gamification in the classroom

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Jill Thompson August 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,

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Page 1: 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-

Page 2: Gamification in the Classroom

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.

Page 3: Gamification in the Classroom

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

Page 4: Gamification in the Classroom

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!

Page 5: Gamification in the Classroom

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.

Page 6: Gamification in the Classroom

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.

Page 7: Gamification in the Classroom

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.