In this innovative environment, students are active players in their own educational game. Each player creates an avatar that can be upgraded as students unlock features by mastering skills and levels. For example, when students master their addition fact fluency level, they earn a digital “fact + master” badge. When they master both addition and subtraction fact fluency, they earn a digital “math fact whiz” badge and avatar upgrade—and their digital badges are displayed on their individual Wikispace pages.
Students use Web 2.0 tools such as GoAnimate, Voki, and Xtranormal to create animated videos, speaking avatars, and 3D animated movies to demonstrate learning. Another example of an assessment comes from our recent unit on states of matter. Students were asked to create cartoons using the app ToonTastic, where the main superhero’s powers were the characteristics of their chosen state of matter and the arch nemesis was a character who would cause an irreversible change to their superhero (such as fire burning wood).
Technology is an essential and critical component of my classroom and is used in an organic and authentic way: as a tool to find information, synthesize content, and create learning evidence to ultimately “beat the level.” Students also use technology to collaborate and discuss what they’re learning. Through ePals, individual students are matched up with peers in Egypt, Canada, Germany, and other countries, and on one designated day a week, they have a Skype video conference with their ePal about what they’re learning in math, science, or English.
From a teacher’s point of view, this method of delivering content requires a letting go of the stage, but not control of the classroom as it might initially seem. The activities are rigorous enough for my second graders to be challenged and engaged, but not so difficult as to frustrate them to the point of quitting. Integrated into this type of learning strategy is an ongoing review of previously learned skills, as point values are given to every activity—and even if kids succeed in “leveling up,” they are compelled to return to a previously “mastered” skill activity and try to beat their score.
See also:
How ‘game mechanics’ can revitalize education
I spend approximately 30-45 minutes a day in direct whole-class instruction. The rest of the time I am facilitating thinking through monitoring their work, asking pointed guiding questions, or pulling aside small groups and helping students develop skills they will need to advance in the game. It takes more meticulous planning on my part to create the codes and activities that elicit independent thinking and collaborative work, but the payoff in student behavior, self-esteem, motivation, and determination is well worth it.
The results of this innovative approach to learning have far surpassed my expectations. After only three months of the gaming concept, student scores on the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Measures of Academic Progress test showed a 71 percent improvement in reading fluency, 58 percent improvement in reading comprehension, and 76 percent overall improvement in math, particularly in problem solving.
Fortune 500 companies are seeking graduates who have empathy and a strong ability to look at a problem from all angles. Our students are learning without us, so we need to be relevant, significant, and inspirational to our students. We need to give them the opportunity to discovery their own gifts and abilities to find solutions to problems, and to discover their independence as thinkers and doers.
Joli Barker is a second grade teacher at Earl H. Slaughter Elementary School in McKinney, Texas. She was recently named TCEA 2013 Classroom Teacher of the Year.
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