This document discusses the use of gamification in the classroom to motivate students with dyslexia. It examines two special education teachers' (T1 and T2) use of gamification and their badge systems. T1 aligned badges with literacy activities and the teacher defined and awarded badges. T2 co-created badges with students for challenges in different areas and students awarded themselves badges. Effective principles included making learning public and focusing on student challenges, while limitations included not supporting working toward finer goals or linking interventions to classroom behavior. Gamification shows potential but should inform rather than limit innovation or individual student needs.

1. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 731724.
W H AT I S T H E R O L E O F T H E T E A C H E R ?
GAMIFICATION IN THE
CLASSROOM

2. http://iread-project.eu iRead Project @iread_project
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 731724.
4 Year Innovation Action Project led by UCL Knowledge Lab
• 17 partners from industry and education
• Beginner readers; struggling readers; EFL
Aim – to develop personalised learning technologies to
support reading skills

3. GAMIFICATION
18/07/2017 3

4. WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?
• The use of game elements in non-game contexts
• Points: rewards for achievements
• Badges: unlocking tangible reward achievements
• Challenges: setting of specific tasks
• Leaderboards: scoring in relation to others

5. INTRODUCING CLASS DOJO

6. GAMIFICATION - OBJECTIVES
Look at:
D. Gooch, A. Vasalou, L. Benton, and R. Khaled. 2016. Using Gamification to
Motivate Students with Dyslexia. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference
on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16). ACM, New York, NY,
USA, 969-980.
• What are the pedagogical differences between the two
SEN teachers?
• Which principles are most useful and why?

7. IDENTIFY DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN THE TWO SEN
TEACHERS (5 MINS)
• What are the different categories of achievements
represented in the design of their badges? Can you
group the badges?
• Who created the badges? Teacher or student?
• Who awarded the badges? Teacher or student?

8. DIFFERENCES
T1 T2
Badge
categories
Creation of
badges
Awarding of
badges

9. DIFFERENCES
T1
• Aligned badges with
literacy activities e.g.
spelling pack, high
frequency words
• The teacher defined the
badges – there was not
discussion on what they
meant
• Teacher gave a reward
when a child did well
T2
• Created badges for areas of
student challenge e.g.
behavioural, literacy,
motivation, soft skills
• Children and teacher co-
created badges
• Children awarded badges to
themselves
• Used the badges to
extrinsically motivate one
student

10. DISCUSSION (5 MINS)
• What in your opinion was effective or ineffective use of
technology and why?
• Focusing on effectiveness, what are the main principles
and how do they reflect theories of learning?
• Can these principles apply to all students? Are there
exceptions?
• Bring your own experiences with Class Dojo or specific
students into this discussion

11. • What does technology have to offer above and beyond
current practice? Efficiency, not changing practice
• Making it public? Positives or negatives? Embarrassment.
You can compare yourself to the average
• Focus of the badges – behavioural or learning?
• What are its limitations? E.g. building on errors and working
toward finer goals. Does the system support this?
• What are the potential for linkages between class and
intervention? E.g. class behavioural is negative, versus our
study where it was an area to work toward
• Links with theory – informing interventions but not limiting
innovation or needs of specific children
MAIN POINTS
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12. http://iread-project.eu iRead Project @iread_project
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 731724.