Classroom Gamification
Sarah Cline
Over the past two years, I have explored classroom motivation through gamification. Gamification is the idea of adding game like elements into daily classroom activities, such as earning experience points that feed into a leaderboard, a class store to buy rewards, etc. I have incorporated a variety of gamification elements into my intervention high school English classes and have seen great success. The majority of my students are not motivated by grades, but have been very motivated by the leaderboards and class store. Students are turning in more quality work than ever before in order to receive these gamification rewards, causing more learning due to the completion of activities they previously would not complete or not try on. The following is what gamification looks like in my classroom on a daily basis. My hope is that others can use what I have found and possibly incorporate some of these elements into their own classes to motivate struggling students.
Imy classroom students are rewarded for completing activities they would normally be doing regardless of the gamification. These activities include: completing assignments (homework or in class work), earning above average to average letter grades (A’s, B’, and C’s) on their graded assignments and assessments, and classroom participation in discussions. The reward they earn is called experience points (XP). The amount of experience points varies based on the intensity of the work completed, with more XP being available for lengthy assessments and less XP being available for quick homework assignments or making comments in discussion. They also receive more XP for an A than they would for a C. This XP feeds into leaderboards (weekly, monthly, and quarterly) and also into their XP bank accounts, which is an envelope for each child with monopoly money in it representing the XP they have been paid. The XP in their bank accounts is able to be spent in the class store in order to purchase various items such as gum, water bottles, pencils, erasers, and various party favor toys such as bouncy balls and yo-yo’s. Spending this XP does not deplete the XP registered on the leaderboards. However, since it works like money, students can run out and will need to earn more in order to purchase more items. The XP on the leaderboards allows students to level up to new discounts in the store as they earn more XP. For example, students who have earned 2,000 - 3,999 XP are considered to be level 2 and have a 5% discount on all items in the store. Once the student reaches 4,000 XP, they are then level 3 and have a 10% discount on all items in the store.