Hey Coach,

My students don’t seem to engage with the content in my classroom, and I’ve thought of using gamification to motivate them. How can I get started?

Sincerely,
Not Playing Around

Hey there, Not Playing Around,

I'm not a gamer. I'm your typical girl who died on the very first Goombah on Super Mario Brothers. I had never even heard of a Nintendo when we got one in second grade. However, about a year ago, my husband was shocked to find me still sitting on the couch at three in the morning after he had been in bed for hours. I had been sucked into a video game!  I had no intention or even awareness that I had been sitting there playing it for so many hours; there was simply something about the treasure hunt and the challenge that kept me enthralled.

I want you to think of your least motivated student. Do you have that kid pictured? Now, what if your class could be so motivating that said kid would actually want to engage with your content repeatedly until he or she got it right? Gamification, also known as structural gamification, means changing your whole classroom into a game. That doesn't mean everything you do is fluffy, but it does mean that you set up a structure that enables your students to feel like they're participating in a motivating game. (Hear about one example of how gamification impacts motivation in this Edsurge Podcast.) While I certainly don't have space to go into all it encompasses here, making the shift to a gamified classroom is a process that you can learn more about in Michael Matera's book Explore Like a Pirate. In this brief blog post, let's focus on one great place to start--avatars.

If you haven't jumped on the game bandwagon yet, you may wonder what I'm talking about with avatars. Let’s put them in the context of superheroes. When Clark Kent goes inside his telephone booth, he emerges as Superman. He looks and acts differently than he did in real life. In a classroom game, our students can also have alter-egos, called avatars. Let’s look at three ways to make them work in a real (or virtual) classroom. 

Tip #1: Teach young students? Create avatars for them. 

I’ve seen so many creative ways to do this step, but let’s focus on two. Sites like The Noun Project every icon you could think of. If your students are interested in anything from The Wizard of Oz to Star Wars, you can find an icon they will love to have represent them in your classroom game. Or what about every teacher’s favorite avatar maker, Bitmoji? Kids under thirteen can’t use it on their own, but I love this survey created by teacher Melissa Bryson, where she does the creation and shares the finished product with her kids. With either option you choose, you can share the icons as digital slides in your classroom LMS. Want your students to create their own avatars instead? Check out this list of six student-friendly possibilities. 

Tip #2: Use text-based avatars.

Avatars don’t just have to be pictures; they can also be in-game names. My dog’s name is part of my Xbox handle, and revisiting our earlier analogy, Clark Kent and Superman are the same person, but one has more fun! An in-game name means that students have more privacy on the leaderboard as well, and as they level up or earn more XP, they can enhance their names, as Beth Box first taught me with her own gamified classroom. Students might earn a bold typeface, a larger or colored font, or an emoji enhancement to make him/her stand out on the otherwise standard leaderboard.

Tip #3: Connect avatars to a bigger classroom game theme by using a game-name picker.

When I created the theme “American Roadtrip” for my eleventh grade American literature class, my students chose names from a themed name-picker. Once they had selected the names, they shared them on my wall (or digital wall) via a driver’s license. I integrated the theme throughout the game to make it cohesive, and the funny names added an element of joy as well.

Avatars may only be one piece of fully gamifying your classroom, but they certainly are an easy entry point for teachers and students. They allow students to assume an alter-ego and increase motivation, while also allowing them choice and voice over how their character is displayed. We’d love to see the avatars you and your students develop! Tag us @ksuiteach on Twitter.