Gamifying the BCHS Cyber Classroom

1. Goals: The major goals that I wish to accomplish in the BCHS Cyber Classroom include:
 Increase productivity with the completion of lesson/tasks by students
 Increase appropriate behaviors and mitigate negative behaviors
 Increase attendance
 Increase content knowledge of each subject
 Increase EOC scores
 Decrease the high school dropout rate at BCHS
 Increase the graduation rate at BCHS
 Prepare students for the real world and life after high school

2. Players / Students: My students include 9th through 12th grade students ranging from 14-19
years of age. The makeup of my classroom is consistently around 60% male and 40% female,
but this contrast is ever changing, as new students are introduced to my classroom daily. My
students typically are at risk students that are on the verge of either dropping out of high
school or are not on track to graduate on time with their respective classmates. The majority
of my students have either failed three or more subjects in the past year or so and need an
alternative learning approach that will help them get back on track and finish school at an
appropriate time. The majority of my students have adequate gaming experience inside and
outside of the classroom with either their own personal gaming console or access to various
forms of gaming. The majority of my students’ motivation level would be considered to be
extremely low because of their previous lack of effort and them being high risk candidates to
drop out of school.

3. Learning Objectives / Target Behaviors:

 Student attendance will increase
 Student knowledge in the given subject area will increase
 Academic growth will be seen on formative and summative assessments such as with a
rise in EOC scores
 Students will be less likely to drop out of high school and in turn the graduation rate
will rise
 Students will remain on task and have fewer disruptions or redirections by teacher

4. Gamification Strategies:

4.1. Application of the Octalysis Framework

Strategies Rationales
Core Drive 1: Epic Students will complete Students need to do well on EOC because it
Meaning & Calling various activities that will accounts for 20% of their overall grade in the
in turn help prepare them class.
for various EOC tests.
The use of Classcraft allows students to see
just exactly how each standard aligns to what
exactly is needed to be learned in order to
master the content.
Core Drive 2: Students have the ability Students feel a sense of accomplishment
Development & to master various goals because of their ability to complete various
Accomplishment and objectives in the goals or objectives in the game on an
game. individual and team basis.
Core Drive 3: Students are able to see Students get an immediate feedback from the
Empowerment of the Classcraft leaderboard program by either performing a desired goal
Creativity & and earn points for their correctly or incorrectly.
Feedback team and themselves.
If a desire or appropriate behavior is observed
Students can either then the student can gain XP points for
demonstrate the desired themselves or their team which can in turn
behaviors or help them to level up their Avatar and help
inappropriate behaviors their team score.
during class.
Core Drive 4: Students get to design Students get to show creativity in designing
Ownership & and customize their own their avatar and get to take a role in the game.
Possession avatar for the game and
come up with their own Students will ultimately show ownership in
groups. the game by either completing the desired or
undesired goals which allows their avatar to
level up and help boost their team score.
Core Drive 5: Students will be able to Students exemplify appropriate or
Social Influence & earn points for their team inappropriate behaviors which in turn allow
Relatedness and help other team them to help their overall team score to go up
members as needed in or down.
the game.
Students get a sense of real world problems
and this allows the students to develop
appropriate skills to help solve these problems
outside of the classroom in the real world.

Students also will get a sense of belonging and

hopefully exhibit productive social skills inside
and outside of the classroom.
Core Drive 6:
Scarcity &
Impatience
Core Drive 7: Students can take part in Students can either earn or lose points
Unpredictability & random events inside the because of their involvement in the random
Curiosity game. events inside the game itself.

This gives the student an option to either go

and accept the challenge and hopefully
succeed or if they fail accept the
consequences.
Core Drive 8: Loss Students either Students will lose points either for their team
& Avoidance individually or as a team or individually because of negative behavior
will lose points because of and not following directions.
negative behaviors
exhibited in class. This loss of points can be avoided by following
correct procedures and behaviors.

Students typically do not want to lose points

and or let their team down, so this hopefully
will be avoided by students participating in
appropriate behaviors.
Left Brain vs. Left Brain: Relates more The left brain promotes more extrinsic
Right Brain Drives to logic, calculations and motivation while the right brain promotes
ownership which are more intrinsic motivation.
covered in areas 1, 2, 4
and 6. Extrinsic: Motivation occurs because of the
importance of obtaining an overall goal.
Right Brain: Relates more
to creativity, self- Intrinsic: Motivation occurs because of the
expression and social importance of the completion of the activity
aspects which are or project itself.
covered in areas 3, 5, 7
and 8.

White Hat vs. White Hat: Relates more White hat gamification relates almost
Black Hat to positive motivations simultaneously with the left brain, while black
Gamification which are covered in the hat gamification relates more to the right
areas of 1, 2, 4 and 6. brain.

Black Hat: Relates more Students ideally would like to follow more of
to negative motivations the white hat drives so that in turn more
which are covered in the positive rewards, upgrades, etc. will be given
areas of 3, 5, 7 and 8. to them.
 However negative behaviors and
consequences follow if students align
themselves with black hat drives.

4.2. Use of Classcraft: Classcraft is a great tool in which I will use in my classroom to increase
student productivity, attendance, knowledge and help prepare them for real world
experiences after high school. Classcraft allows me to set up my curriculum inside the game
itself and offer rewards and consequences for negative behavior inside and outside of the
classroom. This integration will allow my students to work in groups in an effort to work on
their problem solving, social and communication skills. Classcraft will be beneficial to me, since
I am in a computer lab setting already and all of my students standards, questions, lessons and
overall assignments are already built into a computer software module. I will utilize classcraft
as an extra credit opportunity or alternative assignment to be completed in an effort to
promote success with my students. I will set up various objectives and goals that I would like to
see met by my students in various modules inside of classcraft and the completion of these
objectives will lead to positive rewards in and out of the classroom. I plan on going through the
Georgia performance standards and relating as many standards as possible to classcraft as I
can that can allow for alternative assignments to be accomplished by my students in an effort
to see them master the overall content and ultimately perform well on the EOC tests at the
end of the year in various subjects.

***Above is a picture of my class homepage that I created with classcraft.

****Above is a list of negative objectives that in classcraft will cause a deduction in team and
individual scores.

***Above is a list of positive attributes that will result in rewards in classcraft.

***Above is an example of an objective that I created for my students to complete.

5. Process: The process in which I would utilize classcraft in my classroom would

consist of a 90 to 120 minute timeframe each day in one of the four blocks of my
students’ regular scheduled classes. I plan on implementing this in my class
starting the first week of March and continuing until the last day of school in
May. Since my class is an alternative learning classroom and relies solely on a
computer based instruction, classcraft will be easily integrated into my standards
and teaching. Below you will see a typical schedule of how I would utilize
classcraft in my classroom setting.

1:20 (5 min) - Students return to class from their scheduled lunch time.

1:25 (5 min) - Students would assemble into their groups, work individually or
pick groups in which they would like to complete their overall task with.

1:30 (15 min) - Students would be given time to either create or modify their
avatar in the game.

1:45 (50 min) – Students dive into the pre-loaded objectives built by the teacher
on classcraft and go through the mini lesson and try to complete as many goals
as possible.
 2:35 (25 min) – Students share their overall score with the teacher and each
group shares a story that relates to a standard that they accomplished before
leaving for the end of the day.

6. Reflection: This assignment by far was the most challenging but also most
rewarding assignment to complete. Before being enrolled in this class, I had no
idea what gamification even consisted of or its importance in education and
everyday life. This assignment opened up my eyes to multiple ideas and various
concepts that I can now implement in my classroom with my students. The
implementation of classcraft or another gamification tool I believe will help
increase attendance, productivity and learning in my classroom. Overall I believe
that this assignment gave me some great insight and I plan on diving further into
the content of gamification and see what other options are out there for my
students to utilize.