Ah-Ha!

Throughout this semester of graduate class, I had the largest yet simplest ah-ha moment. Learning has to be fun...Not just good times and laughs kind of fun. But hands-on, challenging, creative fun. Play and gamification are two approaches to learning that really caught my eye this semester. Creating lessons that are centered around play based expereinces or have gamified pieces to it REALLY can up the engagement factor for students. What's interesting about gamification is that it doesn't just mean playing games. It means including elements of a game in non-game situations. For example, practicng rote memorization of addition and subtraction facts can be gameified by using practice opportunities that have a leaderboard as motivaiton. Another example is having students mimic you when teaching and then having students teach each other as if they are the teacher. They are training each other on a skill. These are examples that I have seen first hand that increase the buy-in of school for students. Of course there is always going to be times where lessons need to be "old fashioned" and teacher directed. As I move forward in my teaching career, I want to make a promise to myself to always keep things light-hearted and look at activites as I am planning them through a student-lens. I want to ask myself, is there a way I can gamify this or turn this into a play-based activity? I want to strive to keep learning fun and innovative so that kids will love school and love learning! At the end of the day, if we can accomplish this, what more could we really ask for?