I titled this post Mistake #1, because I am certain that I will make many more mistakes while gamifying my class. One thing I've been learning about is the aspect of "Fair Play," which basically just means making sure the game is fair for the players. This is quite intuitive: of course, we all want to play a game that is fair. If we have no chance of winning, if the game is way too easy, or if the opponent cannot be beat, we will give up. Obviously! But I'm a teacher, not a gamer, and I didn't really think about this very, very important aspect, when designing my STAAR Wars app . I knew I wanted to divide each class period into two teams, but I hadn't thought much about how to make it fair. I let the students decide whether they wanted to be on the "Dark Side" or the "Rebel Forces." When the teams ended up uneven, I gave the disadvantaged side a multiplier. I made this worksheet worth 5 points. So, for the disadvantaged team, I g...
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