Cleaning Kingdom: An Application of ChoreWars to the Woodworking Lab

As a final project for my DSM graduate class, I was tasked with gamifying my classroom. I chose the platform of ChoreWars because it offered an easily accessible and user friendly experience that my students could quickly gain a grasp of. This game was designed for application in the 7-12 Woodworking Lab. I feel that middle school-9th grade students may be most open to participation in the game. The set up process was simple, and the game took little time to create once all of the brainstorming on paper had been finished. This is a great creative outlet for teachers who want to try to gamify their rooms to add a fun and competitive aspect among their students. Below is a quick outline of the process that my gamification took. This would also be a handy way to introduce the idea to administration, or to show other teachers in your field what new and exciting things you are doing.

Game Name: Cleaning Kingdom

Link to Game: Cleaning Kingdom

Audience: Woodworking Students

Learning Goal(s) of the Game:

• Students will demonstrate professionalism in maintaining a clean and safe work environment.
• Students will communicate and work productively with others.
• Students will establish roles of responsibility and show initiative to participate in lab maintenance.
• Students will adapt to varied roles, responsibilities, and and expectations.
• Students will work effectively in a climate of ambiguity and changing priorities.
• Students will deliver quality performance on time.
• Students will interpersonal skills to influence and guide others towards a goal.
• Students will demonstrate accountability for individual performance.

Game Description:  

• Why you selected this theme/game:
• One of the biggest struggles we face while working in the production labs is clean up time. We use at least 5 minutes at the end of each class to reorganize and clean the lab so that the next students will come in to a well maintained space and can start working right away. It is the student's responsibility to maintain the lab, tools, and machines as part of participating in the course. ChoreWars gave an easy way to organize the cleaning tasks, and also allows for easy tracking of points. The game is simple to log in to, and students can input their points very quickly so that class time is not being consumed. I am hoping that by making some of the more tedious jobs worth more points, students competitive nature will drive them to choose these tasks in order to stay ahead.
• Learning goals align with Iowa Core Curriculum Employability Skills Standards which is something that we are trying to prepare students for in vocational training classes.
• Tell about progressing through the game:
• Students earn varying amounts of points based on the cleaning chore that they choose to do each day. Students will fill out a physical work log daily and will then be given an opportunity at the end of each week to input their chore points by selecting the jobs that they have completed throughout the week. By having the physical work log, students cannot claim tasks that they have not completed because their points will not properly align. As students progress through the game, they will encounter different monsters that they will have to battle including: SplinterQueen, DustpanMan, LazyClassmate, DustintheWind, GlueMan, SlowDuster, etc. If they beat these monsters, they may win treasures that include a free pass for skipping cleaning for a day worth 25 experience points! More tedious jobs have a higher risk of facing a monster, but that also means a higher chance of gaining the treasure.
• What will be the outcome of playing this game:
• This game will help students to develop employability skills that align with the Iowa Core Curriculum Standards. These skills will prepare students who want to go into the workforce by exposing them to communication, responsibility, and expectations that reflect that required in a working environment.
• Include an explanation about how you incorporated
• Experience Points
• Students will gain a varying amount of experience points for each quest that correlates with the time, energy, and skills involved for the completion of the task.
• Leveling Up
• As students level up, according to chorewars preset levels, they will be able to beat the monsters that they run into more easily. This will allow opportunity for treasure wins which should motivate students to take responsibility for more difficult tasks.
• Rewarding Mastery
• Once students reach certain levels, they may be asked to complete “special quests” which will be uploaded and assigned directly. Special quests can be certain cleaning jobs, or assisting in motivating students who are lagging behind.
• The Leaderboard
• The leaderboard will be used as a motivator for pushing students to try new jobs. Leaderboard will be displayed in classroom on a bi-weekly basis so students can see what their progress is.

Directions for Playing the Game:

Students will sign up for a cleaning task for each day of the week on a physical work log (this can be completed daily or have them sign up for the entire week worth of jobs on one day). As the week progresses, teacher will observe students completing clean up and mark whether they have accomplished their job to a satisfactory level. At the end of the week, students will log on to Chore Wars to claim the tasks that they have completed that week. Teacher will update leaderboard bi-weekly to be posted in the classroom for students to see how they stand in the ranks of the class.