Hall will teach two literacy classes for graduate students in which she will use experience points, a nontraditional grading method that has become a nationwide trend.
“They get experience points for everything, so you can do the minimum that you need to get an A in the class, and you’ll get so many experience points for that, or you can go above and beyond because you can get experience points that don’t count toward your grade,” Hall said.
“Experience points lead to achievement points, and achievement points lead to being able to buy items in an item shop, like you would be able to in a video game.”
One of Hall’s factors in motivating students is a leaderboard that will show rankings of experience points, something she said would spark the competitive side of some students.
“I’m really interested to see if students will engage with material beyond what is required for a grade because normally as a student you show up and wonder what you need to do to get an A, and you do what you need to get an A, and if that requires you to replicate the way I think, that’s what you’ll probably do,” Hall said.
Scott Haselwood, an educational technology doctoral student at Oklahoma State University, previously taught at the high school level in which he incorporated a similar system in his classroom. Haselwood has also implemented the same principles in college courses.
“At some point when you’re teaching a gamified lesson the students have a lot of choice and when students have choices they tend to put more into it,” he said.
“For the teacher, it really walks the kids through what hopefully creates a very strong foundation because they’re practicing things and they can fail those things without being punished for it.”
