Assignments and Quests - General Procedures and how you use quests.

S’abonner

Hi all,

I am in the preparation stages of my first year using Classcraft! I am very excited, but I am still in the process of mastering the system before school starts in the Fall. To give you context, I teach 7th grade science and I have anywhere from 25-30 students in each section. I have a lot of EL students, and literacy is a major focus at my school.

 

My question: Is it realistic and beneficial to base my entire unit on a quest? This would mean all assignments completed in my class would be a part of a quest for the entire school year.

For example, my first unit, other than intro to school, would be all about chemistry. The first of 4 major standards in the unit is states of matter. We would start the unit by checking the quest - the introduction would introduce our phenomena/ guiding question for the unit and/or topic. Students would then read a background story that would introduce our inquiry based lab. Students would mentally step away from the quest at this point to focus on the lab for a few days, but their lab reflection/write-up would be submitted on classcraft through the quest. They would then begin work on the "core path" of the quest. This would include all the various assignments and activities we would do that week to learn about and practice the topic (deep reading text and answering questions, edpuzzle video, practice problems, etc.). These assignments would be required and used as formative assessment, but I am hoping the quest feature will also allow them to be fairly self-paced. This way I am free to walk around and help the students that most need it. I would have various remedial/reteaching side paths for students that do not earn a proficient score on various parts of the core path, and for students that finish quickly and get ahead, there would be various challenge paths for enrichment that they could choose between. For example, in states of matter the challenge paths could include plasma, sublimation, pressure, etc. These challenge quests would help students earn a minimal amount of XP just for exploring the resources, but they could choose to complete a challenging assignment (it would require them to show mastery of that challenge topic) to earn a big GP reward. I also hope to have at least one challenge path per quest that facilitates the student going back and helping other students or teams that are still working on the core path. Once I decide enough students have mastered the core path for us to move on, we would do a boss battle and summative quiz, followed by the next topic in the unit. There would be a summative test at the end of the unit.

Is this how other teachers use quests? Or are they usually used as an occasional tool?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

 

9 commentaires
Date Votes

Hi Lisa, yes the way you've described how you would like to use quests is exactly how most of us use it. You might want to include some type of checkpoint in your quest where you will meet with the students. Also use formative assessments throughout to check for understanding. For example I teach math and I always include a mini quiz, either using Edulastic(traditional) or flipgrid where students record themselves explaining a problem. Then if they did not demonstrate mastery then they get a roadblock where they will have to meet with me.

Hi Lisa, yes the way you've described how you would like to use quests is exactly how most of us use it. You might want to include some type of checkpoint in your quest where you will meet with the students. Also use formative assessments throughout to check for understanding. For example I teach math and I always include a mini quiz, either using Edulastic(traditional) or flipgrid where students record themselves explaining a problem. Then if they did not demonstrate mastery then they get a roadblock where they will have to meet with me.

Thanks for the advice Cathelyne! I will definitely build in some checkpoints, and I love the idea of doing brief conferences with students that are stuck!

Once the students acquire basic knowledge, it will become easy for them to move on. They, then, require just a push and that's what you have to do in your next topic Lisa.

I'm new and all the videos I can find on content are from the older version.  I would like to see how students will submit work in the quests.  Can't seem to figure that part out.  I like what you are doing, please share your quest when you complete it.  I am using Classcraft for my tech classes, I also teach science and math, but doing it for all three is a bit of a stretch at this point. 

Hi Jeff,

When setting up your quest you will have to enable assignment and select a due date. When students do the part of the quest that has an assignment, they will see the A+ tab appear on their quest browser (you do not see this on the teacher's side). From there they can upload their work, add links, upload pictures, or type. The best way to experience it is to create a fake student account in your demo class and add a quest to that class so you can see the student's view.

Also check out https://marketplace.classcraft.com/en for tons of quest shared by teachers. Also here is the one I'm working on for the first week of school on growth mindset and getting the kids familiar with some web2.0 tools. Another teacher shared her b2s quest. I kept the story and changed everything else. https://game.classcraft.com/import/quest/NdLEX9iCfdJMRceGd

Lisa, I have an almost identical situation and I use the quests exactly as you described. I use branching pathways to differentiate based on reading level, since I have from 1st grade to 12th grade readers. It works beautifully self-paced, but I definitely recommend having a "check-point" quest at some point where you look in on them. My entire year's content is on quests, with units consisting of about eight quests, each with about 10 steps.

Jeff, all my quests end with what I call a ProveIt! where they show me that they have mastered the content within the quest. The ProveIt! is turned in on Google Classroom, Showbie, in paper, or even verbally sometimes. This can be somewhat time consuming, but since all the students are working at their own pace I am mostly freed up to assess their progress with them and give them feedback right then and there. They get XP simply for competing the ProveIt!, regardless of how well they did. I also give bonus XP based on their ProveIt! grade, and they are not eligible for this XP unless it is turned in on time. All my Random Events and classroom rewards are based on GP, AP, or HP, meaning that the only way they receive XP is from completing quests. The result of this is that their Classcraft level is essentially their grade, which is nice since I am not overly fond of traditional grading. A higher level character directly translates to greater mastery. I am trying this out as a new thing this year, so I am still not sure how it will go.

Here is a sample of what my quests often look like. I take no credit for any of the images or videos used or linked; copyright concerns are something I am trying to figure out with the quests still. Circulatory System Quest

 

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