Changes to the Quest Based Program for Quarter 3

My students have one week left in the second quarter, and then they immersed in midterms. I've been thinking about what changes I want to make to the Quest program for the third quarter. For starters, I want to make it completely self-paced. Up to this point, students have had to meet certain requirements every two weeks. They could choose which quests to complete on different days, but they had to complete those quests by the end of the two weeks.

Now that my students are used to the structure of the class and the different types of quests I typically assign, I'm ready to set them loose. What might this mean? One student might fly through a year's worth of grammar in a month, and then focus on vocab. Another might dabble in literature for a couple of weeks, then address vocab and grammar together.

I think I will conference with every student to set up goals every few weeks. This will allow me to give them individualized feedback, which will translate in progress grades. I am looking for mastery of material, which is going to look different for different students.

What I particularly like about this setup is the ability for students to truly "win" the class before the end of the year. I have several students who are ready to be set loose to fly. They don't want to be reigned in! If they reach the end early, I can supplement with enrichment material, which will be particularly helpful for those students who wish to transfer out of the Quest program, back to the regular classroom.

I imagine the biggest challenge will be getting students to work through those quests which are necessary but not appealing. I will have to work twice as hard to create quests that engage students in essay writing for the SATs in a meaningful, authentic way.

Game on!

The Mulitiplayer Classroom

What if school was like a video game? What if instead of earning grades, you collected XP and leveled up? What if badges replaced report cards?

3DGameLab makes these ideas reality. Students progress through the class by choosing engaging quests. Teachers reward mastery with experience points.

I have been using 3DGameLab for two months with four English classes. The most time-consuming part is the set-up. I spend about five hours every other week building new quests, using a combination of tools to plan out each module.

I start by brainstorming all the quests I want to include in a given module. For this particular module, I wanted students to balance time spent in Grammar, Vocab, Literature, and in-game. Students in my 7-8th grade class play Pirate101 alongside reading Treasure Island. The literacy value of gaming is not to be discounted!

After determining the point value for each quest, I then plan out the progression using an iPad app called PureFlow. It is crucial to map before building quests in 3DGameLab, because when the quests are built, you need to set the prerequisites to unlock new quests.

 

The final step is to build the actual quests in 3DGameLab. 

 

A fully designed quest looks like this:

Once students have turned in all of their quests, different badges are awarded, which in turn unlock the new set of quests. Every module (2 weeks) students are graded on their progress in Grammar, Vocabulary, and Reading & Writing. The grades are based on the badges students earn (which show mastery) and effort. 

Most of my literature-based quests involve using some type of digital tool. On any given day students can be found updating their blogs, creating comics, recording Tellagamis, annotating literature on an iPad, or making character maps.  Students regularly hop into the game world to compare the world of the game with the world of their book.

I find that using 3DGameLab keeps my students motivated and engaged. In the words of my students 3DGameLab is: "Interesting!" "Fun!" and "Amazing!"