Students compete in writing battles judged by AI

By James Riley, Douglas Park School

One of the ways I have used gamification in my classroom is simulating arena battles between characters that children have written (as character descriptions). To assist, I used ChatGPT and AI art generators.

Firstly, this ChatGPT prompt was shared with students:

“I will give you two characters. Make a secret score for each. Award a point for a simile, a metaphor, an alliteration, describing appearance, describing personality. Also, award bonus points to characters who are interesting and would not usually fight in an arena. I will give you the first character. Then I will give you the second. Then I want you to write a short story about the characters battling in an arena, they should not fight to the death, but there should be a clear victor. The winner of the battle should be the character with the highest score.” Students wrote character descriptions trying to meet as many of the success criteria as they could. They also used an AI image generator to make a picture for their character. The following is an example of student work:

The Vegan Teacher

‘The vegan teacher loves vegetables but hates babies, even cute ones. She loves nature and animals. She has green sparkly vegetable eyes and blonde hair. She has a quick reaction speed but she is very weak. She has been gifted to talk to chickens. The only bad part about talking to chickens is that she will turn into one for an entire day! And when that happens the vegan teacher will be as weak as hitting you with a feather. The vegan teacher has a heart of carrot gold with spinach sprinkled on top. She has a pet pig named Petty. Petty is very emotional when someone angers her she gets angry and if someone makes her sad, well you get the point. The vegan teacher is also a professional carrot thrower.’

Place bets

The students were paired up and the characters were entered into ChatGPT with the original prompt. Before the result was displayed students were able to ‘place bets’ on who would come out on top. This was essentially a rich discussion between students about which piece of writing had met the success criteria the best.

ChatGPT then wrote the story weaving together the two character concepts and determining the outcome. For example:

The Vegan Teacher v Glue Stick

‘The Vegan Teacher and The Glue Stick were both competitors in the annual Vegetable Throwing Championship. The competition took place in a large stadium, where the contestants had to throw vegetables at each other until one was deemed the victor.

The Vegan Teacher was excited to participate, as she was a professional carrot thrower. She had trained for months for this event and was determined to win. On the other hand, The Glue Stick was a bit nervous, as he had never competed in such an event before. The competition began, and The Vegan Teacher quickly took the lead with her accurate and powerful carrot throws. The Glue Stick tried to keep up by using his glue stick to stick vegetables to the wall, but it didn’t work as well as he had hoped.

Despite his struggles, The Glue Stick didn’t give up. He used his quick reflexes to dodge The Vegan Teacher’s carrots and started throwing vegetables of his own. The Vegan Teacher was surprised by The Glue Stick’s sudden burst of energy and was caught off guard.

The two competitors continued to throw vegetables at each other, with The Vegan Teacher still in the lead but The Glue Stick slowly catching up. Suddenly, The Vegan Teacher made a mistake and accidentally hit Petty, The Vegan Teacher’s emotional pet pig, with a carrot.

The Glue Stick saw how upset The Vegan Teacher was and decided to take a break from the competition. He approached her and offered to help her take care of Petty until she felt better. The Vegan Teacher was touched by The Glue Stick’s kindness and accepted his offer.

The competition was put on hold while The Glue Stick and The Vegan Teacher took care of Petty. They realized that they had more in common than they thought and became good friends. In the end, there was no clear winner of the competition, but both The Vegan Teacher and The Glue Stick were happy to have made a new friend.’

Afterwards, students had time to revisit their work and make adjustments to help ensure success in future rounds. They also suggested that next they wanted to use ChatGPT to simulate a cooking competition and they would write chef characters and food descriptions.

James Riley teaches at Douglas Park School in Masterton.

... Continued from p17.

Sack toss games

Sack toss games can be picked up for an affordable price and often include a scoring feature. My games pack down flat meaning they take minimal space but are easy to put together.

These games follow the same structure as any other. I will often create slides that have questions or tasks that relate to what we have focused on during the week. This works best with only a few teams. Splitting the class in half with mixed abilities allows students to support each other. If teams get the answer correct they can toss to earn points. A piece of tape or a chalk line on the carpet is an easy way to mark the toss line.

Stinky Feet

It sounds gross I know but it is one of our top games. You can create a physical version of the game. I used black sticky notes to ensure they cannot be seen through. There are also amazing free templates online. Group your students, give them the question and if they meet the expectation they select a sticky note. This game stands out because of the mystery of the points. You can have positive points, negative points, multipliers, dividers, give points to other teams, steal points from other teams and Stinky Feet (lose everything).

Grudge Ball

There are many versions and names for this game. I use Grudge Ball because there are definitely grudges when it comes to this game. Each team starts with 10 lives. They could be X’s on the whiteboard or something more elaborate like a castle that is under attack. If students get a question right they instantly get two hits they can use on any other team. They then have the chance to earn more kids by taking a shot. I use a piece of paper tossed into a basket or bin. Set two lines they can throw from. If they score from the 2-point line they can take four hits total. If they score from the 3-point line they take five hits. This could mean taking out half of the lives from one team or spreading it out across the other teams. If teams run out of lives they need to get a question right and score from the 3-point line to get five lives back on the board and continue the game. If they get the question wrong, you can include the rule they give another team two lives.

This game has been so popular I created a video of the rules recently.

Other game ideas

I have created other games using noughts and crosses. I have run four across noughts and crosses, a game where teams need to win three games at once to win and noughts and crosses where each section has a mini noughts and crosses game inside.

The most important thing in gamification is to approach teaching and learning playfully. Think about how you can add fun to a lesson that engages your students. Learning doesn’t need to be serious to sink in and be retained.

Jordan Shallcrass teaches Years 5 and 6, and is Digital Technology Lead Teacher at Rolleston School.

Follow her on Instagram (instagram.com/miss_ shallcrass/ ) and TikTok (tiktok.com/@ miss_shallcrass).