are several games to choose from, which can give autonomy to the students by letting them have a choice.
Challenges
- Before using Blooket in the classroom, test out the different games. This will help you guide the students through each game.
Future Usage
Since I am in the Application Review season, using Blooket in all its glory was hard. I would try this out with a group during my high school visits. I would not play Tower Defense 2, but a game much shorter. The game played can help with having a reward system for a t-shirt or a pen.
Great post, JaTayzia! I love reading about how you use the strategies we are learning about in the admissions field. This work is so important. I know in your discussion post last week you were looking for ways to try out games although you are in the stage of the academic year where you are looking over applications. I think you did an incredible job in this post, I loved how you included screenshots of the game itself. I use Blooket sometimes in my classroom as well and I also have the same struggle where its essentially never-ending and the questions repeat. I have found that setting a small amount of time (such as 5 minutes) for the duration of the game works out pretty well. You may even want to do 2-3 minutes, depending on how many questions you ask. I think this will be such an awesome tool for you when you are on the road visiting high schoolers who are thinking about applying to Miami! Great work!
Thank you, Anya, for the guidance! I am happy to hear that I am not alone in struggling to shorten the game time and questions. I will continue to play around with Blooket and the questions/time prior to the start of the next travel season.
My class loves Blooket! We use it to review multiplication facts as this is a deficit that we see as a grade level. Despite playing it nearly everyday, my students are excited and engaged the whole time. I love that you were able to connect it to your job in admissions. To address your challenges, when you are in host mode, the questions are automatically set for 7 minutes. This is adjustable on the screen after you select the game. The questions do repeat themselves if they are not many questions. To reduce this occurence, add more questions or reduce the time. Hope this helps!
Hello,
Thank you for this tip on adjusting the questions and the time. I was unsure why the questions were so competitive and how long I had to play the game to win. I will continue to play with the questions and time.
Hi JaTayzia! I enjoyed reading your blog post and your perspective of using gamification in college admissions. Blooket seems very interesting and I can see the high school/college age enjoying the reward of playing a game after answering questions. I think this is a great way to educate as well as check for understanding for students applying to college. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Carolyn! Thank you for the reply!
Hi JT!
I’m always intrigued by how you connect what we learn to your field of work and am pleasantly surprised each time with how you manage to intertwine college admissions with fun teaching practices. I think this goes to show the extent of your creativity in addition to how versatile these concepts we learn are. I have heard many good things about Blooket, one being that people enjoy it more than Kahoot! I’m not sure if this was your experience but my kids at BGC continuously rave about how much they love this game and find ways to play it in their free time about things educational and recreational. The students get super excited when they achieve certain levels or retrieve rewards, but the teamwork and support that I see exuded from this game is something I appreciate about it most. My kids enjoy the aspect of “winning” but also find it important for their peers to feel like winners too. I’m happy to know that it worked for you and your colleagues and that you managed to still make it applicable to your own life.
You also made a great point about Gaming being a great tool for students who don’t all learn the same way. I touched on learning types in my blog post as well and think it’s important to remember that students shouldn’t HAVE to all learn the same way either. Gamification proves why diversity is valuable while also functioning as solution to helping students with different learning abilities still be engaged and excited about their studies.
I found a Blog post that ties the aspect of Gaming to College Admissions, and I believe it would be a great tool that you could use to show the high schoolers you meet! It talks mostly about how gaming can help with the college application process and also prepare students for higher education! https://www.edutopia.org/blog/gaming-the-college-admissions-process-matthew-farber
I hope you enjoy the read, and as always, thanks for sharing(:
Jade,
Your feedback is always thorough and appreciated. It is encouraging to hear that your students at BGC enjoy Blooket so much that they play it outside of school for educational and recreational purposes. You brought up a valid point that I did not think to consider. You mentioned how your students like to be “winners,” more importantly, they want it when their classmates can be “winners.” I think uplifting others will promote teamwork and togetherness. It could be considered a real-world example of what the Code of Love and Honor looks like for our students. Thank you for providing the blog post for me to read further!