Classcraft - how to turn students and students into warriors, magicians and healers and motivate them to learn better

Effective gaming mechanics in education. The school teacher of physics came up with a role -playing game , thanks to which his students turn into warriors, magicians and healers and begin to study better.

After three years of development and improvements, SHAWN Young, a school teacher, presented the world for the Classcraft school role, which is already learning more than 7,000 children in 25 countries of the world.

The Yang class consists of warriors, magicians and healers - warriors can eat in the classroom, magicians can be teleported from lectures, and healers can receive tips on exams. The game, which is most reminiscent of the famous role -playing game Dungeons & Dragons, according to Yang, is able to help lagging students.

So far, Classcraft is free, but in the fall, it will introduce a conditionally paying payment system resembling many mobile games and projects such as League of Legends or Runescape. This should attract the attention of the educational system-especially when its employees realize that students will buy armor and pets for their Classcraft characters in iTunes.

Game in the class

If you are a gamer, then the physics lesson in the class of Sean Yang will seem to you paradise. At the beginning of the lesson, students check the parameters of their characters on the screen in the center of the room. After the call, an accidental event occurs, which affects one or more players, it can be a disaster like the death of one character or something strange, for example, someone will begin to sing.

This helps students concentrate - they enter the classroom and already want to know what will happen this time.

Sean Young

During the lesson, students can receive experience points (for good work) or damage (if they could not cope with the task or behave badly). Experience points lead to increasing the status of a character and obtaining new abilities.

The teacher can track everything that happens in the class using Classcraft, and schoolchildren can use laptops for interaction. Since September, they will also be able to use smartphones-an IOS application will be released, followed by an Android version.

Less lessons and more chocolate

Despite the fact that there are rules in the game, one can approach their observance very inventively - as Yang's students do.

One of the possibilities in the game is a teleport that allows you to leave the class for two minutes. They accumulate several pieces of such teleports and go for 10 minutes. This is a little annoying, but at the same time it is part of the game.

Sean Young

In addition, some children with warrior characters use their ability to eat in the class to bring chocolate to lessons.

The awards that can be obtained at Classcraft also often go beyond ordinary school rules, but this is what makes them so attractive.

Having lost all the units of life, the student “dies” and faces a punishment, which is determined randomly - this may be a demand to stay after lessons or rewrite five pages of text. Usually they reacted like this: "You are bad, you are trying to leave me after lessons." And with all their might tried to avoid this. Now they say: "This is a game, it's cool, I will come." There is no need to even check whether they will come or not. They will definitely come.

Sean Young

Cooperate and change the classroom

The idea of ​​Classcraft Young pondered for several years. Prior to this, he tried a variety of ways to achieve cooperation from children - Young considers it one of the most important forms of interaction and believes that the modern education system underestimates the command spirit.

Our assessment system is based on individual achievements, but it is really useful to see the value of the victory of your team as opposed to personal successes, to work together to increase the overall level.

Sean Young

Young notes that when someone dies in Classcraft, the whole team is punished with a loss of lives. In the game, cooperation is encouraged by all means, and this completely transforms the lessons.

History teacher

Ricardo Higuera (Ricardo Higuera) teaches the stories of seventh -graders in the rural corner of thermal, which is located in Southern California. Higuer uses Classcraft over the past 4 months and noticed how well the game affects the academic performance of his students.

Previously, many students were not at all bothered by a failed control. Now she bothers them much more, as it affects the level of their character and the positions of their team. In general, after the start of the game, I noticed a sharp increase in interest in learning. Since we have enough short changes, I always had small problems due to delay, but now the children are in a hurry to classes.

Ricardo Higuer

Higuer had already decided that he would continue to use Classcraft in the coming years, but so far he remains the only teacher in his school using the game. Other teachers do not understand the meaning of all this and are not sure that the game should be used in the lessons.

It seems to me that Classcraft is ideal for my age group and subject. Secondary school, medieval history ... Can you imagine how cool it is to play the likeness of World of Warcraft, studying samurai, knights and Aztecs? I myself feel like a child who plays with friends again and again in Dungeons & Dragons.

Ricardo Higuer

Results

Yang himself does not yet have quantitative results, but many teachers using Classcraft report on successes that are quite amazing-in some cases, a couple of months after the introduction of Classcraft, average estimates increased by 20-25%.

This, according to Yang, is associated with an increase in involvement in the educational process caused by three factors: important awards, continuous feedback and encouragement of cooperation in the lessons.

The first time I started the game in the middle of the school year. I then had two students who did not work at all and lagged behind. As soon as Classcraft began in the lessons, they began to work like crazy. A lot - abnormally a lot - because they wanted to increase the level of their characters in the game.

Sean Young

Despite the terrible beginning, these children have successfully completed the academic year.

Some children have never talked among themselves, and now they help each other after lessons. The game encourages active participation in the lessons, completion of tasks, cooperation and assistance. She rewards for this - this is how you increase your level in the game.

Sean Young

Carrot on a rope

Classcraft also found critics. So, for example, Frank Noscheze, a physics teacher from Cross River (Cross River, Ny), looks at the gamies of education differently - it seems to him that the awards in the game are given an improper stimulus and students begin to study better only for them, and not for their studies. Night also doubts that the game is able to help those children who are not interested in assessments.

Some children simply cannot be at school all day, sit at a desk at nine different lessons for six hours. They just need to be taught differently.

Frank Notsez

Despite his criticism, the night speaks about the idea of ​​Yang positively.

Any teacher who is trying to try something new is a great fellow.

Frank Notsez

Conditionally paying model

At the moment, a team of illustrators Yang draws a thousand elements of equipment for characters - boots, magic shields, potions. As part of the award, students will receive gold coins who can spend on the purchase of equipment and changes in the appearance of their character.

They will also be able to buy these coins through an iOS application or iTunes, which is a rather bold and innovative idea in the field of educational products.

Indeed, the idea that children will pay for their training is surprising. Young admits that this puts some teachers in front of an ethical dilemma: is it worth using in the lessons a product that stimulates children to spend money?

Therefore, Classcraft will offer a paid version for schools, which will cost 4 dollars a year for each student. In this case, students will also have access to custom capabilities, but the teacher will control the distribution of gold.

The completely free version of Classcraft will be available, but it will be very limited by the possibilities - there will be no custom -made characters, pets, IOS applications and interactive forums for each class. At the same time, the game will completely retain its main functionality.

A conditionedly paying model is a challenge for a traditional model of school financing.

I have been working as a teacher for seven years and most of all I am annoyed by bureaucratic restrictions on innovations in the spirit of “Yes, of course, we will put this in the budget for the next year” - despite the fact that you have an idea now.

Sean Young

For Yang, it is important that the game is available in poor countries-it is precisely for these reasons that the conditionally paying model is born.

Conditionally paid reality

For Higura and many other teachers in poor countries, a conditionally-free or completely free model is the only way to continue to use Classcraft.

I would be happy to say that our director will buy a paid version, but he will not do it. Too few of our teachers will use it to make such a purchase appropriate.

Ricardo Higuer

Higuer is sure that his students will really like the opportunity to configure their characters and buy additional things, but he doubts that many will have such a financial opportunity.

But Classcraft is still cool and I hope to continue to use it for a long time, as I do, we can afford it.

Ricardo Higuer

Big September

This autumn will be important for Yang and Classcraft. The IOS application that goes out in September will allow the system to work on the IPAD teacher, the German and Spanish translations will add globality to the system, which Young wanted to see international from the very beginning.

Pupils from 8 to 20 years old are already involved in the game, with the improvement of the system, their number will only increase. The conditionally paying model will allow you to join the game to any teacher from any country, regardless of the school budget.

And although the game does not offer a comprehensive solution to all the problems associated with teaching children, it offers an innovative way to captivate those children that the study before that was not very interested in.

Very quickly, computer games have become a cultural phenomenon. Everyone plays games, everyone loves games. I think that for students who receive poor grades, because they are not interested in studying, Classcraft can change a lot.

Sean Young