Incorporate More Play With Gimkit

@LisaBerghoff

I am so fortunate that I get to be in many classrooms over the course of the school year. When talking about their students, teachers will often say something like "this is a really good class". I somehow know what they mean, but also would like to spell it out more clearly. What makes a group of students a "good class"? It tends to boil down to two things, and these things are often confused as the same thing. These two things are engagement and compliance. I would argue that you need some amount of both to make a good class but I think it is important to define these terms.

Compliance refers to performing required behaviors such as following rules or completing assignments. Engagement is referring to a cognitive and emotional investment in learning involving active participation, curiosity, and a desire to understand. The argument could be made that you need a level of compliance in order for real engagement to happen. That is why it is so important to really think about what we know about our students when we are preparing lessons and activities. Will they be able to follow the rules and will they be engaged are two main questions I would ask. Then, what tools do I have to maximize both of these?

That's where Gimkit comes in!

What Is Gimkit?

Gimkit is a classroom game-show style platform where students compete by answering questions on their electronic devices. Instead of earning points, students earn virtual currency, which they can "invest" during the game to boost their score. Games can be played live or can be assigned as independent practice. Students connect via game codes  and can play in a web browser on any internet-connected device. They can compete against each other or collaborate in teams or as a whole class. When teachers launch the game, they choose from a variety of play modes and set in-game parameters. In KitCollab mode, students help build the game by submitting questions before play begins. Teachers can view and download detailed student reports after every game.

Gimkit gets a rating of 4/5 on Common Sense.

How Do I Get Started with Gimkit?

Start by going to Gimkit.com and logging in with your school Google credentials. That will take you to our premium license.

The games are called Kits and you can start from scratch or you can click Discovery and search from more than 30,000,000 kits that have already been created. Yes, you have the ability to edit and adjust to make it your own.  You can also begin by importing or creating a set of flashcards. The flashcards created from Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory are perfect for this.  

If you are starting from scratch, click Add Question and choose from multiple choice or text input. You can add images, audio, and equations to both types of questions.

Of course, there is now an AI generator that will help create questions for you as well. Enter a prompt, and watch the questions appear.

What is KitCollab?

If you really want to level up the engagement of your lesson and go beyond simply review, use KitCollab and have students create the questions. You will have the opportunity to decide which questions actually get added to the kit.

What Happens When The Gimkit Game Ends?

After your game ends, whether it was live or assigned outside of class, you have the opportunity to view a report. This report has a breakdown by question, overview by student, and also some quick statistics that can give you valuable insights into how well your students understood the material. This makes Gimkit an ideal formative assessment tool.

Ready to give Gimkit a try? Let me know. I'm happy to help.