Gamification

Last week in EdTech class, we learned about the benefits of gamification in the classroom. I particularly enjoyed this lecture topic because I myself am a gamer, and I always loved playing games in the classroom. From jeopardy or chess, to my high-school TAG class where we had an in-depth, immersive, role-playing simulation activity. I am a competitive person, so a little bit of healthy competition in the classroom was always a good way to motivate me.

In my Level II Field Experience in Aldine, Texas, I utilized the concept of gamification in my lesson plan.  It was a high school ESL class, and they were learning about idioms. I taped idiom illustrations that the students had created to the whiteboard, and they competed in two teams to see which team could identify the correct idiom illustration first. It was amazing to see how much games motivated a quiet group of ESL students to willingly participate in classroom activities. They told me afterwards that they had a lot of fun with the lesson, and they had learned some new idioms in the process.

Looking back on this activity, I would have liked to incorporate more technology into my lesson plan and game. The high school I was at was a 1-1 school with Chromebooks, and, from what I saw in my time there, the ESL students didn’t often use them for games or creative activities. While my students enjoyed the game we played, it would have been interesting to see how they responded to a game that allowed them to utilize the technology they carried with them every day. These ESL students didn’t learn about the ISTE standards in their school, and I could have used that opportunity to introduce it to them, had I taken my EdTech class previously. For the future, I plan to continue to find creative ways to integrate gamification into the curriculum, but I intend to focus more on how technology can enhance the students’ experiences.

A video of the activity can be found here: https://youtu.be/QS04Kd9RCJo