Gamifying Curriculum

In order to understand the impact that gamifying curriculum can have on student learning, it is integral to dissect the main components that make up games and play: 

Gameplay Mechanics 

Feedback & Manipulatives 

  Cooperation & Competition 

Rewards 

Conflicts and Narrative 

Aesthetics

While games include additional elements and components that are not included in the list above, the focus for this project revolves around these specific parts of play to be incorporated within curriculum.

Incorporating Game Elements and Mechanics within the Classroom

The Significance of Rules

Outlining the rules: 

Rules are the skeleton of a game; they dictate what is possible and what is not. Defining the rules of a game from the very beginning is essential to creating a purposeful and entertaining activity. When introducing a game or activity within the classroom, the following aspects should be addressed in the proceeding order: 

1. Title of the Game - Does the title indicate the purpose of the game? 

2. Purpose - Defining the objective and proposed achievement. Is this game meant to have only one winner or multiple? 

3. Conflict - What should the players (students) expect to be challenging?

4. Allowances/Constraints - What can players do? What can't they do?

5. Examples - Give a detailed example for what is allowed and disallowed to provide clarity.

6. Questions? - Use this time to provide players with clarifications and answer any questions they may have

Student Roles: 

To reinforce the learning environment, one way to immerse students in play and change their perspective on how they view the classroom is to assign them roles. Roles provide specific responsibilities and accountability to each student in ensuring they are part of a game, activity, and even assisting them in feeling like they have a place within the classroom. 

Roles can be classroom specific. For example, the Collector is responsible for collecting papers and bringing them to the teacher, and the Manager is responsible for ensuring everyone at their table is on-task and productive. To reinforce the learning environment as a Magic Circle of play, roles can be specific to a team when engaging in cooperative or competitive play. 

Feedback

One aspect pertaining to games that supports players in understanding the right and wrong actions and choices is provided through positive and negative feedback. Positive feedback would indicate the player made the correct choice or sequence, whereas negative feedback expresses the opposite. Feedback is represented through a variety of modes, from sounds based around speech and musical effects to physical haptics like vibrations. Feedback provided through gameplay is not only an essential function of messaging to the player on their progress but also an additional source of stimulation to keep them engaged within the game. Incorporating these types of feedback within classroom instruction and the environment can better support increasing student engagement and provide educators with an additional tool. 

Sound-based feedback: 

Game audio is an important part of play as it sets the mood of the game, and in turn, the player. Similar to that of feedback (see above), sound in games and play is versatile. Sound is an essential component to games and interactivity. Players utilize sound in games for a variety of reasons: 

• Correct or Incorrect Feedback: The tone and feel of a sound bit can be a good indication of whether or not a player completed a task correctly or incorrectly. For example, a melodic, high pitch sound often indicates the player was able to correctly complete a task, whereas a contrasting sound (low and often disarrayed) indicates an error. 

• Setting Up the Environment: Music, often played within the background of a quest or overall game, can be a great indicator on how the player should act within the game itself. Music that is often slower-paced would indicate a calmer, non-competitive environment for the player, while a fast-paced beat would alert the player to be urgent and/or competitive. 

Physical feedback:

Physical feedback  in virtual games is often provided in the forms of haptics. Haptics range from slight vibrations to rumblings and can be used for a variety of signals and responses, including: 

• Indicator of the player making a correct choice

  • Ex: A slow buildup to heavy shaking to show progression

• Provide a more immersive environment for the player 

  • Ex: Rumblings to mimic the feeling of an earthquake

Use of Manipulatives

Manipulatives are physical objects utilized within instruction. They are a resource used alongside lectures or activities to provide students with a real-world sense or connection of the material presented to them. Like classrooms, manipulatives are also utilized in games, specifically physical games like board games. Items, such as dice, fake money, and building blocks, are an integral component to play as they serve as a supportive tool to the player.

Examples of manipulatives for instructions and activities: 

• Dice

Dice is often served as a way to determine quantitative-based aspects of a game, such as the amount of turns and moves a player receives, like in Monopoly, or provides the number of a specific range based on probability, like in Dungeons and Dragons or DnD. 

For turn-based games, dice can be utilized to determine which order players start in (ex: whoever rolls the highest number goes first) or how many moves they can make within their turn (ex: rolling a 3 means the player has 3 moves). If the game is more narrative-focused, like that of DnD, rolling dice can determine probability of the event occurring. For example, rolling a small number results in the failure of the task whereas a high number determines the success.

• Fake Money

Using fake currency within a game or activity in the classroom can be a good opportunity for students to practice counting and trading with one another. Depending on the theme of the game, money can be awarded for completing a task correctly and can even be taken for not completing a task or doing it incorrectly. Additionally, money can be traded amongst players for a variety of reasons determined by the rules of the game. 

Fake money can also be used within the rewards system of a classroom, where students are encouraged to save up money in order to win a selection of prizes (Read more in Rewards Systems). 

• Building Blocks and Puzzles

While building blocks are often associated with toys intended for younger students and children, incorporating puzzle blocks can be very useful to high-school aged students in promoting strategy use and encouraging critical thinking. Puzzles improve visual-spatial reasoning, which can be very supportive to students that struggle with understanding or recognizing patterns utilized within solving for and creating equations.

Blocks can be a useful way to physically represent mathematical concepts like creating equations containing coefficients and variables. For example, 3 pink colored blocks can be represented as 3x where 7 purple colored blocks are 7y. 

• Scale

Measuring the weight of various manipulatives, like blocks, through a scale can provide visual support for students in comparing and contrasting various sides of equations. For example, if a student is provided an equation 3x + 7 = 5x + 2, blocks associated with variables and numbers can be assigned to each scale in order to observe the difference in value amongst each side of the equation.

Scales can also be used to visually represent and teach inequalities and number sense. Students that often struggle with counting and numerical reasoning can benefit with visually pairing physical objects in order to compare and contrast various values given in a set of problems.

• Timers

Timers can be used many ways within a classroom. They can dictate specified times allocated to various tasks and activities within instruction to act as an indicator to students about class expectations. Time, especially in games, can be utilized to create urgency through constraints.

Note that time constraints may not always be supportive to a student's learning and can have more negative than positive impact, especially when paired with assessments and assignments that have a weighted grade attached. Timers should ultimately be used for activities intended to promote engagement and participation within a classroom.

The inclusion of a time constraint within an activity or game can promote competitiveness and is recommended to be used if the goal is to create a sense of urgency within the environment. 

Cooperation and Competition

Cooperation in games involves players within a team working together to complete tasks and accomplish specific goals set for them. Cooperative play and work involves consistent collaboration that is often mirrored through group projects or partner work in the classroom, as students can work simultaneously on the same problem or divide and conquer by independently completing different parts that make up a whole assignment. Cooperation assists students in working with others and understanding their teammates' differentiated strengths to benefit their successful outcome.

Competition, while stress-inducing, is an important part of play, as it is an essential component in creating urgency and importance to a game. Competition provides an additional challenge for the player to overcome within a game: beating or overcoming other players. While competitive play is appealing to many high-school aged students, it could also have an adverse affect to other students, specifically those that struggle with managing math anxiety. It is important to note that the best way to incorporate competition is to pair it with a light activity and avoid using it as a form of assessment.

Ways to Include Cooperation and Competition within the Classroom: 

• Team strategizing: 

Pairing up students with the expectation that they will work smoothly together can often be the most difficult aspect of group work. One way to ensure equal and equitable student success is paring them into heterogenous student groupings. 

After determining the skillsets of each of your students in the classroom, pair students that typically have a low understanding of the material and need more support with students that are more self-sufficient and demonstrate a higher understanding. This pairing best supports students with more rigorous activities within the classroom. 

Team pairing is also essential for students on the spectrum, whom are most likely to struggle with peer interaction. Pairing these students with preferred peers, whether it is a heterogenous or homogenous grouping, is recommended. 

• Creating Challenges:

Class challenges are a good way to incorporate excitement and sportsmanship, as well as giving your students the occasional mind-puzzling problem. Challenges, in which they can either work together or against one another to solve, can be incorporated as something as small as a 5 minute warm-up to a 30 minute activity. Challenges can include some of the following examples: 

• Forming groups of 2 to uncover a hidden message through a math activity

• Warm-ups including Icebreakers

• Review of previous lesson to gauge skill levels

• Creating Short-term and Long-term Goals

Class cooperation would most support and benefit the creation of short and long-term goals for students. This would not only promote accountability on the student's part but also create a shared sense of camaraderie and teamwork. This would connect with John Dewey's learn through occupation theory, where the aim is to create a workspace experience where each student's objective is to complete their goal in order to gain a collection of completed goals to simulate a workforce environment. This way, it shows that each member's effort and work completion matters to the classroom as a whole.

Short-term goals for this classroom can range from all students completing an in-class activity assignment to finishing up at least 75% of their homework by the end of the week. Short-term goals should be attainable within a period of under two weeks maximum. 

Long-term goals for this classroom should be intended for a longer period of time in order to assess progress and growth. Ideal goals can range from all students in the class passing their classes by the end of the term to even incorporating their IEP goals in order to actively work on them in this type of setting.

NOTE: While you could certainly create competition amongst students for goals met, it would not be ideal for creating a calm or stress-free learning environment and could even be a deterrent for student success. Proceed with caution...

A Rewards System

Whether intentional or not, many teachers nowadays utilize various rewards systems in their classes to not only celebrate student success but also give students motivation to do and finish that are outside of obtaining good grades. From receiving stickers to stars and tickets for raffles, rewards for students are another form to engage and motivate. This can be especially useful for students that do not necessarily feel motivated to do well in school or obtain good grades.

Similar to the short and long-term goals presented in the previous section, a class rewards system can vary from a short to long timeline. A short-term rewards system can range from one day to a school week, where the reward is small and attainable for all students. Small rewards would also serve as instant gratification for students, which can be particularly helpful to those that need frequent motivators. These types of rewards can range from stickers, food snacks, to small, inexpensive items purchased from the dollar section of retail supermarkets. Long-term rewards would span beyond a couple of weeks to an entire term, where the reward would be bigger and less attainable for all students. While larger rewards could mean a higher expense, these are not intended to be frequent awards. Examples could include a pizza party to celebrate good behavior, $5 gift cards for awarding academic achievement, or  a Student(s) of the Month Awards Show. 

While obtaining good grades can in itself be a good motivator for students, incorporating real-world rewards within a classroom setting can promote engagement amongst a subject that is notoriously difficult for students. The benefits of a rewards or points system within a resource classroom can motivate and support students in striving for academic excellence and self-monitoring their on-task behavior, especially when utilizing positive behavior reinforcements. 

For more information about Positive behavior supports, check out Differentiation & Play!  

Conflicts and Narratives

A driving force that peaks player interest in games is often the story that is being told to them. The narrative is often the framework of every game and may be the defining reason why a player chooses to interact with a specific game. Other game elements, like mechanics and game environment, go hand in hand with the story and conflict of a game; narrative sets the stage and setting that allows the player to utilize mechanics within. 

While not all games rely on narrative play to motivate the player to continue playing, it is a big factor in keeping players engaged and intrigued by an unfolding story. When translated to the math classroom, there is little to no existence of narrative. While math classes often utilize word problems that aim to build a student's problem solving skills, they can be the most difficult type of problem for students to solve when there is no intriguing story or relevance to a real-world scenario. By incorporating an element of interactive storytelling within an activity or assignment, especially if it is a topic or aspect that students are drawn to, it creates intrigue and promotes engagement. 

Implementing interactive storytelling starts with setting up a story, real or fake, the piques the interest of the students in your classroom. It is important to gauge student interest regularly, either through small warm-ups or exit tickets, to see what they like and what interests them. For example, if students are interested in movies like Star Wars or Star Trek, centering your story within a science fiction world is more likely to engage them when compared to a "Mike bought 8 apples from a store" problem. 

A component within narrative play involves conflict or problem. Most, if not all, stories revolve around some sort of issue that plagues the game and its characters, including the player. Often times, the entire narrative of the game is focused on resolving the problem, and the resolution is a cue for the end of a game. This is where outlining the objective and acknowledging the problem are core components found within narrative games and classroom instruction.

Aesthetics

Video game aesthetics are a huge component to modern gameplay. The art style and environment of an interactive game provides immersion and stimulation for players and often act as cues to guide the player in completing tasks. Visuals within games are the most common way to attract players and can often be the deciding factor on whether or not the player would engage with the game. As digital games have evolved throughout the decades, so have the art styles. With improved graphics and CGI, the visual impact of games is likened to that of real life.

Similar to how they are utilized in games, visual aides are essential to good teaching practices, as many students often express how the use of pictures support them in understanding key concepts, especially in math. Interactive videos and images that require a constant need of focus and manipulation by the player are also useful to incorporate within instruction, especially when separating or chunking lengthier information that is more difficult for students to digest. 

Congratulations!

You made it to the end...

but the princess is in a different castle!

Maybe you should keep exploring!

Click here to check out Differentiation and Play OR Seeing Structure in Expressions!