Gamification: How to Start

This week I spent some time going through the first archived and the most recent chats for #levelupED. I went in to this with a list of questions in my head and came out with some answers and the basis for a plan to get my classes gamified. Both chats that I reviewed were about getting started with Gamification. What was interesting was how some of the comments made by the participants changed since September. It was refreshing to see people using this in their classes and still having the system evolve over the course of a school year.

There were very good questions asked in both chats I reviewed and I think the best way for me to get the ball rolling is to use those questions to develop my plan for the rest of the year.

Here is my version of a "How to Start a Gamified Classroom Questionnaire." (These questions are taken directly from the chats. I thought they were all great starting points so I combined them into one list.) I need to spend time thinking about my answers to all of these questions, but the tweets I've attached are helpful hints that I feel will guide me in the right direction.

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How to Start a Gamified Classroom Questionnaire

1. How do you define gamification in your classroom? What classifies a class as being gamified?

A1: Using gaming elements within instruction to enhance student motivation/involvement in their learning. #levelupED
— Jessica Anderson (@TriSciCurious) February 14, 2014

2. Do you think gamification is more using games to teach content or designing game elements in your instruction?

Why has it been 6 months since my last blog post?

Your guess is as good as mine. 

I started this blog last year with the thought of getting better at teaching and sharing that journey with whoever felt the need to read about it. I said at the beginning that I would post when I could and put out a good amount of thoughts in a short time. Since school ended last year, I just stopped blogging. Completely. 

I'm not happy about that. I'm not happy that I set out to do something last year and just didn't follow through. I'm having some of the same classroom and overall issues this year that I have had in the past and I don't think I'm doing everything I can about it. There are tremendous people on Twitter that really know what they're doing. Many of these people are a DM or mention away and I'm not taking advantage of that. 

What are my excuses? I don't have one. In May I wrote about my goals for this year. SBG, PBL, 20time, etc, etc. ice tried some of them out. I've had a little success and a little notsomuch. What I haven't done is write about it. I haven't reached out for assistance or advice. I haven't taken the time to self-evaluate. In short, I've done everything that I don't want my students to do. 

This is my 6th year of teaching. I was thinking today about how I want to want to come to school each day. Right now, there are days that are tough and days that are great. There are a myriad of reasons for that but in the end, most of them are just excuses. 

I want to use this post as my starting over point. Maybe I won't post all the time but I need to get my thoughts out of my head and into the world. Hopefully someone can see one or two of them and point them in the right direction for me.

See you soon. (Not sure when, but definitely not 6 months from now.)

Do teachers really get the summer off?

One of the most well-known benefits of being a teacher is that we "get the summer off." Before becoming a teacher I thought the same thing. Work for 10 months, take 2 months to do whatever I want. It's funny, those 2 months seem to fly by and are usually not filled with "whatever I want." In reality, many teachers most likely experience the same thing and don't stop working during the summer. Even if we don't actively plan, prep, or organize something for next year, we are constantly thinking about what just happened and where we want to go next.

This year I have more plans for next year than I have in the past and I will have to devote some of my time to that soon - just not for a few more days. When school ended for me on June 24th, I made a decision to not worry about anything for the rest of the month. This idea turned out to be a success! I thought about some things, but did not act on anything specific and with a little more than one day of forced rest left, I spent a little time tonight building a summer reading list and writing this post.

In the week since school ended, I was able to go to CrossFit 4 times, ran once, had 3 Daddy-Baby days, spent a day at the pool, went to Sesame Place twice and just enjoyed the company of my wife and daughter without distractions. This past week has reminded me all of the things I want to be able to do during the school year and not just during the summer. I have to get better at planning and organizing and grading and contacting parents so that I can experience this past week all year long.

Although July is right around the corner and we still have two more trips planned for the near future, taking the rest of June off was definitely what I needed and leaves me ready to go on Monday. Bring it on!!

Where do I go from here?

Wow, it's almost June. It seems like it was September the other day and here I am getting ready for the last 2-3 weeks of school. I constantly try to reflect on what I do and how the year has been going but June always seems to be when I really think about it. Questions abound in my head, like:

• Why did this work?
• Why didn't that work?
• What was I thinking when I tried that?
• Will it get easier next year?
• What can I change for next year?
• Where do I go from here?

Most of these questions are for internal reflection that I can hopefully use to get better. The last two are the ones that take up most of my thoughts.

What can I change for next year?

There are many times that I find myself asking this question. At this point, the list of answers is probably endless. Obviously, there is no perfect environment or school or classroom or teacher but there are some that are close. Each year I try to fix what didn't work in the past. Some changes have worked, others notsomuch. I think my biggest problem has been to pick and choose small changes on top of some aspects that haven't been working. A few weeks ago, I wrote about what I wanted to do next year (after some more reading, standards-based grading is getting added to that list) and now I'm starting to think more and more about how to do it. Using Twitter has opened up my eyes to all of the possibilities for my classroom and has made this year the best for me in terms of my own professional development. 

Where do I go from here?

This is more figurative question than a literal one. I'm not leaving my school and I'm still going to be teaching math next year, but I'm at a fork in terms of my philosophy and practice. I believe that my school and district focus too much on the grade and not enough on the process. Too many of my students worry about what they need to do to get an A, B or C and not enough about how much further to take their understanding. Before the end of this year, I hope to have a clear idea of what I will be specifically teaching next year and a plan on what to do. I'm actually looking forward to the idea of rebranding my teaching style for next year. 

At times I feel like the picture-perfect world of students engaged and wanting to learn is unattainable. Then, I read a blog or follow a link and see examples of it happening everyday. In the end my personal goals as a teacher are to look forward to every day of the year and to be disappointed that the year is ending because I will have to wait 2 whole months to get started again. If I have to change almost everything to get there, I'm willing to take that chance.

What exactly is EdCamp Philly?

I can't wait for tomorrow morning. Not because it's going to be Saturday, but because I'm going to EdCamp Philly - my first "unconference." I'm excited to get a chance to meet a bunch of new people and to hear and see all sorts of ideas about 21st Century Education. Anyone that I know that has gone to an unconference always tells me it's a great experience and that I should get to one as soon as I can. Last year I missed the signup deadline, but this year - IT'S ON!

So, what exactly is EdCamp Philly? To be honest, I'm not sure. 

Here's what I do know. It's about educators and learners getting together to share ideas. It's a place to meet scores of passionate people who want the best for their students and want to help others find that same passion. It's going to be a day of new experiences, inspirations, motivation and ideas for me. 

Finally, and most importantly, I have a good feeling it's going to be fun!

What are my plans for next year?

As June gets closer and closer, I start to think about what I've done this year (and the previous four) and what I want to do next year. Every year I know there are lessons and topics that I've covered that have gone well and others I'd just as soon pretend never even happened. In five years of teaching, I know that I've definitely improved on some of my practices but I feel that parts of what I do are stuck in a rut. We live in an age where the power of technology is everywhere yet I still have not completely harnessed that power for good.

In five years, I've given lectures on topics and asked students to take notes and complete classwork and homework. I've followed the curriculum that my district has set and used that as my gauge of student progress. There have also been times where I've created projects that require the students to do some research or figure main points out on their own. At times, I've turned some classes loose with a basic concept and watched them take it to places that they didn't think they could. I've had boring classes and exciting classes, great ideas and cover-your-eyes-awful ideas. On my own time, I've spent hours reading and thinking about what I want to try in my classroom (20% time, flipped classroom, social media, project based learning, and more) and never completely convincing myself that I can do it. In short, I have been conducting my classes in a 20th Century Classroom and not the 21st Century Classroom I believe I should have. As I look through the list of qualities of 20th and 21st Century Classrooms that Dr. Z has posted, I realize that there are so many opportunities that my students and I are missing out on experiencing.

Five years as a teacher is a big deal to me. I've had multiple careers (not just jobs) and the longest amount of time I have spent in any one of them is about four years. Teaching is what I plan to do for the rest of my working life. I know that I want to be in this field for the next 30 years, but I also know that I need to make it more enjoyable and effective for me and my students.

So, in no particular order, I give you my list of Things to Do Next Year...

How do you learn to accentuate the positive?

This is one of those questions that I've been trying to answer for a long time. I try to think of myself as an optimist. I like to think that I can find the good in most people and situations. Unfortunately, I find myself dwelling (obsessing?) on the negative more often that I should. The worst feeling is that I know I should focus more on the successes of my students than on my failures as a teacher. There is so much more value in watching a student go through the process of learning and striving to reach their potential than overanalyzing something that didn't turn out the way I planned (wanted? hoped?).

I'm not naive enough to think that I will ever completely master the idea of being a teacher. There are too many variables and changes in education for that to happen. I know that I will get better at what I do. I know that I'm better (at least a little) now than I was 5 years ago. The problem is that I don't tell myself that enough and I let the negative energy take control every now and then. At the risk of sounding cliche, all I want to do is be happy and enjoy getting up for school every day. 

What I really need to do is to find ways to remind myself daily that some of my current students will be following in the footsteps of my former students.

There will be more of: 

• The quiet and determined Valedictorian/Runner/Head of Everything who focused on her work and making herself better while some of her classmates played around.
• The goofy and focused Barber/All-Star Running Back/Sprinter who did what was asked of him for his teams to win and never complained when others received recognition.
• The middle-of-the-pack, good-at-math student who wanted to be an architect but ended up becoming a teacher by way of Drexel, Holland Architects, CGinteractive, NAPCO, NESN, Sports Authority, Finish Line and Drexel again.

Those first two hopefully know who they are and how much of an inspiration they are to me. That last guy, hopefully he finds a way to look in the mirror in the morning and realize that this will work out. The success stories are out there and are being rewritten. Every. Single. Day. I guess I just have to make more of an effort to find them.

Why are you answering all of these questions?

Plain and simple - to get ideas out of my head and into the world. Sometimes my questions will be ones that I'm trying to find the answers to. At other times, my questions will be ones I ask myself or that I think would be interesting to babble on about. I don't know how often I'm going to do this but my goal is to put up some thoughts a few times a week. Maybe once, maybe more, only time will tell.

One aspect of this blog that I'm looking forward to is to use it as a roadmap of my journey as a teacher. I've been teaching for almost five years now and still feel like I'm just getting started. There are many strategies and techniques that I want to try in my classroom but I haven't attempted many of them for some reason (could be time management, fear, uncertainty, or a million others). I hope that I can use this platform as a way to find help and receive feedback on what I'm trying to do and improve my classroom and teaching in the process. I have been casually following some great educators on Twitter for the last year or so and it's finally time for me to jump in and take some chances at making what I do more enjoyable, engaging and rewarding.