When Great Lessons Fail..
If you are a teacher, you have most certainly had that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when your carefully crafted lesson tanks hard. It happens to all of us. It may only tank in one class. It may have been something the kids didn’t connect with. It’s not fun. It is definitely a hit to the self-esteem and its also inevitable. So what happens when a gamified lesson fails? There are some simple answers and some not so simple answers to that question.
Last week I was so excited to roll out my weekly games for my students. I always get excited when I hear their excitement over all the games they get to play in French class. I was particularly excited for a brand new game I was debuting last week called the flag game. I know, I know, complicated title. The idea behind the flag game is that it makes a regular worksheet exciting and fun by gamifying it. We know that when kids see learning as play their brains fire up and release dopamine and serotonin. Engagement goes up. Retention of content goes up. Morale goes up. It is really a win-win situation. So, although I had planned a practice worksheet, I knew I needed to gamify it. That’s where the flag game comes in!
The idea behind the flag game is that teams take turns answering questions from their worksheet and winning answers allow teams to capture a flag, either from the flag corral or from another team. The catch is that students don’t know how many points each flag is worth. Some take away points. Different flags have different values. It isn’t necessarily a good thing to steal flags from another team if they are going to cause you to lose points! I assign points by a roll of the dice. I have six sets of point values for each flag and we use the values that correspond with a random dice roll when the game is finished. The students focus on point values. The educational value is how deeply they engage on the worksheet because they want to get the answer right. By the time we get to point values of flags, the students have already reaped the rewards of the gamification.
My first two classes of the day absolutely loved the flag game. Once again, I was pleased to find 100% engagement throughout the classroom. There was laughter and cheers as we revealed flag values at the end. When students found out that the last flag called for them to give all their points to the next team, there was some light-hearted booing, but it was all in good fun. It didn’t affect their grade, and there wasn’t an actual prize to win. They asked on the way out of the class if we could play this game again. Imagine my surprise when I got to the last class of the day and the same exact lesson absolutely crashed!
The class started out normally. I was explaining the game. I was bubbling over with excitement because I love when a new game is a hit. I was giddy with anticipation as we began the worksheet in our teams because I just knew this class was going to learn without realizing it and have fun at the same time. My classroom is arranged into seven groups of four students. I call each group a team and I have expressed the importance of collaboration and discussion of content matter within the group. I was sure that each team had a definite comradery, but what I saw last week showed me I was completely wrong. For some reason, there were some students who were clearly not focused on working as a team. I watched in sadness as my amazing lesson fell completely apart. It had been a while since that had happened to me and it weighed heavily on me.
In the moment, I knew that the game couldn’t go on. The students weren’t engaging in it because of a massive breakdown in collaboration. I chose to pivot and I had each team turn in their worksheet to be graded. Somehow that felt like a punishment - which is not at all what I wanted at all for my students. We moved on to the next activity on the lesson plan, which was also gamified, but it wasn’t working in large collaborative groups this time and students could actually choose to work alone. Many did. There was an air of defeat in the room and that is not at all how I want my classroom to feel.
I had to figure out what had happened to my amazing community of students. It was clear that without collaboration, gaming doesn’t work. That realization hit me hard. None of this works if students don’t want to be kind and work with each other. Middle schoolers can be fickle with collaboration, so it was clear that I had a challenge in front of me. I had to figure out how to get my class to work together in support of each other and I had to do it quickly. If students don’t feel supported by their fellow classmates they will not feel comfortable letting their affective filter down and letting the learning, and the fun, in. I mulled it over all weekend long and went in on Monday with a plan.
I spoke frankly with my students. I let them know that we are lucky to have such a great community in our classroom, but that community is only as strong as its members. I reiterated that there aren’t students who are better than others and that we all have something to learn from each other, myself included. I explained that we will all make mistakes and that is an ok thing to do as long as we don’t give up on ourselves and each other. Our classroom needed to be a place where we feel uplifted and supported. I told them that if we can create that atmosphere that allows everyone to contribute and learn that we could absolutely continue playing games to learn. The class unanimously voted in favor of that.
The students must have heard me because later that class got back to playing some fun games and I was relieved to see students demonstrating patience, support, and offering help and kindness to their classmates. One heartfelt conversation and I had my class back again! I went home Monday night feeling much better about where my students stood with regard to collaboration and community. I also had a new-found respect for the importance of acceptance, patience, and support from students within a classroom. Although we are changing seats soon and students will have new teammates to learn and grow with. I am confident that they can learn to work together successfully and that the gaming can continue in my room.
As for the flag game, it is going in my file of evergreen games because my students absolutely love it. Add to that the Dots game, and Rock-Paper-Scissors and you have my three go-to games. I am planning a massive, board game review for the first half of our final marking period. I can’t wait to share more about it with all of you. Stay tuned for details on Dragon Quest! In the meantime, look for the gaming way to share and reinforce content. I promise that when you do you will love your lessons. Game On!
