I don’t write about gamification as much as I used to, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still using it. I use gamification throughout my Fair Haven Innovates program to solve problems and get the most out of my kids. Every so often someone tells me how they’re using my gamification system to do the same!

James Wood is part of the NASEF Fellowship program with me. When he told me how he was using gamification in the classroom, I asked him to write something up to share. Here is how James is using gamification in the classroom to help students with medical issues and special education students.

My tale of the gamified classroom began several years ago, while I was teaching high school mathematics. We had some very firm rules in class, including one that prohibited food from being eaten, and then I encountered one of the most difficult situations a teacher can imagine.

A student was diagnosed with an illness during the school year. He returned from being out with a doctors note that required them to be permitted to eat in class. Now this was in and of itself nothing new, as I have had to manage a variety of accommodations over the years. It would have been a non-issue, except the students requested that nobody find out about their unique circumstances. Now I had the very difficult task of meeting their accommodation, while still not letting on to the class why that student was receiving an exception to a rule that I had thus far been very strict about.

My inelegant solution was to change the rules for the entire class, citing the proximity of break time or some other nonsense reason, which worked, but I began to wonder if there was a better way to manage all of these situations in a way that didn’t compromise the high expectations that I had for my students. 

Fast forward to my new job, at a brand new high school with only freshmen. One of my administrators had been to a conference that Chris Avilies had presented regarding the gamified classroom. I had already developed a reputation as the esports guy, my boss had nicknamed me “Dr. Spreadsheets” before I was hired, and my administrator thought I would leap at the idea of a gamified classroom. He was 100% correct.

I began reading everything that Chris had published, every single post, every story, every detailed description that I could scrounge up about his gamified classroom. He already had a spreadsheet that would track their points and coins, so I dove into the formulas, trying to decipher them. I finally had a grasp on how the spreadsheet worked and it looked like it would solve many problems I anticipated when starting my gamified classroom. 

This is the first card that I made, and it was a perfect solution to some of the challenges that I had been dealing with: 

I began to think of some other common accommodations or modifications that I had encountered: extra time on tests, extra days to do an assignment, re-doing a test for a higher grade. These all became my core items that students want to use the most.

No longer did a student have to feel singled out because of their specific situation. Rather than having to answer any awkward questions about why “they” got to retake a test or why “they” got to have extra time, these options were now open to everyone. Nobody but myself and the students know who bought the bonus items and who were given them for free. 

The Achievement Points that Chris used became “Wood Coins”, because I am overly fond of lame puns and plays on words. His Badges turned into different jobs that students completed in class, such as creating a poster, or coming in to help another student, stuff like that. I went deep down the photoshop rabbit hole, borrowing photoshop templates from D&D Groups (Thank you Paul Weber) and images from other card games, and finally ended up with these as a classroom currency:

My first year, I printed these out and laminated them, creating a stack of coins that I could hand out to students during class. This year I upgraded, getting the cards professionally printed on plastic card stock, and I plan to order more in the future. 25 Wood Coins became the reward for volunteering for a task, or volunteering an answer. I am now in the unique situation where I have too many kids volunteering to answer questions, and if they use those coins to help them out in the class, then so much the better!

I have found a lot of success with running guilds, though I unfortunately don’t get to update the leaderboard frequently enough, never enough hours in the day. Students were able to choose a gamer tag and a guild at the beginning of the year, and earn points for that group throughout the entire school year. We are planning something fun for those groups at the end of the year but I won’t tell them what! 

Next year’s plans include expanding my item shop to include some fun and frequent requests, such as changing seats or groups for a chapter, using the wiggle stool and others. I also want to have locked boxes of items that a class can earn through a whole group effort, such as completing a major assignment on the day it is due or having 100% homework completion for a whole chapter, stuff like that. 

Thank you for reading my rambling tale of the Gamified classroom, if anyone is on the fence about trying it I am happy to offer tips and advice, and to recommend that you plunge in headfirst, you will be amazed by the results!

James Wood

Achieve Charter School of Paradise

Contact at: jwood@achievecharter.org

If you’re using gamification or doing anything awesome in your class, I’m happy to share my platform. Anything you want to share, shoot me an email and we can post it. We’re better together.

Until Next Time,

GLHF