Summer of Classcraft

I took some advice after watching a great webinar about classcraft by Mr. Andrew Hutchinson. Classcraft is best implemented after you already have started teaching your class. Perhaps getting a unit in. Every other time playing I went feet first and this time it allowed me to lead with my head.

Summer school classes started with structure and class routines. Introducing the game on day four of fifteen with my students meant that I could identify real reasons for why I wanted to play the game with my students.

1st Session Reasons
Rude/Impulsive Ss
Ss Falling Asleep In Class
Inappropriate use of technology
Reward students for progress made

2nd Session Reasons
Lack of collaboration and communication
Limited participation
Reward students for being positive and hard working.

What Classcraft does is give students the ability to earn privileges (powers) as they advance their character and become heroes inside the classroom. It was important to tweak these abilities so that they mattered, and I took some great suggestions from the Hutch Playbook, like mage council meetings for major assessments.

It gave students a better sense of belonging in the classroom, allowed them to have rewards and a means to own their class. They also gave me many tools to help gamify over the existing structure of explorations, examples, assignments and assessments and reward students for pursuing quality in their practice.

Students were always more interested in doing extra practice before an assignment if I phrased it as a Boss Battle, and were more focused and collaborative on a review if it was a race to find treasure. Summer really flew by because of the fun my students and I had while learning Algebra 2 and playing Classcraft.

Summers Gone By

Some teachers look forward to summer, every summer I look forward to summer school.

Teaching summer school was the very first gig I had out of college. Working in the district where I completed my student teaching, I started as a long term sub for first session then became a teacher for their second session. A friend from college thoughtfully designed the course to focus on skills. The students worked towards mastery, with a constant spiraling back to foundation skills on assessments.  We focused on relationships, and made sure that while they were required to come every day that every day was a day they wanted to be there.

Fast forward to year two... Now at a new school (new district) I taught Algebra 1 and then again at a different high school across town. This was the last summer I settled with using printed curriculum documents and taught without a true online resource. I had been introduced to Classcraft this year and had some experience playing with my students during the regular year. Now was a great time to start the journey together with a fresh group of students.

My department chair introduced me to a new resource at the end of year 2 (before summer 3) called SAS Curriculum Pathways. There was near perfect alignment with our regular curriculum. It provided students with the opportunity to get feedback while pursuing mastery at their pace. I was so impressed with teaching with online assistance. When students know that they are getting it, they have confidence to continue forward. When they know that they aren't, they know it's a good time to ask for help and that is where I had an invitation in to teach them.

Side Note: Our district had not adopted a resource/textbook in many years as they made the conscious decision that the textbook is not the curriculum, and standards must come first.

The flexibility of learning this way allowed us to enjoy our time together, some students worked ahead, others dragged behind the suggested deadlines. Memories were made and students kept morale high by taking occasional breaks to play games together. The way we learned about our classroom community and each other through gaming taught the soft skills that many of the students needed.

Whether through gamification (Classcraft) or through games the secret to a positive classroom (summer school) experience is to make it about learning and fun too!