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Guest post contributed by Classcraft Ambassador Laura Trauth
Read our interview with Laura about using Classcraft in college and online classes here and here.
I have been teaching full-time at my Maryland community college for almost 18 years now. Because of our role as a two-year college, the majority of our students are taking survey courses to fulfill General Education requirements and transfer. As a result, I have taught History 101 well over 100 times.
As you can imagine, I was getting burned out. I still enjoyed those occasions when I got to teach an elective class, but I otherwise dreaded the start of the new semester. I could literally recite my lectures without looking at my notes or even my PowerPoint. I have no doubt that I could do it blindfolded! And I didn’t feel inspired enough to change any of that. The path of least resistance was to down a big cup of coffee, drag myself to work, teach the way I always had, and count the days until finals.
The consequences were telling in more than my reticence to get going in the morning. My students were less engaged, and my student evaluations were slipping. There were still good moments—those times where a student asked a great question or the class got a good discussion going on one of the topics—but they were few and far between. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I wasn’t happy.
I did know, however, that public school teachers were often more creative in their classrooms than the typical college lecturer. And I knew that there were increasing numbers of websites discussing their ideas and tools. I thought about looking for some sort of simulation as I had run a simulation game in my History 102 courses in the past. So I fired up my Google Fu and hit the web.
Discovering Classcraft
What did I find? Classcraft. At first, I wasn’t sure the tool would be a good fit for my classroom. It seemed too whimsical. Would my adult students connect with gear and pets and silly random events? Would they be willing to speak Pig Latin or do a dance in front of their classmates? Would I?
After exploring the website and teaching myself the rules, I thought about the game for a long time. Eventually, I decided to implement it in History 101. After all, why should we be afraid of whimsy? Why shouldn’t learning be fun? We all love school as small children, but many of us come to resent it as the fun and play are drained away so that we can get “serious.” Maybe “serious,” as I had conceived of it, wasn’t a good thing.
That first semester over a year ago was a little scary for both my students and me. None of us knew what to expect from Classcraft. Yet very few students decided not to play. We were in this journey together. And almost before I knew it, I began to see results.
Class transformation
No longer did my students just sit still in the classroom. Hands shot up all over the room every time I asked a question. The students wanted the Experience Points (XP), and they enjoyed participating. I began to implement more group work and watched as students helped each other master the material. When one of the shyest students in the class was randomly chosen to dance in front of the class, he did it to the genuine cheers and applause of every student in the room. And at the end of the semester, when students would normally scatter to the four winds, many of them stood out in the hallway talking to each other—some for almost an hour after the exam was over.
There were longer-term consequences, too. I found I was looking forward to the start of the next semester. And almost a third of those students in the first Classcraft course came back and took my History 102 course that spring. I am still in touch with many of them. They stop by my office to say hello and chat about life. They send me jokes, ask for recommendations, and send me friend requests on Facebook. I resolved to implement Classcraft in all my courses, and I haven’t looked back once.
Looking ahead
Are my classes perfect now that I’m using Classcraft? Of course not. There are still students who come to class unprepared or skip assignments. A few of my older adult students are still uncomfortable with the game and with the idea of letting themselves have fun in the classroom. But I feel a passion for my subject again. And I know I am conveying that to my students in ways I wasn’t before.
More than that, I have gotten out of my rut and am again looking for ways to continually improve my teaching. I’ve been reading about gamification and implementing other aspects of it, such as conceiving of assignments as challenges or quests and allowing students “retries” when the quest defeats them. I’ve reshaped my History 101 class (and some assignments in my other classes) to focus on heroes. I’m talking to students more about grit and being epic in the face of their challenges. I award badges, and I am looking at integrating an augmented reality game into the course as well.
So for anyone who is feeling burned out or stuck in a rut, if you’re dreading the start of the school year or it takes more coffee for you to get out the door than it used to, I encourage you to take the leap as well. Let some fun into your classroom. And some whimsy. Yes, you will face some resistance, especially at the college level. We’ve been told for too long that we must be rigorous and serious at the expense of fun and play. But your passion will convince your students, and before long, you may find that you are ALL looking forward to class each day! To quote Stan Lee, “Excelsior!”
Laura Trauth has been a total geek since childhood, from watching seeing the The Empire Strikes Back 10 times in the theater to playing Dungeons & Dragons during lunch in high school. She has a PhD in modern European history and Master’s degrees in humanities and geospatial information sciences. In her spare time she reads comic books, hikes, gardens, and plans out more ways to gamify her classes.
Photo credit: www.BillionPhotos.com / Shutterstock.com