I've made some comments on Twitter and Facebook regarding my game-based semester and there have been some questions and requests for a blog post, so here it is. It's a long one, so brace yourselves: gamification is coming. (tl:dr version at the bottom)
Disclaimer: For anyone who is a comic book savant, please forgive the license I took with these teams and characters. Focus on the educational value and not the slight inaccuracies in comic book lore.
Disclaimer: For anyone who is a comic book savant, please forgive the license I took with these teams and characters. Focus on the educational value and not the slight inaccuracies in comic book lore.
This semester, I created a superhero themed game wherein each of my four classes were designated a team of heroes: freshmen were the X-men, sophomores were the Lantern Corps, juniors were the Legion of Superheroes, and seniors were the Brotherhood of Mutants. Within each team, the students were divided into two squads. X-men = New Mutants and Generation X. Lantern Corps = Green Lanterns and Indigo Lanterns. Legion of Superheroes = All-Star Squadron and Teen Titans. Brotherhood of Mutants = House of M and Freedom Force. This was all following the model created by Michael Matera and his book EXPlore like a Pirate. During the semester, students could earn points (XP) as individuals, as a squad, or as a team. These were awarded as character cards for various tasks, some academic (quiz challenges) and some not (school spirit week). Winners in each category would be announced at the end of the semester, but leaderboards were public so there were no surprises.
| The premise for the game was that an alien race, the Dominion (individual members called Dominators), came to Earth to experiment on humans and ultimately destroy the human race as we know it. The actual narrative of the story was broken up into two parts, each a quarter long, and each with a specific attainable goal. |  |
The whole premise was released in a BreakoutEDU I created for the students. It began the night before with a video from a character I portrayed (and made up) named the Fictamorph. This was released to the students on Schoology. In this video, I addressed the students as heroes, renamed my classroom Headquarters, and explained that I had information regarding an alien race coming to Earth. When the students entered the classroom the next day, they found the whole room in disarray. Tables and chairs were overturned, papers on the floor, etc. There was also a box with a hasp clasp and multiple locks in the room. I won't take you through step-by-step, but by figuring out the answers to a series of puzzles, each of which contained a bit more information about the alien race, the students discovered that the Fictamorph had been captured. Once they completed all of the puzzles and opened the box, they were able to access a group on Schoology for Superheroes that contained videos to let them know what teams and squads they were on. Needless to say, the students got excited when they saw their names in the lineups and wanted to know more. And there would be so much more.
| Since the Fictamorph had been kidnapped, the goal of the third quarter was to rescue him from the alien base in which he was being held. To do this, they got a weekly message from the Fictamorph with clues about his whereabouts. These video messages were not given to the students directly; rather, I enlisted the help of various staff members throughout the school to perform as secret agents. The staff member was given multiple pieces of paper with the same YouTube link on it. As we were studying characterization, students were then taken through a series of questions and/or statements related to the secret agent, who was operating under a code name. Some were simple, such as "I am short. Do you know who I am?" Answering no would move on to another statement to help the student narrow it down. Answering yes would take the students to a list of staff names, whereupon they would make their guess. If they were right, a picture of the staff member would show up. If not, they were free to start again. As the weeks continued, the questions got more involved, such as, "Rainbow Star brushes her long, dark hair every morning. Is this an example of direct or indirect characterization?" Correct answers moved the student forward. Incorrect answers sent the student back to the beginning. Students then used the statements to compile information and determine the identity of the agent. |   |
One main reason for this, aside from characterization practice was that students got to know different staff members around the school, what they do, and how to spell their names. From a professional learning network (PLN) perspective, it brought colleagues together as a team and invited staff members to interact with a curriculum and method that they might not be used to. Everyone who participated as a secret agent said they really enjoyed it!
Code names were invented by the agents themselves. Some of the more colorful ones were, The Olympic Torch, Mama Nae Nae, Blackstar, and Chameleon. I used Google forms embedded in the Schoology Superhero group for this task. Once the heroes discovered the identity of the secret agent, they would have to go and find the agent, who would make them answer a question or perform a task before they could earn the paper. Tasks were determined by the staff member. For example, Mama Nae Nae required the students to dance the nae nae. Other agents were more topical, asking for the current frontrunners of the Democratic and Republican parties. Successfully answering or performing would yield the reward of the YouTube link and students would race back to my classroom to watch the video. All of the videos can be found here. Each video contained another clue to bring the students closer to finding the base.
Code names were invented by the agents themselves. Some of the more colorful ones were, The Olympic Torch, Mama Nae Nae, Blackstar, and Chameleon. I used Google forms embedded in the Schoology Superhero group for this task. Once the heroes discovered the identity of the secret agent, they would have to go and find the agent, who would make them answer a question or perform a task before they could earn the paper. Tasks were determined by the staff member. For example, Mama Nae Nae required the students to dance the nae nae. Other agents were more topical, asking for the current frontrunners of the Democratic and Republican parties. Successfully answering or performing would yield the reward of the YouTube link and students would race back to my classroom to watch the video. All of the videos can be found here. Each video contained another clue to bring the students closer to finding the base.
| | At the same time, a quarter-long challenge was set up to beg the help of four powerful characters: Blink, Firestorm, Juggernaut, and the Flash. They would need each of these characters to teleport to the base, dismantle the forcefield, break through the wall, and rescue the Fictamorph. Each character required a specific task. For example, to get Blink's card, a student was required to take a selfie in three different settings and write a descriptive paragraph about the setting, including both place and time. One student was free to complete this task alone or it could be split up among three students. Not all tasks needed to be completed individually; the only requirement was that each task be completed. Since XP was awarded for each task, it was beneficial to have multiple members complete multiple tasks, thereby increasing individual, squad, and team XP. |
Once students knew the location of the base and had collected all four characters, they were invited to try to enter the base. Only a hero who had completed the task and earned the card could try for the base by rolling a large pair of dice. Certain numbers indicated success or failure. It cost a hero his or her own XP to roll the dice each time, so heroes had to carefully weigh the risk against the penalty and decide whether they, or another teammate with the same card, would attempt the task. Once the final objective had been achieved, I revealed that not only had the Fictamorph been rescued, but that the Flash had obtained a piece of information vital to the success of the overall mission: saving the Earth. I presented this to the hero who had used the Flash, but there was a catch: it was in a wooden box with a golden lock. Confused and curious, the students all asked how to get the information and I told them that it was something to be revealed the following week.
 | You guessed it. The next week was another BreakoutEDU and what they found inside was a poem. The poem explained that the goal of the 4th quarter was to defeat the Dominators and send them back to the stars. In order to do that, they needed to enlist the help of three superhero teams: the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the Justice League. There would be various tasks throughout the semester in order to collect heroes from all three teams. In order to discover those tasks, heroes must once again find secret agents. |
| This time, however, students were given a coded message which could only be decoded by using the real name of the agent. The message, once decoded, set forth a task that had to be completed in order to recruit a superhero for their cause. For example, one of the more humorous tasks was to find a connection to three Avengers in the periodic table of the elements and report their symbols. The answers? Iron Man (Iron = Fe), Captain America (Americum = Am), and Thor (Thorium = Th). Some were more academically oriented, such as four mathematical problems to recruit Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman or a labelled volcano diagram to have The Human Torch and The Thing join the team. Seven lists, each containing seven items, were required to get all seven members of the Justice League, including naming the original seven members of the team. |  |
| Once the task was achieved, students were given cards like the ones you see to the right. One team member was in charge of keeping these cards safe for the duration of the quarter. Each superhero was given a certain amount of HP (health points) and a series of outcomes related to the roll of a die or two dice. These would be used in battle against the Dominators. For example, when rolling for Batman, a student would roll two dice. If a 2, 3, 4, or 5 was the total, Batman would punch the Dominator, eliciting 10HP worth of damage. This 10HP would be subtracted from the Dominator total. If a 6, 7, or 8 appeared, Batman would miss completely. If a 9, 10, or 11 appeared, bats would attack the Dominator for 20HP worth of damage. And if a 12 showed up, Batman performed an aerial assault, doing 30HP worth of damage. I also created cards for four Dominators (to be played by my assistant): a Drone, a Soldier, a General, and a Queen. Each of these had HP and outcomes on the card. I created a Flippity spreadsheet for tracking HP. The enemy was yellow and the heroes were green. | |
| Now comes the moments you're all waiting for: THE FINAL BATTLE. |
While part one of my final exam was an unconventional twist on the traditional book report (not part of the superhero game), the second part of the final exam was a "battle." Students were warned that the final battle would start on a Monday and last the entire week. I used FlipQuiz to set up my questions in a Jeopardy-like fashion. Knowing this would last five days, I made four boards. There were five English-related categories and one "grab-bag" category for each board. I didn't really pay attention to the values of each question as they had no bearing on the game itself. In my Google drive, I created a spreadsheet with separate tabs for each class and the names of the students listed in the first column. The remaining columns were labeled Question 1, Question 2, Question 3, etc.
| I explained the rules to the students. Students would come up to the board one by one and choose a square to reveal a question. If they answered the question correctly, they would have an opportunity to attack the Dominators. They could choose any hero that they wished and roll the die or dice. Depending on the outcome, they would either miss completely, protect themselves from attack, or do a certain amount of damage. The Dominator (played by my assistant) would then have a chance to attack that hero back. Play continued until all four Dominators or all superheroes were defeated. Although the student who flipped the question was required to answer, he or she was allowed to use any resource in the room, including papers on the walls, the internet, notes on his or her phone, even ask teammates. The goal was to see if the student could A: find the information, and B: use the information correctly. Many times students knew the answers, but didn't trust themselves and waited to ask teammates, who sometimes gave incorrect answers. It was as much a lesson for them as an assessment. |  |
The students were excited. They debated passionately about answers. They developed strategies to choose heroes for their attacks. They even had certain methods of rolling the dice that they felt would achieve the results they wanted. The seniors, for example, were convinced that rolling the dice against the wall would get the number they wanted. To be sure, they took down the Dominator Drone in a series of very swift attacks, using The Human Torch's flame attack (-30HP), The Thing's rock smash (-75HP), and The Hulk's hulk smash (-75HP). Students quickly recognized these last two as powerful figures and tried to get the smashes as much as possible. There was only one number on each card to get the smash, however - 4 for a rock smash and 6 for a hulk smash - but I was shocked to see that they achieved them more often than not. One freshman student, normally reserved and quiet, screamed and danced in joy when she achieved a hulk smash twice in a row!
 | On my end, I had my tablet to keep track of right and wrong answers by filling in the cells green or red, respectively. Just like a test, the number of right answers over the total number of questions answered reveals the score. I also had to keep changing the numbers in the spreadsheet for the HP as the results of the dice rolls were revealed. The Flippity HP tracker page automatically updated. I told students that they had access to the HP tracker through Schoology and they used that information to help each other select stronger heroes to attack the Dominators. As the Drone and Soldier were defeated, I realized that I wanted to do something to make the game more interesting, so I added two new elements. I announced that the General and Queen had the power to attack anyone they wanted, not necessarily the superhero that attacked them. This made it possible for my assistant to remove superheroes from the game and heightened the excitement and challenge for the students. Of course, he focused on taking out the major players: Hulk and The Thing. |
I also created a video message from Deadpool, who announced that all points would now be doubled. This included the Dominator attack and made the game start to go faster. Not only was this for excitement purposes, but it required the students to use their mathematical skills to double all of the points. Once they reached the Queen, I added yet another bonus: students could attack with two heroes simultaneously. As heroes started to be removed from the game, students became even more careful in their answers and their choices of attackers. Thor became a frequently used character.
The students loved it. They enjoyed it so much that they begged to continue the game the following Monday and one group (having had a two periods of playing the game that morning) even asked to come into my class for a third period that afternoon to play the game. None of them realized they were asking for more assessment. I am confident that the game could have continued through the week. As time ran out, I made a deal with the freshmen who were battling the Dominator Queen: I would roll the dice and if the students' next roll matched my number, the Dominator Queen would be defeated and that team would win the game. When I rolled the dice for the freshman class, they came up 5 and 1 for a total of 6. The freshman student who rolled after me got a 4 and 2. The freshmen didn't realize what this meant until I asked them to add the numbers. When they found out it was 6, they started yelling. It was so exciting to see them win that I offered the same deal to the juniors. They agreed. With their class, I rolled a 2 and a 1. I looked over at my assistant doubtful that success was on the horizon. Two junior students rolled one die each. The result? 1 and 2. As soon as the dice settled, the students began shouting in joy and my assistant and I shared shocked smiles. Both teams had won. The students left, chatting happily. They informed me that this was better than any paper final exam.
There are things I might change in the future, such as the point values or the timing of it, but overall, I am very pleased with how this turned out. The other benefit was that my assistant and I both enjoyed ourselves as well!
tl:dr
semester long game based on superheroes
weekly secret agents with messages
weekly challenges
end of quarter challenge
end of year card and dice game for final exam
everyone had a good time
tl:dr
semester long game based on superheroes
weekly secret agents with messages
weekly challenges
end of quarter challenge
end of year card and dice game for final exam
everyone had a good time
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