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Learn four critical pieces for gamifying your classroom or professional development for deeper engagement.

Gamification is one of the big buzzwords right now in education. It is the art, and sometimes the science, of applying game theory in non-game contexts like business or the classroom. Why would educators want to do that? Engagement. Active users are more engaged with the content and so retain more of what they are learning or doing. When education is gamified, students see a connection between their work and positive feedback, and so they become more eager and willing to learn and contribute.

There are four critical pieces in order to be successful at gamifying your classroom or professional development session. Try adding one, two, or all of these:

Accelerated feedback cycles - Everyone wants to know how well they are doing, whether it's in a race or diagramming a sentence. Providing more rapid and scheduled feedback can help the learner to be more engaged by knowing exactly where he/she stands. The feedback can be badges, points, or silly hats; the reward itself isn't important. It's how regular and often the feedback is provided that really matters. And keep in mind that feedback doesn't just have to come from the teacher or session leader; it can also come from other learners.

Clear goals and rules of play - To be successful at a game, you have to know the rules. So, in the classroom or the workshop, be very clear about expectations and rewards and where the journey will take them.

A compelling narrative - We all love stories. Make the learning into a story by personalizing it with goals that relate to the narrative. Are we learning about adding fractions so that we can help a prince rescue a princess from a tall tower? Are we creating examples of differentiated lessons so that the ogre will release all of the students he is holding captive? What is the story for what is happening?

Tasks that are challenging but achievable - There should be short-term goals along the way for players to reach. Don't make them too easy, as the gamer won't work for them. But also, don't make them out of reach so that he or she becomes discouraged and quits. Make sure that the tasks are scaffolded, moving from simpler to more complex, allowing the player to grow his skills as he moves through each assignment.

To see a great example of educational gamification, check out what sixth grade teacher Michael Matera did. He divided his classroom into houses, guilds, experience points, and badges in a competitive gamified environment and saw engagement and learning skyrocket. He explains how he did it and a few of the problems he encountered on his website on gamification. And here's the way a high school biology teacher gamified his classroom with Class Dojo, Google Sites, and Sheets.

If you want additional ideas, check out the book The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game or this free-to-members webinar on September 23. And our quarterly magazine TechEdge was devoted to game-based learning in the May 2014 issue; feel free to read it online here for more resources, tips, and tricks.

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Gamifying Your Classroom or PD - TechNotes Blog - TCEA

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Learn four critical pieces for gamifying your classroom or professional development for deeper engagement. Gamification is one of the big buzzwords right now in education. It is the art, and sometimes the science, of applying game theory in non-game contexts like business or the classroom. Why would educators want to do that?

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How to Gamify Professional Development in Your School

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How to Gamify Professional Development in Your School

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How to Gamify Professional Development in Your School - A.J. Juliani

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A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking at the 2015 Technology in Action Conference (TIA) held in Denton, Texas. The conference is always great and led by a stellar team in Denton ISD. It's a local conference for me, and a great time to connect with other educators in my area. During my time there, I noticed something outside the teachers' doors: badges! I had heard about this amazing, gamified professional development plan implemented in Denton ISD, but to see the badges outside the door really brought it home. I snapped the picture below that day and posted to Instagram and Twitter. It became a very popular share, and other friends were asking me for more information and links. So I decided to highlight my friends in Denton ISD in this post, AND their fantastic idea!

Gamification and the use of badges is nothing new, and many of us have found ways to use these in adult learning and professional development. In my experience, teachers love badges! The Instructional Technology Team in Denton ISD, ( Dwight Goodwin, Ross Garison, Leslie Taylor and the other amazing team members), created a Google Site of self-directed PD for teachers. Through this program, teachers are rewarded for stepping outside their comfort zones with fun badges to display outside their classroom door.

The Badge Website

The first thing that teachers see when visiting the is the video below, a creative little to explain the purpose and process of the badges.

Badge Site Introduction Video

How it Works

From here, the teachers have CHOICE in their learning. They can choose from topics around Google, Apple, Assessment, Communication, Miscellaneous, Flipped Class and Social Media. Within each section, they can choose what they want to learn AND how they want to learn it: through a self-paced course or video, or they can request a face-to-face training. Voice and choice make this a powerful, differentiated professional learning experience.

What I love is that they didn't reinvent the wheel. They linked to online courses in the Google training center, and video tutorials that are already out there. That makes something like this so much more doable! And considering how fast technology changes, we have to share our resources! Share is caring, right?!

The badges for each option have to be earned and applied for individually. These badges were created with , one of my favorite Google tools. (Check out my infographic on 10 Ways to Use Google Drawings in the Classroom .) Badges do not have to be complicated and time consuming; they just need to reflect the accomplishment! Looking for other options for badges? See my post on 5 Awesome Resources for Badges in the Classroom .

The other thing I absolutely love about this program is that teacher badges are printed and displayed outside their door! No one ever said badges had to be displayed digitally. I love this because the accomplishment is recognized by other teachers and staff, and I'm sure the students notice these as well! (FYI, I'm also a big fan of printing badges for students. They can be displayed on a bulletin board, the cover of their notebook or locker!)

This professional learning idea can quickly transfer to the classroom with student-centered challenges and badges. Make it meaningful and be sure it is aligned to your learning goals. It's a win-win!

The bottom line: Choose what works for you. If you spend all your time reinventing the wheel and designing the perfect badge, you will never get it done! Go for it!

Tweet: If you spend all your time reinventing the wheel and designing the perfect badge, you will never get it done! Go for it! - @ShakeUpLearning

What are you favorite strategies to shake up professional development? Please share in the comments below!

© Shake Up Learning 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kasey Bell and Shake Up Learning with appropriate and specific direction to the original content on ShakeUpLearning.com. See: Copyright Policy.

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Take PD to the Next Level with Badges - Gamify Professional Learning

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Gamification and the use of badges is nothing new, and many of us have found ways to use these in adult learning and professional development. In my experience, teachers love badges! Through this program, teachers are rewarded for stepping outside their comfort zones with fun badges to display outside their classroom door.

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Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

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Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

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Creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy. These are the ten emotions that game players experience, according to Jane McGonigal in Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World. Do teachers report feeling any of these emotions when they describe professional development? No (except for maybe relief when it's over).

Conquering Technology

My colleague Kathy Garcia and I decided to create a professional development program that inspired teachers to feel these emotions while learning and developing skills toward more effective use of technology tools. We created a professional development game, accessed through the iTunes U platform, called Conquering Technology. Our teachers learn skills like taking advantage of the iPad's accessibility features, digital workflows, creating their own iBooks, using Google Apps, and authoring their own iTunes U courses.

The critical component for success was for teachers to become self-motivated in advancing their skills. For inspiration, we incorporated badges, awards, levels, gift cards, and public recognition, as everyone is uniquely motivated. Our focus has remained on positive motivation rather than a fear of negative consequences.

Conquering Technology was created for the novice-to-advanced user. Starting with basic skills, faculty members progress through challenges with support resources available any time, anywhere. While some challenges develop general iPad skills, our focus revolved around using the iPad effectively and creatively in our 1:1 iPad educational environment. We didn't have too much difficulty creating a list of skills in which our faculty should be proficient. Our challenge was determining how faculty would demonstrate their knowledge. We called each skill-learning unit with assessment a challenge and grouped them into levels, which in turn were grouped into episodes.

Motivation and Recognition

Each level has an associated badge that is displayed within faculty profiles on the Cathedral Catholic High School website once all challenges have been completed. We wanted faculty to be publicly recognized for their hard work, so when they pass all the levels in an episode, they earn a $50 gift certificate. In addition, they receive an award that is presented to them either in front of their class or at an all-faculty meeting. Public recognition is a key component -- not only do we want to publicly acknowledge our pride, but it's also critical in motivating some people.

All faculty members are expected to complete one episode per year. As an iPad school, we find that iTunes U is the perfect tool for delivering our professional development game. iTunes U is an outstanding platform for delivering a wide variety of content to an iPad. Videos, links, apps, documents, audio -- anything from the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBook Store can be easily added. Even more importantly, any training content that we create ourselves can be easily delivered to our learners.

We use a private course with our faculty but have made the first two episodes public. The third episode is still in development and should be published before the 2015-2016 school year begins.

The first episode focuses on how teachers can use the iPad for themselves. The second episode focuses on how the teacher can use the iPad to manage his or her classes and engage students. The third episode will focus on how teachers can help students to use the iPad to create. The fourth will focus on helping students connect to the wider world (e.g. publish content, connect with other learners or professionals, etc.).

Accessible Resources

As technology trainers we saw several positive outcomes.

First of all, there was a marked increase in teacher motivation to participate in our technology training. Even reluctant learners were willing to take part, and many of them reported that they appreciated the opportunity to have all of the necessary resources available to them on their own time. We saw much more buy-in than we expected across our whole faculty. We cannot seem to publish episodes fast enough for our most motivated teachers. This is a great problem to have.

In addition, teachers worked on the game on their own time. Even though we have professional development time set aside once a month, teachers were working on their own during prep periods, after school, and even on the weekends.

Another benefit is that more teachers would actually use the resources that we created. Kathy and I have made many tutorial videos and screencasts that unfortunately were not used as widely as we hoped. Now that they are part of Conquering Technology, they are being used more frequently by teachers.

Anyone can do this. Many of you probably already are. Let's share and collaborate! Our courses are public and available for free in the iTunes U catalog. Use your iOS device to subscribe to Episode 1 and Episode 2. We're proud of our work but are always eager to see what's working in other schools as well. Please let us know about any technology-conquering PD you've used or created.

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Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD | Edutopia

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Creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy. These are the ten emotions that game players experience, according to Jane McGonigal in Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World. Do teachers report feeling any of these emotions when they describe professional development?

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Sometimes we act like professional development is hard. It doesn't have to be. Sometimes we treat professional development like a chore. It should be fun, engaging, and wanted.

As a K-12 staff developer I've spent the past two years giving professional development and receiving a lot of professional development. I've seen the different needs of administrators, teachers, and students. I'm lucky to work with another great staff developer, Dianne Krause. And since the beginning of this year we've been saying...there has to be a better way to reach more teachers.
Because if you reach more teachers, you reach more students.
We were kicking around ideas to "flip" our PD this entire year, but the lightbulb moment came during an actual professional development session that we took from Philip Vinogradov at our local IU.

Phil gave a session on Gamification, and let me tell you...this guy is a Google Certified master gamer! Dianne and I left the session knowing that we had to use this "gamification" process to boost our professional development within our district (by the way check out his Gamification Helpout here).

If you've read my blog before, you know that I don't spend too much time "thinking" about making a change, I try to jump in and "do it". Sometimes that backfires, but usually it gives me clarity to start working and creating as soon as the idea hits.

In the three weeks since Phil presented on Gamification, Dianne and I have been able to gamify and flip professional development sessions in our district...and are preparing to launch next week.

I want to walk you through the seven steps we took to Gamify PD in our school, so you can jump in and do it too.

Step 1: Make Sure There is a Why?

We are running a 1:1 initiative at our school. It has brought a lot of change. Combined with the usual instructional changes (think Common Core and new curriculum), and a new schedule change, our teachers have a lot on their already filled plate. Yet, I think this has made PD more important than ever before. Our job is changing, and we need new methods of keeping up and innovating.

Our "why" is based on the fact that two technology staff developers struggle to adequately work with 700 teachers. We also want to help push towards real innovation in the classroom. In order to do that, we have to make sure all of our teachers have a base level of knowledge so those that want to innovate have the tool set at their disposal. Therefore, our Gamified PD pathways are all "101" learning opportunities where teachers can get the base level of knowledge. The next level will come in the form of a meeting and planning with either Dianne or myself.

Another WHY is that it allows administrators and department members to see who can help as well. If a new Math teacher is looking to do Flipped Lesson they can see which one of their peers are already doing this successfully and ask for a classroom perspective and some help moving forward. In essence, we are building capacity for PD to be a school-wide effort...not just the effort of two people.

Step 2: Break Down the PD Sessions You Do Frequently

Once you've identified your WHY (which is arguably the most important step), it's time to break down the PD sessions you do frequently...or what to give frequently. For us that centered around:

Microsoft Office

Google Apps

Smartboard/Smart Notebook

Screencasting

Flipped Classrooms

Wikispaces

Windows Movie Maker

Common Core

Lesson Planning

These were the basis of most of our meetings and planning sessions. And for us to move past teaching these tools, to using them for deeper learning opportunities, we needed to build learning pathways around the tools - so our meetings could be better spent planning for innovation.

At this point Dianne and I knew we needed to create online learning pathways in the simplest (and easiest to access) way possible. Although we could have built out this Gamified PD Process in a learning management system, we chose to use Google Forms as the tool of choice. I'll explain why in Step #3.

Step 3: Build a Simple Learning Template

For each of the above PD Sessions, we typically showed our teachers what the tool could be used for, and then tailored our PD for their specific classroom use. In order to "flip" this learning experience we had to build a "simple learning template" that would go over the basics of the tool/concept and then allow for a more individualized learning task.

After looking at some different models and talking about what would work for are purposes (this is important) we decided on this template for each pathway:
Section #1: Let's Learn - This is where we provide videos, tutorials, articles, and other ways to learn about the tool and/or concept as it can be used in the classroom. Section #2: Prove Your Understanding - A simple task (sometimes a quiz) that would show us that they watched the videos/tutorial and read the articles for a base level of understanding. Section #3: Performance Task - This task is the teacher actually creating something they could use in their classroom with the tool/concept and then sending us proof of their work.
The framework allowed us to change it up depending on the tool/concept but also kept a structure that the teachers would become used to and know what to expect. We planned for each pathway to take around an hour of work. Some might be a bit longer and some might be quicker.

Finally, we built out this template in a Google Form, and Dianne made a folder in Google Drive where we could build all of our pathways (more on that in Step 5).

Step 4: Create a Pre-Survey

The purpose of the pre-survey was to gauge where each teacher was on an individual basis. When Dianne and I meet with teachers for the first time we can go through this survey, or they can go through it together, and we'll see the results.

It will help us not only see what each individual teacher needs, but also see where as an entire staff we can focus on. We built the pre-survey using a Google Form:

When it was finished the final form looks like this, starting with their basic information like Name, Building etc:

We then ask teachers to go through the tools/concepts that we built our pathways around and see where they are. They can choose from a Scale from 1-5 that start's with "it's confusing" and goes to "I'm a master". Again, using Google Forms will allow us to see data on the back-end and see which tools our teachers have already mastered.

After they've finished the survey of the tools, they've earned their First Badge. We also let them know that Dianne and I are always available for questions about any of these missions/pathways. We are here to support in any way possible. Once they submit here, we'll take them to the list of all the other missions/pathways that they could earn a badge:

...and although it doesn't look too pretty on Google Forms with all of the URLs, it works. Now they can choose any pathway based on their survey, and what THEY WANT to learn. We are not forcing, but instead giving a number of 'on-demand' opportunities.

Using Google Forms to build this was super easy. As you can see from the screen shots, it is filled in with all of the pathways finished, but we created the pre-survey before actually building the pathways/missions. Then we linked in the form on the final survey page.

Step 5: Build the Learning Pathways with Real Tasks

This step took the most time. We had to build out each learning pathway with the best resources we could find (or create ourselves) and then create real tasks that the teachers could do to show mastery.

I eagerly told Dianne I'd be finished my pathways in a week...and of course I wasn't even half-way done by the time she finished building her pathways! It was a back and forth collaborative process. We'd build a pathway, share it with each other, and then talk about what worked. Dianne is a MIE Expert Trainer (we are in a Microsoft 1:1 initiative) and she took the Office pathways, I took Google Apps, and then we split some of the other pathways. But the entire time we could look and help out on what the other was building.

Because we had created the template structure for the pathways ahead of time, it was simple to make each of the "missions" look similar. Now that we have them finished, we can constantly go back and tweak based on the feedback we get from our teachers on how much time it took to complete etc.

Again we built the pathways in Google Forms. Here is what a pathway looks like for the teacher:

Then they start the learning process:

Section #2 is all about proving your understanding:

And finally section #3 is the performance task:

The final screen brings them back to the area where they can choose another PD learning pathway and earn another badge:

So, it did take some time to build all of these pathways/missions...but completely worth it. Google Forms allowed us to connect it all together in an easy way.

Now we had to Gamify it!

Step 6: Gamify the Process with Badges, Certificates, Leader Boards

This is where Phil's session helped so much. We want to make this type of Flipped PD fun and engaging. We also wanted to reward teachers who are taking the time to improve their craft, learn a new tool, and use it to create a lesson for their class.

We planned on giving "Learning Badges" for each pathway. For this, we used ClassBadges.com and also Dianne made a nice template in PowerPoint for us to create some custom badges with our tools.

After a teacher completed the pathway, two things would happen:
First, we would check for completion and then send them the Badge through email (or our LMS) that they earned. Second, we would update the "Leader Board" by putting another badge by that teacher's name.
The "Leader Board" is only accessible if you want to see it, and we are keeping in on a District only document that they can access. We are also planning on sharing out each marking period who has acquired badges.

The reason for the badges and the leader board is to Gamify it in a way that supports learning and doesn't attack those that aren't going through the pathways and missions. I don't want any negative peer pressure to effect this gamified PD. In fact, that's why we are not making anything about this process "required". It's also why we are giving so many options. Choose what YOU want to learn, and if you have any questions or need any help...we'll be here.

We've got a couple other ideas. One is offering Level 2 and 3 learning pathways for each tool/concept. When you've successfully earned your 3 badges, we'll present you with a District Certificate of Mastery.

Another idea is letting those who earned certificates be trainers, or giving some other PD privilege (open to ideas). The leader board might also be imported into our learning management system as we move forward.

At this point we feel badges, the leader board, and certificates give us a lot of room to grow and improve the Gamified part of this professional development. It's always going to be a work-in-progress! Here's what some of the badges look like:

Step 7: Launch it the Right Way

Ok, so now we've got everything set up and ready to go! Next step is launching it at our school. This is where Dianne and I have had to hold back a little bit. We want to launch this Gamified PD the right way. Here's what we did.

1. Showed the pathways to different teachers in our district and got their feedback.

2. Soft launched the idea to teachers about the gamified part and took their feedback.

3. Showed the entire pathway process to our Tech Director and got his feedback.

4. Meeting with administrators to explain "the why" and how it will work in terms of professional development time etc.

5. Plan to launch fully at a staff meeting with all stakeholders present.

The key here is to bring everyone into the fold. If the message of "the why" gets twisted, then people could take this type of PD the wrong way. If everyone is not on board to launch together, then it can also get messy. Finally, real teacher feedback is essential to building pathways that will actually help.

This idea of flipped PD, learning pathways, badges, and leader boards are going to be completely new to most of the people in our schools. Yet, if they understand the "why" chances are they will give it a shot.

Timing is also perfect because we can launch it this Spring and make some tweaks for summer. Then the plan is to use the feedback we get from the survey (and which pathways teachers complete) to make our "back-to-school" in service sessions extremely helpful and useful.

If you've read down this far then I hope you can try to take this idea to your school in some shape or form. We surely aren't the first school to Gamify or Flip our Professional Development, but I want to keep my readers updated on how it goes this Spring and into next school year. Would love to hear your feedback in the comments below!

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How to Gamify Professional Development in Your School

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Sometimes we act like professional development is hard. It doesn't have to be. Sometimes we treat professional development like a chore. It should be fun, engaging, and wanted. As a K-12 staff developer I've spent the past two years giving professional development and receiving a lot of professional development.