Get Your Students Hired
The connection to learning expectations and different ways to employ levels (with rationale) was valuable.
Comment on Chris Aguilar's post:
Totally agree with you Chris Aguilar. there is no doubt that gamification is a great tool. I am planning to increase the use of the accompanying visual aids to make my students feel accomplished and enthusiastic about finishing the course requirements.
I learned that gamification is when you apply principles that are found in games to course where appropriate to encourage students to do their best
I learned so much and intend to apply several of the concepts in my class. I want to create a CNA Skills mastered Leaderboard & have the top 5 students who have mastered the most skills posted on the wall outside of my classroom. Also for my CNA class I want to implement some contests or races to help them practice and learn the skills. I am going to start a skills race where they are timed and two people will race to finish a skill. I also have an idea of another race for skills- they can race to gather the supplies needed for a random skill and the first one to gather the correct supplies wins. I am also going to start a class reader leaderboard. I have a class library and am going to come up with a points system (is AR still a thing?). I will post the top 3 leaders with their points (maybe on a letter board). I will also have an alumni reader board that will include the top 3 all time reader students and it will have their name and graduation year. Current students will then even be able to race against past students. I also want to start doing badges in my CNA class- Since they are preparing to take a certification exam I want to set up an area with practice tests and flash cards and study materials. They will get points for doing "extras" and will earn badges based on points earned. Those badges will be posted for all to see. I will also apply these concepts to my HOSA club- I plan to start a HOSA points system where students gain points for various activities they do within the club. With all of these new things I am excited to give more awards at awards day for achievers as well as immediate prizes like candy and preferred seating.
now I will have fun using the Leveling up and appropriating points based on the experience system I learned about in this class.
I have learned that there is a theory of relating course matter to a game. This is a problem in what I teach as people could die if they do not take what they do seriouosly. Currently 1,000 more electricians die annually than law enforcement officers, so the last thing we need to do is impplement a gaming structure to our curriculum. I do see where it could be useful in gramar school or highschool though!
I have learned that there are a lot of ways to help engage with students and build on concepts with games and engaging with the students. Pulling the students together individually or as teams helps to engage them rather than lecturing at them day in and day out.
This has showed me new elements to implement during classtime. Leveling and leaderboards are just 2 of the elements that I will start using just based off of what I have learned.
I learned that activities can be thoughtful and fun and motivating at the same time, but it will take considerabnle effort on the part of the instructor to make it so.
We often have these elements in activities already, but using the terminology can help students buy-in that their activity is a worthy quest.
This "Gaming" approach is certainly unique and intriguing. My adult ESL students aren't likely to play video games. However, I plan to incorporate Badges into my instruction. These Badges will be Perfect Attendance Certificates.
Create challenges in the form of a game will also produce results, retention, application, real-world scenarios, student engagement, more class participation, and increase class enrollment.
I run a choice based classroom at the high school level, but was unsure how to impliment choice at the middle school level. I felt that this age group lacked the maturity and that I needed to focus on skill development. Gamification in the classroom is the answer I have been searching for. GAME ON.
Gameification allows me to structure lessons in a way that will increase student buy in.
I've learned that playing a game is a lot like being a student in the classroom. I plan to give students more goals to work towards.
What have you learned and how do you intend to apply it? I REALLY like the Experience Points and plan to use them when I build my next class. The students will earn minimal XP's for completing the assignment/ discussion board... yet if they add more creativity, external resources and application/ integration of concepts, they can earn more XP's... 1, 3, 5 or something along those lines. I want there to be SOME way of motivating the students to ENJOY THE PROCESS instead of merely being concerned with grades.
Your explanation of grades being something you are essentially "losing" from day one, compared with XP's being something you "gain" is very enlightening to me. I MUCH prefer building towards what I want, instead of guarding against what I don't want.
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