Gaming Like a Boss: Simple Ways to Gamify Your Classroom

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

The other day, my kid woke up with a sore throat, fever, and tears. The sore throat wasn't causing the crying, though; he knew that he would have to miss his summer camp that day...the day that they were doing an Escape Room. He had been look
ing forward to it all week and he was devastated.

My thought was: Wow. What if kids felt like this every day? What if they were BEGGING us to go to school because they were just so darn excited about what they would be doing that day?

Games are a great way to get young people motivated in the classroom, too--and they can help students achieve at higher levels when done well. John Hattie (2017) reports that gaming and simulations can result in an average 14 percentile point increase for students. Moreover, cooperative learning (versus individualistic) can result in an average of a 21 percentile point gain. AND, games are fun.

Why do we like games so much? They hit at the very core of human curiosity: in The New Art and Science of Teaching, Marzano (2017) explains that "all games require a search for something that is missing or unknown but circumstances provide clues as to how to complete the scenario." In other words, the same reason why you stay up binge watching that Netflix series instead of sleeping is the same reason we love games--humans have this insatiable curiosity to figure out the what, why, and how.

So, if you want to increase student achievement AND motivation AND just make your classroom somewhere everyone wants to be, consider trying out some games in your classroom.

Quick and Easy Games

• All the games here can be played at any level and take 15 minutes or less. Infuse them throughout your lessons to break up your Absorb activities and give students a chance to connect/do something with the new material that they're learning.
• Kahoot is a great, quick way to get your students motivated and break up an Absorb cycle of learning.
• Somewhat like Kahoot, Quizizz allows students to engage in some friendly competition around your content.

More Elaborate Games

• So You Want to Build a Classroom Escape Room? Good fundamental rules for helping anyone to figure out how to start an Escape Room. Then check out these resources for more specific ideas. Want to incorporate technology? Check out how to do an online escape room (bonus: no materials required!)
• Want to turn your classroom into a D&D style role-playing game? Check out Classcraft. The free version allows students to choose roles and earn points for fulfilling "quests" (you know, like completing homework).
• Why not turn your classroom into a good old-fashioned Who Dunnit? Add mysteries to your classroom! Instead of simply teaching about historical figures or the Pythagorean Theorem, give students clues and have them work together to figure out the day's content on their own.

Hampton City Schools Teachers

Do you work in Hampton City Schools? Great! Here are some ideas for how to turn activities from the Instructional Techniques Library into games. (If you don't work at Hampton City Schools, you should. Look at all the fun we're having!)

• Show Don't Tell: Have students make up gestures that represent concepts...and then have other students guess what concepts are being represented!
• I Think, I See, I Wonder: Introduce a unit with a cryptic picture. For instance: About to teach about ancient Greece? Show students this picture and use the I Think, I See, I Wonder to have them explore the picture, then have a classroom discussion.
• Cubing: Instead of having students complete all the activities, have them roll a die, and then answer a prompt about the given topic based upon the number they rolled. For instance, if they roll a 1, they answer a Remember level question. Roll a 2, answer an Understand level question, etc..

Next Steps

Ready to get started? We all know that we're more likely to actually do something if we write a goal around here. Here are some examples:

• During the first quarter, I will play at least one game a week with my students.
• During the first quarter, I will implement an Escape Room and a Classroom Mystery for my students.
• During the first quarter, I will start each unit with an I Think, I See, I Wonder mystery for students to solve.

Now what are you waiting for? Go have fun!

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator at Hampton City Schools. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.