Introducing Classcraft’s third Quest of the Month! Each month at Classcraft, we’ll be choosing one awesome quest to promote. Our pick for the month of June is Todd Ghormley (@mrghormley), the creator of the quest “Introduction to Genetics,” a lesson plan for his biology class. You can import his quest here.
If you use Classcraft, you can submit quests you’ve created to be the next Quest of the Month on our submission page. Quests are personalized, self-paced, choose-your-own-adventure lessons for students. Our goal is to spotlight the amazing educators who inspire us and share creative, teacher-made content with our global community of forward-thinking educators.
Take it away, Todd!
What grades and subjects do you teach?
Todd Ghormley: Biology, grades 9-12
How long have you been teaching?
Ghormley: Five years
Where do you teach?
Ghormley: Wyoming Indian High School in Ethete, Wyoming.
What made you decide to use Classcraft?
Ghormley: A friend of mine turned me onto Classcraft after I began exploring how to implement gamification to my curriculum to boost engagement.
What kinds of things are you passionate about?
Ghormley: 21st-century skills, student engagement, learning for the sake of learning, physical activity, scientific inquiry.
Why do you love the quest you created? What makes it special?
Ghormley: I really enjoy this quest series because of the differentiation and remediation that it allows. I like that if a student is still struggling with some concepts, they are able to take side quests to reinforce the material, or they are able to complete the side quest to level up their character faster. I had a lot of fun writing the storyline that went with it. I recommend this quest series if you want to teach an introduction to genetics and have a way to have many opportunities for students to show what they know.
What did your students think of your quest? How did they react?
Ghormley: They liked the opportunity it afforded them to practice their skills in a setting where their success was more self determined, than teacher determined. They thought the story was fun and were offering suggestions on how I could make it a little better or what I should change for the next time a make a quest story.
What’s one of your favorite things about Classcraft?
Ghormley: I really enjoy the Class Tools. My students really enjoy using the Volume Meter to gauge their level of volume during classroom discussion. I like it as a way to reward following proper noise procedures and [for] giving students who need a visual representation clear feedback as to how loud they are allowed to be in a given instance.
News and Updates