Let’s face it, as teachers, we dread three types of students: The Unresponsive, The “Lazy”, and Disrespectful Troublemakers. In my experience observing teachers as a student and being a teacher, these students are dealt with in two ways. Fix them—which is like punching a wall but the wall doesn’t budge and you end up hurting yourself. Or ignore them—which demotivates them AND the teacher. That’s because we are taught the go-to, logical solution which is to discipline them. Unfortunately, that just makes the gap bigger.

The method that actually works does not seem logical but we’ve been using it at our schools for over 25 years and we’ve seen these dreaded students transform into wonderful students. In fact, we have 1 out of 5 students getting straight A’s as a result (and we don’t screen students). 21st century students need to be engaged differently and in this talk, you will discover how you can transform your class with simple gamification techniques.