Marked Tree High School - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 56

format. In December 2010, 98% of sophomores taking Biology were passing with
a D or higher, 36% of whom had an A or a B. This is compared to 2009 s 10%

having an A or a B. The increase in scores is in direct relation to questing.

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Each quarter, students must take an End of Course Practice Test. Students must
score 60% to be considered proficient in Biology. The EoC is a comprehensive test.
In October 2009, students were 29% proficient or higher on this exam. In the 2010
administration, 68% were proficient or advanced. At this time, the 2010 students
had been questing for nine weeks. The second administration was given in
December. In 2009, students scored 31% proficient or advanced. The results from
the 2010 test showed that 81% of the students were scoring proficient or advanced.

Not only is questing increasing the percentage of students scoring proficient or
advanced, but it is also increasing the number of students that are advanced in
Biology. In 2009, only 3% of the students were scoring advanced. This year, 55%
are scoring advanced.

Conclusion
Questing, without a doubt, increases student motivation, student attitude, and
student performance. Data proves this fact. Students in my classroom are doing
three times the amount of work that students completed in previous years, and
they are doing it with joy and without complaint. Work that is turned in shows
that the student has spent time and energy on it. All work shows that the student
took pride in completing this work. Allowing students to choose assignments
that they feel they are good at provides an atmosphere for students to extend
their thinking and dive deeper into a topic than ever before.

Questing has provided an opportunity for my students that they never had
before. Through questing, they feel confident in their work. Knowing that they
can succeed in a difficult class makes them want to pursue more opportunities
within that subject. I have several students who would never have considered
taking AP Biology before, and now they have signed up for the class.

My students have asked me to extend questing into other classes. I will do this. I
have already begun planning questing assignments for the second semester of
my Anatomy class. My administration is seeing our students performance

increase by leaps and bounds and because of this is encouraging other core
subjects to incorporate this type of learning into their classroom.

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