Playing with Purpose to Build Better Student Teamwork
By John Meehan, Educator (@MeehanEDU)
In a dog-eat-dog world, it can be tempting to create classrooms that live and die by the age-old Darwinian maxim of the Survival of the Fittest. Let’s face it: traditional school systems have spent a lifetime conditioning our students to focus only on the grade they’ve received — regardless of what compromises they make in order to get them. But as a result, the joy in the journey ultimately ends up taking a back seat to being the first and the fastest player to reach that all-important finish line. And when we focus only on the grade, the learning invariably suffers.
Like some weird and only-slightly-less-dystopian take on The Hunger Games, it seems that we’ve created this toxic system where students compete with one another for top marks in a sort of war of each against all. After all: colleges only accept the best of the best, right? With coveted titles like “Valedictorian” up for grabs, why on earth would you ever help out a classmate when your ultimate class rank might actually end up being worse off as a result? And so we live in a world where anxiety becomes the law of the land. Shortcuts are simply a part of the game. It’s only cheating if you get caught.
Sadly, this sort of mentality often bleeds over into the kinds of “games” that we put into play in our lesson plans. Seeing Amy Schneider crush the competition on Jeopardy might have been a hoot to cheer for on our TV screens — but in a classroom, dead runaways aren’t nearly as fun to watch as they play out live… especially once you realize that you’re one of the unlucky players stranded on the roster of a losing team that doesn’t have a shot of winning. And far too many online tools only make this “rich get richer” scenario that much more problematic: for all their multicolored glitz and glamour, many review games simply throw shiny coats of paint on what’s ultimately no more than a low-level multiple-choice exam. The results: a high-tech kill-or-be-killed battle royal arena where students blindly resort to smashing a button as fast as they can simply to gain points, not knowledge.
By failing to see the flaws in the systems of old, we’ve only created a new world order of “review games” that amount to no more than brightly colored Scantrons. Race to the right answer. Beat the other guy into submission. Mash buttons. Bully. Rinse. Cheat. Repeat.
We can do better.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no question that our students are hungry for authentic socialization with their peers. And as a teacher, author, and instructional coach, a huge part of my job is keeping my finger on the pulse of trends in education and trying to help teachers apply the best of what we’re learning in our instructional design. (Is it any wonder why the most popular app of the Pandemic era was a cooperative game called “Among Us?”). The truth is, there’s a lot that educators can learn from the kinds of games that our students are playing. The best games captivate our attention for hours and find myriad ways to challenge us to take calculated risks and try new and innovative strategies — regardless of whether we win or lose (Wordle anyone?). We feel smarter when we succeed. We try to work harder every time we sit down to play. We celebrate our successes both in-person and online, and we warmly invite others to play along with us.
In short: well-designed games are a Trojan Horse for serious learning. And gamification — the applied science of understanding what makes great games work, and the use of those same design principles in creating non-game things — is very much here to stay.
But merely adding points to an activity doesn’t make it gamified. It makes it gimmicky.
Authentic gamification leverages the science of why human beings crave autonomy each time they enter into an ever-changing cycle of risk and reward. It begins with empathy. It grows by understanding intrinsic motivation, and it responds to the millions of successes and setbacks that arise from the in-game decisions that players can make in real-time — all while constantly applying age-appropriate degrees of positive psychology at every stage of the game to create a never-ending runway of choice, challenge, and a perpetual state of flow.
Make no mistake: it’s serious work designing a really great game. But when we do it right, there’s no limit to the kind of engagement we can create.
If you’re looking for a better way to play, here’s one small change you can make that can really help your students feel more connected to one another and the rich content that awaits in your lesson plan.
Step 1: Stop Racing for the Right Answer
Here’s how you build a bad classroom game: the teacher divides students into competing teams and each team appoints a single player to represent them as the teacher asks a review question to both groups. The first student to “buzz in” with the correct answer wins a point for their team, and their opponent is left feeling absolutely worthless — all the while going back to their group trying to avoid the awkward stares of their teammates or the haunting chorus of their inner monologue, echoing with some serious negative self-talk — perhaps to the tune of “Who Let The Dogs Out?” (“Who let the team down? You! You! You! You! You!”)
Step 2: Start Playing with Variable Based Grading
Here’s how you build a better classroom game: The teacher divides students into competing teams and assigns each of them the exact same task. “Working with your teammates, you’ll have the chance to draw a giant picture that incorporates as many details from the textbook as you can find. Be creative and talk it out as you go! This might not be an art class, but feel free to use as much color and detail as you can. Dig through your textbooks and find as many examples of (thing X) to include in your picture as you can in the next 10 minutes. Be prepared to explain your decisions, and make sure to include page numbers!”
Perhaps this is an elementary school science class, with competing teams sketching photos of a unit on undersea life.
Or a middle school social studies class making multiple copies of an action-packed timeline of their favorite battle in the American Revolution.
Or an AP English classroom with rival squads pulling in all sorts of text evidence to illustrate the differences between life on West Egg and East Egg in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
The fundamental gameplay is exactly the same regardless of who is playing this game. And note we didn’t say “be the first team to find five examples.” We said, “take the next 10 minutes to bring in as many examples as you can.”
Suddenly, everybody on the team has an equal chance to contribute at the same time. You’ve got a perpetual motion machine of artists, researchers, readers, decision-makers, and student presenters working together for the full duration of the game. All teams are a flurry of activity throughout the competition, and you have the chance to float between groups offering positive feedback on the spot — giving every student the chance to take pride in the work that they are doing. No more dead runaways. Excitement right down to the wire. Rapt attention as team after team turns their eyes away from their own creations to soak in the greatest hits of what their classmates have made. That epic feeling of a thrilling finale where it comes down to just one tiniest detail that leaves you (the judge) with the power to declare one team the winner (or better yet: the chance for all students to vote on which team they think deserves the win — and why!), and a very real chance for any and every player to walk away from the game feeling like they were the MVP.
Want to play again? Heck yes!
“Alright, gang — we’ll do this again tomorrow. Make sure to read chapter 2 for homework!”
And just like that: energy is through the roof. Everyone feels like they had a chance to feel seen, heard, and connected with their classmates. And once students know that their efforts will be on display for their peers, the quality of work products inevitably climbs higher and higher with each passing day. The rising tide lifts all ships.
Now that’s a game-changer.
John Meehan (@MeehanEDU) is an English teacher and Instructional Coach in Arlington, Virginia. He is an ASCD Emerging Leader, a past member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Teacher Advisory Council, and the author of two books on classroom gamification: EDrenaline Rush: Game Changing Student Engagement Inspired by Theme Parks, Mud Runs and Escape Rooms (2019) and Fully Engaged: Playful Pedagogy for Real Results (2021) — the latter of which he co-authored with Michael Matera, author of eXPlore Like a Pirate: Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich and Elevate Your Learners (2015). In 2021, John and Michael co-founded EMC2Learning.com, a membership community that offers school and site based professional development, virtual coaching services, and an annual access to an ever-expanding library of more than 300 game-inspired templates, lesson plans and activities for classrooms of all ages.
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