Jill Thompson

August 3rd, 2014

Using Gamification as an Intrinsic Motivator in the Science Classroom

Although this will be my first year teaching, I have many ideas as to what
leadership roles I would like to be involved in in my future. I am very grateful to have
experienced what I have thus far in my student teaching experiences. A particular
project that comes to mind was one that I collaborated with my mentor teacher at the
American School of Bombay Middle School. The American School of Bombay is an
exceptional school, with technology that is through the roof. The leadership and
students at this school are outstanding which allows teachers to experiment with a
variety of teaching methods. This paper is the result of one such experiment. For a
teacher in training like myself, it was a great opportunity and I grew so much as an
educator from it.
A leadership role I assumed at the American School of Bombay was an
experimental unit on using gamification, or game-based learning, as intrinsic
motivation in the classroom. According to the Oxford Dictionary, gamification is
The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition
with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online
marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service. In this
example, the service is learning. According to author Wendy Hsin Yuan Huang,
gamification has been found to increase interest and therefore student learning (p.5,
2013). Hsin Yuan Huang writes about the fact that most cases of low involvement and
drop outs are due to lack of engagement in the classroom (p.6). The co-teacher I taught
with had spent a tremendous amount of time researching what gamification can do for
the classroom, many of what aspects can be found in Vicki Daviss article, Gamification
in Education. We took into consideration and we decided together to compile a unit

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August 3rd, 2014

plan based on it. Administration was supportive of his ideas and told us to have fun.
We assembled a six week unit on evolution in our 7th grade classroom, and intertwined
gamification into it. Motivation and engagement are usually considered prerequisites for
the completion
Since our endeavor was somewhat complicated, I will explain it in sections.
Firstly, the unit itself. For our project, students were allowed to work independently
throughout the entire unit. Our school was a 1 to 1 laptop school so this made
everything work very smoothly. My co-teacher and I created dozens of activities and
projects that met each evolution standard students would learn. All students were
required to learn each standard, but they had the freedom to choose which project they
completed in order to do so. Projects ranged from creating a website about sexual
dimorphism to writing a poem about the Cretaceous Period. All standards for the unit
were listed online in a google doc for students to see, so they were familiar with the
standards and which ones they needed to complete. During class time, we teachers
circled the room helping students in any way and constantly probed students with
questions to get their brains going.
As for the game, we called it Planet eXtinction: Evolve or Die. Students started
with three animals in the environment of their choice. Throughout the course of the
unit they were able to evolve (divide into two by making a new species, or, evolve a new
trait, in turn making their creature more fit in that environment). Essentially, it was
modeling evolution but we let the kids have fun with it, creating their own creatures.
Their basic understanding of evolution and our help allowed them to replicate it fairly
well, without many crazy misconceptions and things throwing their evolving off track.
Three times we had a death day where we would roll die and random creatures would
go extinct. The students loved this, and were always excited and hurrying to use their

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August 3rd, 2014

coins the day before to make as many creatures as possible. After death day our
classroom was always full of mixed emotions. Some animals radiated while others bit
the dust. Students showed emotion accordingly. The point of the game was to have the
most creatures in the end. Students received awards for who had the most creative,
dominant, biggest, craziest, etc. creature.
As students achieved the standards necessary, they were able to earn points. In
our unit, we used coins. We offered students gold coins (these were worth actual points
towards their grade) and silver coins (these points were freebies, only used for the
game). Both coins counted towards points to use for the game. Each time students
earned 5 coins, they could create a new creature or evolve an existing one. The more
coins they obtained, the more creatures they generated, which resulted in a better
chance of winning. Students soon realized it may be better to invest their money in a
creature by spending lots of coins on adaptations or traits rather than creating twenty
five animals that all had only one trait. There were many other rules regarding the
dominance and fitness of animals that came into play as well.
Students had the choice to do the minimum amount of activities and earn only
their gold coins. This was fine, it meant they had met the standard. However, if they
did extra work and earned silver coins, it meant they had a better chance of winning in
the unpredictable world of Planet X. Naturally, students in a 7th grade classroom are
very competitive and wanted to do all they could to beat their friends. Getting extra
silver coins meant doing extra meaningful, authentic work and earning those coins.
Students were able to see the amount of points they had on an online spreadsheets, as
well as how many coins their friends had in order to increase competiveness.
We had students emailing us immediately after school on Fridays asking
questions about assignments. This made me ecstatic (but at the same time weary, as

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August 3rd, 2014

many students at this school loved their homework a bit too much!). I was flooded with
emails afterschool and on the weekends with questions about the activities and how they
can earn more coins. I remember a student coming in the first Monday morning and he
had finished almost all of the assignments we had created over the weekend, and earned
a whopping total of 115 coins. We had to make more activities and projects related to
the standards just so the kids could keep going!
Overall, the game was very successful. This game in particular was more effective
with the boys, as the girls did not care so much about creating their own evolved
monsters (but they did embrace it more than not). They enjoyed the freedom of choice
when deciding what projects they wanted to do. We did find that allowing the students
to work independently to earn silver coins and evolve increased their interest and grade
percentage. It was a win-win.
From doing this project I learned many things. Something I thought about a lot
while doing it was how lucky I was to have such great students. Going from a very low
level class of high schoolers in Iowa to high level 7th grade students in India was a huge
change. There was no way I could implement a project like this in the school I was
prior. I think a lot of it comes down to classroom management and respect. It is very
clear that my co-teacher was respected and loved by the students. He does not have to
do much to keep them on their feet. They are constantly wanting to learn more and
always go out of their way to do so. His fun personality, humor, and passion for science
brought out this interest in the students. I am so grateful to have had him as a mentor
teacher during the course of my student teaching experience. I would like to think his
creativity and ideas have rubbed off on me and I carry them with me now. If it were not
for this experience in Mumbai, I am afraid I would never have been introduced to the
wonders of gamification so soon in my teaching career.

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August 3rd, 2014

I learned that if I want to implement a project like this into my future classroom,
I have to be the same way. I must trust students, and they must trust me back. The
ability to do something like this is the product of effective classroom management.
Forming relationships built on trust, responsibility, and accountability are necessary. In
order for students to work independtly on projects they need to prove it to you. My
hopes are I can provide an environment where all of this is possible.
As far as professional learning goes, this project went further than just my coteacher and Is classroom. Our gamification unit addressed our professional learning
objectives about creativity as one of the 21st century skills. We presented our work at our
professional learning meetings to share with all. Many teachers were interested in
starting something like it in their classroom. Shortly after this the librarian
implemented gamification into reading and earning points for how many books one
reads. Since it was my student teaching experience, I was soon off on my way. The
knowledge of this opportunity will forever stay with me. My co-teacher, on the other
hand, went on to share his experience at many conferences across Southeast Asia. He
has been asked by several people to share his ideas at more as well. Since this time, my
co-teacher has been able to implement many games into his classroom such as Attack of
the Zombies, Game of Stones: Extinction is Coming and many others. Since our
experience, he has decided to make it more of a science experiment and track the data
better to use for future research.
This project relates to the Teacher Leader Model Standards in many ways. I feel
it is basically the epitome of the standards. We advocated for student learning by using
research and collaborating together. We used technology via google docs and 1 to 1
laptops. Creativity was at its peak as we designed the game and created activities for the
unit. Everything we did during our unit honed in on student interests and focused on

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August 3rd, 2014

making them want to learn. From doing this project I know the implementation of
games into our classroom can provide an authentic learning experience for students,
because I have witnessed it. To this day when I think of the project we did my jaw drops
at how perfect everything was. I truly feel that gamification may be the answer to many
things in the realm of education; we just have to get there.
References:
Davis, V. (2014, March 20). Gamification in Education. Edutopia. Retrieved August 1,
2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/gamification-in-education-vicki-davis
Definition of gamification in English. (n.d.). gamification: definition of gamification in
Oxford dictionary (American English) (US). Retrieved August 1, 2014, from
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/gamification
Wendy, H. Y. (2013, December 13). A Practitioner's Guide to Gamification of
Education. . Retrieved August 1, 2014, from
http://inside.rotman.utoronto.ca/behaviouraleconomicsinaction/files/2013/09/Gui
deGamificationEducationDec2013.pdf.