The two-week crunch is on! You know the one I'm talking about...the wake up one beautiful, or slightly rainy in this case, summer morning and you realize students will be walking into your classroom in T-minus 14 days...TWO WEEKS!
Yep, that is today. I have officially two weeks of summer until my tenth year as a middle school teacher begins...and oh what I year I have planned!
The two week crunch time is nothing new after 12 years of teaching, but this year is slightly different. My plan to gamify my class will officially beginning today when I send out 167 "secret" envelopes to 167 incoming 6th graders. I am excited and TERRIFIED all at the same time!
I know the kids will be intrigued by the postcards, I've done my research and shared it with several kids and have gotten a good response. However, the postcard will invite my students to find a secret website link on the postcard to a survey and I am so worried that none of them will try to find it. You can say that this is my first side quest in my game and since my game will be based a lot on students completing these quests on their own for no grade, then this postcard will be an indication of how my students will respond to this new idea...again, I am so nervous. You know I'm going to be waiting at my computer for that first survey to come through...let's hope it comes fast!
Stack of cadet postcards that will go out to 160+ incoming 6th graders...EEK!
Even though I am super anxious for these babies to go out today, I am also so proud of what I have accomplished this summer. I am in no way ready for those 167 young minds to walk through my doorway on August 7th, but I am getting there. I put a lot of work into my planning at the beginning of summer with building my game website, which is not complete, and creating a plan for my game, which is also not complete...but oh well! This is me jumping in with both feet. Hopefully I don't drown 😂
Phyllis Nefler and her troop had it wrong - Badges are NEEDED and they will be a must in my classroom!
One of my all time favorite movies was the 1989 cult classic Troop Beverly Hills. I think my friends and I watched this like a million times in our youth and I admit I get overjoyed when it plays randomly on cable TV. One of the most famous lines came from when the troop was stripped of their patches, "Patches? We don't need no stinkin' patches!" I love this line! It comes at a time in the movie when the troop has worked really hard to earn badges for mastering different skills and the evil Wilderness Girl Leader, Velda Plendor, has declared that the badges don't count because the troop did not earn the badges in the typical way a Wilderness Girl should. Here is a classic scene of the troop earning their patches...
When I sit back and watch this scene now as a teacher, I think it is brilliant! It shows how any student can take the content they are to learn and not only master it, but connect it to their own lives to make it relevant to them. They are making real-world connections...no matter how "out-of-the-box" their thinking is.
As teachers, sometimes we think there is only one way for students to show content mastery. Most often this in the form of a quiz or test. Over my last 11 years of teaching I have come to realize that the sky is the limit on how students can show understanding. Student choice is a HUGE part of this teaching strategy and I am hoping that by incorporating badges into my classroom this year, it will allow students to show off the skills they are learning and gain confidence in my classroom.
My Badge Plan
I've wanted to create a badging system for my science class every since I attended a STEM Conference at Purdue University in 2017. At this conference, I sat in on a session where a college professor talked about using badges with her lab students. She wanted to make sure the students knew the correct way to use specific lab equipment and came up with a system to have students record themselves using the equipment successfully, like How-To Videos you'd find on YouTube. She shared how after grading the videos, students would earn digital badges. Not only were the students more successful in future labs where they used the equipment, but they were enthusiastic and more engaged in their learning. From this moment, my wheels started turning and I knew I wanted to do something similar with my 6th graders.
Unfortunately, my idea about badges didn't happen last year. I bought the stickers, I made the list of badges they could earn, and I had an implementation plan...but it fell to the way-side and I didn't get to it. NOT THIS YEAR! I plan to incorporate two types of badges in my gamified course: mini badges and mastery badges.
Mini Badges
Mini badges will focus on the soft skills that I want students to show growth in throughout the year. Our school has a PBIS system in place and though I was already awarding kids for some of these skills, I decided to make it more prominent. You could say it will be the foundation for my game. I have used the Keys to Purpose Driven Learning, adopted from Michael Matera and Adam Moreno's websites, to coincide with the PBIS system my school currently uses. I took the 10 key words and made a badge for each one. Here they are...
The different badge colors relate to the 4 PBIS attributes we already have in place at my school.
RED = skills related to respect.
GREEN = skills related to organization.
ORANGE = skills related to commitment.
BLUE = skills related to knowledge.
My students will display their Mini Badges on their interactive notebooks, which we use daily. This will give me and their peers a easy way to assess how they are doing in developing this skills. Students can praise their peers and possibly offer advice on skills they might be struggling with.
I also plan to use these badges as part of the onboarding process of my game. Students will go through a "cadet training" period during the first 2-weeks of school. This training period will help them get familiar with my classroom, each other, and the game. I want to use the Purpose Driven Learning to launch a lot of the everyday activities they will encounter throughout the year - vocabulary, article of the week readings, team building activities, sketchnoting, and lots more. I am very excited about how the badges will create a very solid beginning to the year and my game.
Mastery badges will focus on curriculum content and are what I first envisioned implementing when I learned about badging. At this time, I am not sure how many badges I will offer, but my hope is to have at least one for each unit. This would be a minimum of 7 badges; I figured this would be easy to implement on my first year and offer the student choice I want to foster in my classroom.
The first and ONLY badge I've created so far isn't actually related to my science content at all...but it is SUPER relevant to every incoming 6th grader. I present the Locksmith Badge...
The badge description says it all...students will need to show that they can successfully get into their locker to earn this badge. Sounds super simple, right? Funny thing is, this is one of the most stressful skills for 6th graders to master the first couple week of school. I'm hoping that by offering this as a skill, it will hook student engagement and show that badges will be connected to real-life situations. I am prepared that not all students will take the bait, but I am hoping that it will create enough student buy-in to drive the rest of my badges throughout the year.
Mastery badges will also be displayed on student's interactive notebooks. I hope that students display them with pride, but I also hope that they encourage peer collaboration. I see mastery badges as a way for students to seek out help from their peers as they need it. For example: if Suzie is struggling with metric conversions or how to use a metric ruler correctly, then she can look around the room at her peers' notebooks and see who has earned their Metric Mastery Badge. She can then ask for help from Eric who has this badge and Suzie can get the help she needs and Eric can truly demonstrate his mastery over this concept. Viola! Student collaboration 🙌...I hope!
Badges are going to be a HUGE game mechanic for my upcoming year and I am excited that I am finally taking a long awaited idea and brining it to life. I know that anytime I have been presented at earning badges as an adult, it has sparked excitement and ultimately lead to more engagement on my part. I am hoping my students will discovery this same enthusiasm as they travel through my course this upcoming school year.
Podcasts have become my new obsession and I seriously can’t get enough of them! When I started researching the idea of gamification for my classroom, I immediately was directed to the Explore Like A Pirate website. After getting the book and diving head first into the amazing #XPLap community on Twitter, I quickly stumbled upon Michael Matera's (@MrMatera) podcast called Well PlayED (link provided below).
Well Played focuses on how to bring playful learning into the classroom and it is presented in a quick 25-30 minute show. This made it very easy to listen to on my commute to and from school each day. I loved the topic and format of the show so much, that I binged most of the shows over a month long period. It was exactly what I needed to get my brain wrapped around how to begin creating my year-long gamified course. The only problem I ran into was that there were so many ideas in each episode, that I had to resist pulling off the side of the road to write them down. Instead I opted for writing things on napkins at stop lights, stop signs and my driveway...LOL, it got so bad that I actually purchased a little notebook to keep in my car to tame my napkin ideas.
This past Memorial Day, I got in my car to make a 2 hour trip home to Ohio. Instead of listening to the radio, I decided to load my phone up with podcasts. Of course I listed to a view Well PlayEd episodes, but I also loaded a few new shows to try out. I was so happy to see the my enthusiasm for listening extended to different podcast shows and content. I am definitely hooked!
Education Podcasts
As I mentioned, my love for podcasts just started recently and I've discovered more educational podcasts for my own personal growth as a teacher. Below are a few of the shows I have enjoyed and have started to subscribe to. I've provided a link for each one, so feel free to click and start enjoying for yourself.
My next move is to try to possibly incorporate podcasts into my classroom for my students to enjoy. I started to research shows that are both entertaining and informational, but also are appropriate for middle school minds. I'll be honest, it has been hard finding all three of these components...I might find an episode/show that is interesting, but it would definitely go over my students heads. Or I find one that comes across a little too young for them. Either way, I see the potential that podcasts could bring by capturing kids attention towards science in a new medium. Let's face it, most students probably haven't been exposed to them. Below are a few of the shows that I think will work for my middle schoolers and that I hope to use this year at some point; again I provided links.
I highly recommend Brains On! It is super entertaining and I've learned some really cool sciency facts each time I've listened. There was a great episodes on narwhals, the unicorns of the sea, that I forced a friend to listen to with me. At first I felt it might be a little too young for 6th grade, but if I can listen a long, be entertained, learn new things, and laugh out aloud...a lot; then so can my students!
Podcasts are just another great resource that I've discovered in my gamification journey. If you have a favorite show, please feel free to comment below... I will add it to my list. I can't wait to continue to explore the HUGE world that podcasts as to offer for both me and my students.
