CONASTA 67 Question and Answer

How much and what experience have you had applying it successfully in teaching?

I taught for six years at a Montessori school and my teaching experience involved mostly project based learning, often using the inquiry model. I only used gamification rarely, usually using games or simulations that had been created by someone else. The most common thing I did was use the story element to create a context for my students learning. I used my experience as role player and gamer to weave them a story to hang their new knowledge or skills on.

Like many teachers I hadn't really heard of gamification except in terms of adding points to activities to try and push extrinsic motivation. I hadn't read any of the theory. What I did do however was play games with my students during lunch, before and after school and on camp. I did this because there was so much that they learned from these experiences. They learned to cooperate, to communicate, to be gracious winners and losers, to think strategically, to recognise patterns, try different strategies, to pick themselves up after failure and depending on the game, they often learned content.

When I took on my current role one of the first resources I was asked to make was about the Battle of Hamel. Working in a non-school based position, where I had hours to design and create one unit of work and the associated learning activities I found the time to create a mini war-game. I worked out rules and icons, created the board and then we play-tested and redesigned. I made the battle the culminating task of the unit and it worked. It required students to use all the information they had researched and explored throughout the unit to make strategic decisions, it gave them motivation to do all the earlier work to prepare for the battle.

As a result of this project, my manager asked me to speak to the rest of my team about gamification and how we could use it to design student centred, intrinsically motivating digital teaching resources and professional learning. So I sat down and created the first version of this website as a simple presentation. I interrogated everything I knew about games, gaming and game design and I broke it down into the elements of game that I have presented in this website.

I also researched what other teachers were doing, which is really what this website is, a collection of my learning and ideas and the collective experience of what other teachers are doing, all over the world. Over the past year I have given advice and some version of these ideas in a presentation to teachers from all over Australia and in a few case from overseas. I have heard back from enough of them to know that they are successfully using these ideas in their classrooms. Examples of the things that other teachers are doing in gamification and game based learning are here. Here are some examples of games or gamified activities I have created and shared.

What's the best balance between fun and learning?

Great question, hard to answer. I think it depends on your students and your context. For example if I was teaching in a very strict straight laced school that focused on hot housing for NAPLAN and university entrance results and I was unwilling to rock the boat and risk being fired I think I'd be better off sticking to gamified activities as one off lessons and activities and mixing it up with a range of different tasks.

I do not think I would be very happy working in that environment.

On the other hand if all my students did all day was play video games I do not think I would be happy or feel I was doing my job either. It may be that one day teaching occurs in immersive VR environments that adapt and mould to a students choices based on complex AI algorithms ala Ready Player One and Ender's game but I do not forsee that happening any time soon.

I think the key here is the difference between fun and engagement. Research shows that engagement can be key to learning and students become or are engaged for a range of reasons. Games and gamified activities are engaging because they are complicated and require more than just recognition and recall memory or drill. But they do not actually have to be fun. Something that is challenging and frustrating or different and a bit random can be engaging to your students without being exactly fun.

I admire teachers like @mrmatera who have created a huge role playing game for their classroom and turned everything their students do into part of a huge game, but that would not work in all contexts and I do not think that is the pinnacle of gamification, merely one way of doing things. It is also not how I would recommend you start.

I always start any design with my learning intention. What do I want students to learn? What skill do I want them to practise? What experience do I want them to have? Then I design the activity. It might be a game or it might just have a story wrapped around it to give context and increase engagement. I might make the activity require them to discover and create their own understanding, using the elements of game. I like using chance to mix things up and force learners to think outside the box and an occasional reward can be fun.

Applicability to different contexts

I believe gamification is applicable to all contexts, although playing a game per se may not be. A few of you had similar questions around this topic so I have made the sub headings here. In short however, you make it applicable to your context by the choices you make.

How this can be applied in a primary specialist setting

Most of the gamification I am familiar with is in the primary setting. I am not sure why but I suspect it has to do with primary teachers being with the same students in the same classroom all year so that they have more time to teach students to work within a gamified setting. Additionally most primary teachers use simple games or gamified activities in their classes every day, they may just not call it that. Any time you use dice to add an element of chance or rewards like stickers for progress you are using a simple form of gamification. A number of activities on this site are suitable for primary schools including the Dungeons and Dragons writing activity by @BecWest or the Mantle of the Inquiry book and website by @imagineinquiry. I also designed a simple game to teach students ES1-S1 students computational thinking without needing technology. A number of my simple game templates are also designed for use by K-6 students.

How to apply this to teaching older students (grades 10-12)

Gamification is definitely harder for older students because of the push for content coverage and the pressure of standardised testing but it can be done. @Mr_van_W and @jfcatto do amazing work with their senior students in a gamified classroom and I highly recommend their work. They also have an excellent podcast that has some episodes on gamification. Some of my game templates, such as Guess Who and the Interactive Diagrams can be used with senior students, and any kind of quiz game will work for study or any area where rote learning is needed for exam success. With these simple games and older students, however, I would try to have them apply their learning by creating the game or the questions rather than just have them play.

Integration of gaming into multiple KLA areas.

I think games and gamification can be used in any KLA. If you look at the elements of game as I have broken them down I think you will find that some or all of them can be applied to any area of learning. The key is in being creative in how you use the elements to create leaning activities. There are some examples of ideas I came up with using randomised elements halfway down this page. I also feel that game design options like Choose Your Own Adventures or BreakOutEDUs (physical and digital) can be adapted really well to just about any KLA, or be used to create cross-curricula projects.

Suggestions for games, apps and sites

Finding apps to use in the classroom that contribute to engaging with content. Is there a science online games offering that covers curriculum? The use of tablet technology.

I have a lots of examples of games that work well for education at the bottom of the page on game based learning but I also made a whole site on the use and location of digital teaching resources and although some of those links may be broken now it is full of games, simulations and apps for every KLA and from K-12.

What I have not yet made live on this site yet is my growing collection of AR and VR resources which I believe fall into the gamification space. For creating cool VR environments or having your students make them I recommend CoSpaces and Situ360. For doing your own AR in or around your school I recommend Metaverse. If you want to use high quality AR simulations in your Science classroom, as well as other cool simulations around Biology I recommend Arludo. Arludo also works with senior students to do some great outreach programs where real scientists can work with your students using Dart Connections.

How can we maintain student motivation in gaming without turning it into a competition?

As I mentioned earlier I was a Montessori teacher for six years. The Montessori philosophy is anti-competition and I prefer not to use rewards or competition in my teaching with students. As humans, many of the games we play are not competitive and I believe this can and should be the same with game playing and gamified class activities. I will freely admit to using chocolate to motivate adult learners when I deliver PL sessiosn to teachers however!

Many great games require wonderful practise of co-operation and collaboration skills. An example I created is my Space Communication game, either both teams wins or both lose, the goal is to work together and communicate clearly. I also like BreakOutEDUs (physical and digital) for this reason, you can have your whole class work together to solve a problems or apply their content and skills to succeed or fail as one.

Simple gamified How-to-guide for gamifying an activity