Frequently Asked Questions About Using Classcraft in the Band Classroom

• What is Classcraft?
  • Classcraft is a motivational and classroom management tool/game that harnesses students’ innate enjoyment of the games and role playing to encourage the types of behavior you want to see in your classroom. It motivates them to pursue both personal and corporate goals as they play out their unique role within their team and helps keep them generally more engaged in the class.
• What does Classcraft look like in the classroom? How does it work?
  • At its heart, Classcraft is a fantasy role playing game where students are assigned to different teams and then within that get to choose from three different types of characters: Mages, Healers and Warriors. Each team must be comprised of at least one of each type because the game is set up to encourage the various different roles to assist each other within a team.
  • Points: As they progress through the game, students will accumulate various types of points which are related to both the students’ real-world behaviors as well as the in-game actions that they take:
    • Experience Points (XP): Like many classic role playing video games, Classcraft awards experience points to students for doing the things that you as the teacher want them to do. There are several preset options as to what these types of behaviors can be, however it is of course fully customizable by you. For instance, you may choose to award experience points to a student for answering a tough question correctly or for playing on their instrument especially well on a given day. Maybe you want to reward student for being in their seat with everything ready early, or for turning in their assignment on time. As students gain experience points, they will gradually level their character up, just like in any RPG, and as they gain levels they earn power points.
    • Power Points: Power points, as the name implies, are used to unlock specific abilities - or powers - for the students to use in the game. For example, a healer in the game can over time use their power points to unlock ever-more-effective healing spells which they can use to help themselves and their teammates when they take damage (more on that later). A warrior may use power points to unlock protection abilities. As with experience points, power points are also fully customizable. If you want one of the powers to be that a student could earn the ability to be able to sit wherever they wanted for a day, you could create a power. Maybe you would allow a student the ability to turn in an assignment a day late without penalty, or to be able to ask you for help on one question during a test. It’s up to you. All the powers are designed to be interrelated, and students are awarded experience points when they use their powers if they use them to help their teammates. Teams that cooperate will be the most successful. Now in order to be able to use any of these powers, students must have action points.
    • Action Points (AP): Action points are how students use the powers that they accumulate. For instance, if a healer wants to use the “Heal 1” power on themselves or for a teammate, it requires 15 action points. Action points are given to each student every day at a set rate (In my class’ game I believe it’s about 7 per day) and each type of character can hold a different amount of maximum action points. Managing your action points is part of the strategy of the game.
    • Health Points (HP): When students make poor choices in your class, you as the teacher (game master) have the ability in Classcraft to take away health points, or in other words, to assign damage. Is a student constantly talking when they’re not supposed to be? Damage. Forgot their instrument? Damage. Showed up late to class? Damage. Again, you can customize these to your liking. Like with action points, each type of character in the game has a different amount of maximum health points, and eventually if they run completely out of HP, they will then be assigned a consequence, or a “sentence,” as they’re known in Classcraft.
      • Sentences: Sentences take many forms, but essentially they are common consequences students face. Maybe a lunch detention, or time spent after class cleaning the room. As usual, they are fully customizable. Maybe they have to organize the music library or clean and sanitize the sink area in the back of the room. It’s totally up to you. You may even allow the students to help you formulate the sentences that you will use for your game for further buy-in.
• How much time does Classcraft take in each class period?
  • Honestly, the game can take up as much or as little time as you want it to. There are lots of features check out, but there are not a ton that are really required every day. We have seen lots of educators use this in different ways, but generally for us it can take as little as 5 minutes a day. Typically the things that take up the most time are managing the points at the end of class (i.e. “So and so took 10 points of damage. Is there a warrior on their team who would like to protect them or a healer who would like to heal them?” Etc.) and boss battles, which are optional (more on that later).
• How much does it cost to use Classcraft?
  • Like many online services, Classcraft has a free version with functional but limited features and a paid version with basically everything. The basic package if you pay for it costs $12.00 per month unless you bundle it for a full year in which case it is $8.00 a month (in one lump sum of $96). A full pricing breakdown can be found here: https://www.classcraft.com/pricing/
• What are the different features included with the free version and the paid version?
  • Free Version: With the free version you get access to all the necessary tools to give and take away points, do random events (fun little surprises each day that can be customized – i.e. "The Mages have to stand up for the whole class period” or “Everyone talks like a pirate for the day,” etc.), earn and use powers, and use the Wheel of Destiny (a tool for picking students or teams at random).
  • Paid Version: With the paid version you're given access to several more interesting features that you can use as much or as little as you desire.
    • Boss Battles: Boss Battles are a gamified way of doing small assessments in class. You can use them on a daily basis, once a week, just before a test, or wherever you feel like it. The Classcraft system allows you to create questions that go along with and in-game boss character. Each question that students answer correctly gives damage to the boss character, while each missed question gives damage to the player or the team that was trying to answer it. It's amazing what a little bit of monster art will do to motivate students to really want to be engaged and get every question right.
    • Quests: Quests open up a huge range of possibilities for educators. They're basically multipart projects that take students on a learning journey, presented in a format where they're looking at a fantasy map as they progress through different landscapes and complete different objectives, earning experience points along the way. There is a large marketplace of teacher-made quests already available, which can be imported into your Classcraft class, and of course you are able to create your own as well.
    • The White Mountain and the Forest Run: A countdown timer and up a stopwatch respectively, displayed on screen.
    • The Makus Valley: This is a volume meter. You can put it on your screen while students work on something, with a limit as to how high the volume can get before consequences are enacted. The system will use your computer's microphone and show a visible display of how high or low the volume is in the room. Very nice for group work!
• Sounds great! How do I get my class signed up?
  • You can either to input students manually or you can import them from Google classroom. You will need to set up a teacher account first. There are several short but helpful videos that will help guide you through this process which can be found at:
  • Sounds great! How do I get my class signed up?
  • You can either to input students manually or you can import them from Google classroom. You will need to set up a teacher account first. There are several short but helpful videos that will help guide you through this process which can be found at: https://help.classcraft.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003998533
• Pro Tips for Using Classcraft:
  • https://help.classcraft.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006907733-What-are-some-pro-tips-for-using-Classcraft-