How to "Gamify" Your Class in 4 Steps

What is Gamification?

Gamification refers to applying the elements and design techniques of great games in a non-game context.

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Gamification doesn't refer to playing actual games!

Gamification Examples:

• Starbucks Rewards - for coffee drinkers
• Frequent Flier programs - for travelers
• ChoreWars - for those of us who have chores to do
• ThinkThruMath - for math students
• Zombies, Run! - for joggers who want jogging to be less boring

Why Should I Gamify my Classroom?

• Gamers exhibit the characteristics we want to see in our students:
• Persistence
• Risk-taking
• Attention to detail
• Problem-solving
• And gaming communities foster values that we can harness to motivate our classes:
• Community
• Competition
• Achievement
• Status
• Altruism

Key Elements of Great Games

• Points
• Levels
• Quests
• Progression
• Avatars
• Badges
• Leaderboards

How to Gamify Your Class:

1. Figure out what you want students to do. For example, maybe you want your students to master the readiness TEKS for your course.
2. Identify a few BIG miles stones for your students to meet. A big milestone might be mastering an entire reporting category.
3. Identify several smaller sub-tasks. An example of a sub-task might be mastering one of the readiness TEKS.
4. Create a story and track student progress. In this example using the 8th grade readiness TEKS from Garland ISD's curriculum, students create a band, learn new songs each time they master one of the TEKS, grow in popularity each time they master a reporting category and "go platinum" when they complete all of the readiness TEKS.

For Inspiration:

The top 25 best examples of gamification in business

The Gamification of Education

Werbach, Kevin. (January 2017). Gamification [MOOC]. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/learn/gamification#