Introducing Classcraft’s eleventh Quest of the Month! Each month at Classcraft, we’ll be choosing one awesome teacher and quest to promote. Our pick for the month of February is Arcadia Parson (@TechWithParson), creator of “On a Quest for Currency.”
This is the first in a series of quests from Arcadia Parson that teaches financial skills to middle schoolers. This guided lesson focuses on the history of currency and exploring students’ career interests. Other quests will teach life skills in taxes and budgeting. You can import this 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.
What grades and subjects do you teach?
Arcadia Parson: Technology education for grades six to eight, financial skills (grade seven), game design (grade eight).
How long have you been teaching?
Parson: Eight years
Where do you teach?
Parson: Corporate Landing Middle School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
What made you decide to use Classcraft?
Parson: I was looking for a fun way to engage students, and I am a huge fantasy reader. As soon as my friend told me about Classcraft, I knew it was going to be a good fit.
What kinds of things are you passionate about?
Parson: Gamification, Twitter, video games, My Goodreads Reading Challenge, and snuggling with my dogs.
Why do you love the quest you created? What makes it special?
Parson: I love this quest because it is unlike anything else in the Marketplace. In my district, financial skills is a class that is just assigned to CTE [Career Technical Education] teachers, and we don’t always have experience with it. Over the last couple of years, I have worked really hard to make the class as engaging and useful to my students as possible, and this quest is part of that.
Making financial skills fun for middle schoolers is not easy, and I couldn’t have done it without Quests! I am sure there are other teachers who find themselves teaching this subject and could really use a unit that is already done and is engaging for their students. It is taught at the beginning of my class, so it gives the kids a fun thing to jump right into!
What did your students think of your quest? How did they react?
Parson: My students loved this quest. Most of the tasks they have done in the past, but now that [they’re] self-paced and within the frame of the quest story, my students were far more engaged.
I had several students ask if they could work on it at home and a couple who finished early because they were working on it outside of class! How many financial skills teachers can say their kids voluntarily did homework?!
What’s one of your favorite things about Classcraft?
Parson: My absolute favorite thing about Classcraft is the incredible change it has created in my classroom culture. Not only are kids working together far more than in the past, but they are completing their work on time (or early!) much more than when it wasn’t framed as a quest. Classcraft really is a full engagement tool that keeps even my most steadfastly anti-gamer kids involved.
Quest of the Month