By: Tom Goulding
Teaching young students is no joke — you’re expected to get the basics across and help prepare them for adulthood and ideally have that translate into student achievement and classroom results. But the truth is, what you might need to engage your students the most is to not take yourself too seriously. Sometimes it's best to relax with a game.
So for some perspective, we’re going to talk a little bit about Duolingo.
Imagine for a moment that you’ve wanted to visit Italy for years; your friends have gone, your aunt went this summer but you’ve been putting it off because of a global shutdown or work obligations. We get it, life happens.
But y’know what? You’re gonna go next summer. It’s been years since you said you were gonna do it! You gotta see this thing through.
Wait a second — you don’t know a lick of Italian. Time to crunch.
So you download Duolingo. It’s no secret that its growth has everything to do with how it ‘gamifies’ the challenge of learning another language. Because video games are fun and the challenge pushes you to test your limits, especially when a specific bird mascot has become a meme sensation for how aggressively it reminds you to not miss your daily lesson.
What can teachers learn from Duo’s success as the school year starts back up? Here’s a list of 5 methods of gamification you can use in the classroom.
1- Capture the flag
What’s the goal you want your students to achieve? Student engagement? How do you measure success? Providing a clear goal at the beginning of every semester gives students a clear objective and gives them a reason to give it their all to get over the finish line.
2- It’s dangerous to go alone — take this
You need to provide your players a reason to play your game — and in this case, it’s incentivizing your students to learn the material. Games provide an exciting feeling of progression as players overcome obstacles and meet unique challenges. It provides a sense of variety and motivation as they continue through those milestones. Understanding that a little semblance of progression through milestones or even winning “titles” can go a long way. After they get through a certain assignment or achieve a certain score can inspire them to keep pushing and even get into some lighthearted competition with one another.
3- Choose your own adventure
Offering students choices as the school year progresses is a great way to help them move toward outcomes that are interesting to them. Gamified lessons can help them understand the material deeper and in an environment like a classroom they can move freely without worrying about impacting their grades. It’s all about learning and not about direct or intense competition. Giving students their choice of assignments allows them to play to their strengths or challenge themselves to level up.
4- Mission failure — continue?
Turning mistakes into learning opportunities is a lifelong skill anyone benefits from having. Helping your young students face and overcome difficulties can be one of the most valuable things you can provide them, so be sure to help them understand that early and continue to reassure, encourage and push them to become lifelong learners, not just earn the best grades.
5- Team split screen mode activated
Give students the opportunity to work together in teams for chances to learn from one another while working towards a common goal. Student teams will have different strengths and knowledge bases that make their team makeup unique to them. This can lead to a plethora of payoffs for projects in the end and also give them the opportunity to create friendships with one another — because life is always better with a friend.