All posts in Thoughts

Build the Game Your Students Want to Play

by Ben on May 6, 2015 in mentality, Motivation, Teaching, Thoughts with Comments Off

Teaching can be hard. There’s no book out there (that I’ve found) that can tell you exactly how to teach in a way that will apply to every child’s learning style. Some love to read, some love to write, and some love to just get their hands dirty. You can never predict what type of learner you’ll run into at the start of each new year, but chances are there are going to be a bevy of different ones throughout your room.

Teachers who use gamification in their classrooms need to think of each new year of students as a whole new game and not simply a new level. You need to start fresh with the same basic ideals and build off of what works. It’s never going to be the same for two different classes or (most times) even two different students. This is why you need to tweak the code.

After the smash success that was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64, the Zelda team decided to take their next game in a much different (and darker) direction. Not wanting to create all new assets and characters builds for every aspect of this new title Nintendo resorted to building off of Ocarina’s already stellar game mechanics and animations. The game they built over the next year became the cult hit The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, a game that was somehow similar and yet vastly different. This is how gamification should be in the classroom. Changing enough to put it’s own spin on an already established and well thought out base.

A teacher’s greatest strength is their ability to adapt and evolve their lessons to fit the needs of their students and their classroom as a whole. The only way to do this is to pay attention to your students needs. Not just the ones they tell you out loud, but the ones you see in their work and interaction with others. This school year may be Ocarina of Time. It may be Majora’s Mask. It may be something else entirely. It’s your job to discover what game it needs to be and to make it something your students want to play.

Real-Team Strategy

by Ben on April 8, 2015 in Complications, Motivation, Teaching, Thoughts, Tracking with Comments Off

Did you know that “team” stands for “together everyone achieves more”?

It doesn’t really. I got that from some cheesy motivational poster that I used to have in my classroom. Though it’s honestly not a terrible way to portray the advantages of teamwork in a school setting.

For anyone who has tried the ClassRealm paper version you know how difficult it can be to keep up with all of the moving parts. XP, levels, achievements, attendance, homework and more all add to the load. It can certainly be overwhelming, especially to a new teacher.

So here’s a little secret, a real life cheat code (put down that Game Genie): ENLIST YOUR STUDENTS. It sounds like a no brainer, sure, but many teacher don’t even think to put their students in charge of tasks they normally handle themselves.

I’m not asking you to have students submit grades or assign detentions. Just give them easy jobs that make your workload a little lighter.

“Billy, you’re in charge of attendance. Please mark those absent on this sheet.”

“Ashley, you’re in charge of XP. Whenever I tell you to add some points to a students please do so.”

And so on. Students love this. I promise you they do. The key here is not to assign duties, but to offer them up. Who wants to do this potentially mind numbing task? You’d be surprised at the number of hands that will go up.

Students (unbelievably) love responsibility, just not the kind that is thrust upon them. Homework and schoolwork is a chore because you tell them it must be done. A volunteer job in the classroom is shot at something new, something they may (and usually do) enjoy. Most students know the joys of helping others and will go out of their way to make sure their job is done well.

So the next time you feel like the amount of work you have to do is insurmountable don’t forget that you have an army of small helpful creatures at your disposure. Treat them with respect and kindness and they will crawl over each other to lend you a hand.

Peacocking

by Ben on March 4, 2014 in Motivation, Thoughts with Comments Off

Since the the weather out side is still frightful, my class (as well as the rest of the 6th grade) have been participating in “indoor recess”. It’s a mad house to say the least. During this time there is one girl who always comes to my room and talks to me about Animal Crossing: New Leaf, a life sim game for the 3DS that features animal neighbors. I’ve put hundreds of hours into the Animal Crossing series and this particular girl loves to ask me questions about the game or simply bend my ear about fish she’s caught or fossils she’s uncovered.

Today she was telling me about a spring festival that was going on in her town. This festival is also the arrival of…

This fellow, known as Pavé.

The student showed me her 3DS screen and said, “Have you seen this peacock guy before?”

I confirmed that I had and asked her what she thought of him.

She leaned in close and whispered, “Well, at first I thought he was a girl. Because he’s kind of dressed like a girl…“

“He does have on some interesting clothing,” I agreed.

“Well, I wanted to know why he looked so funny,” she said, “So I went online and looked up stuff about boy peacocks and it turns out they’re the only one who are all crazy and colorful. They do it to attract girl peacocks! Isn’t that crazy?”

Isn’t it great that this game (which is packed full of great dialogue for reading practice by the way) peaked this young lady’s interest to the point of research? Just goes to show that you never know where students will find inspiration.

Now. Let’s all dance!

ClassRealm Complications: Multiplayer Madness

by Ben on February 28, 2014 in Complications, Teaching, Thoughts with 1 Comment

Complication – Too Many Students or Classes

There’s nothing quite like playing a wonderful multiplayer title with your best buddies. More players usually means more fun, but sometimes there’s just not enough controllers to go around. I mean you’re already using that one with the wonky control stick, you know the one.

This year my everyday teaching schedule has changed quite a bit, and it has wreaked havoc on my students’ traditional ClassRealm experience. Unlike previous years, my first two math classes have students coming in from different homerooms, which means I really only see all my homeroom students for two periods a day (sometimes only one). It’s exceptionally hard to dole out experience points and achievements when you have so many kids coming in and out of your room all day long, especially when most of them aren’t even part of your ClassRealm crew.

Now I would love to give every student who walks through my door the full ClassRealm treatment, but it’s out of the question when it comes to the paper system I have in place. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of my 30 homeroom students, let alone the 40+ other kids I’m working with on a daily basis. This just goes to show how hard it might be to run multiple ClassRealm paper systems at once, say in a high school setting where you have different students almost every period. What’s a teacher to do?

Solution

The best answer is a simple-to-use online system that can be managed via tablet, phone or computer desktop. It seems while this multi-student and multi-class complication may be an issue on paper it would most certainly be more feasible if it was managed using the power of the internets and modern technology. It’s too bad no one is planning on building one for ClassRealm. What? We are? Well then. This could very well become a complication of the past. Here’s hoping.

“Cool” Factor

by Ben on September 25, 2013 in Teaching, Thoughts with Comments Off

Ice to see you again, ClassRealm fans.

That’s right, I said it. But terrible Mr. Freeze puns aside, welcome back to the official ClassRealm Blog.

Today I’d like to discus a teacher topic that is near and dear to my heart – being “cool”. Now the reason “cool” is in quotes is because I’m speaking from a student’s perspective. If you run around telling people you’re cool, chances are you’re not. Or you’re the Fonz. But can being “cool” ruin a students view of you as an authority figure?

Recently I mentioned that my students thought I was “cool” to another teacher (on the web) and they retorted that being cool in a students eyes isn’t the way to go. In the other teachers opinion students can’t respect an adult who they think is a radical dude. Their yearning to goof around and get off topic around these types of adults is too strong.

I completely disagree. Many teachers find it strange that I talk to my students often about subjects like gaming and cartoons, but in my mind this connection is one of the best relationships a mentor can have with their pupil. The teacher who yells a lot and doesn’t get your jokes or the teacher who can talk in depth with you about what he built in Minecraft last night – which one are you more likely to really listen to? If students are invested in you as teacher than everything you tell them is gold. They hang on your every word. They remember concepts because you made them fun and relatable. It’s ok to be a friend to a student. Not all the time, and not in the same way you would with a normal adult, but enough to show them that you understand their world and want to be a part of it.

So go forth teachers. Help those students who don’t think learning can relate to their life. Being “cool” may just be the key.