Game-based learning produces strong performance results and engagement. Playlists help teachers manage and deploy games for their classrooms to achieve those results. They are an incredibly versatile tool that provide strategic lesson plan architecture, real-time data and control, and performance analytics.

To help teachers we’ve compiled a list of the top seven (and a half) ways teachers can use playlists with their students:

1. Introduce science content – LoL playlists can provide a great introduction to new concepts. Each game contains a significant amount of content, so students can visualize new science concepts in a fun, interactive environment before listening to a lecture or opening a textbook.

2. Mid-unit refresh – After a few days of teaching the same topic, it can start to get stale for students. Reinforce and invigorate your lessons by deploying a playlist in the middle of the unit. Keep it fresh with a little fun!

3. Homework – Looking for take-home exercises that don’t involve a worksheet? Now you can build a playlist and set it to launch at a future date, for a set period of time. Your students might even want to do their homework!

4. Monday warm-up – It’s amazing how much students can forget content over the weekend. Use games and quiz questions in Legends of Learning playlists to ease them back into the swing of learning science for the week.

5. Assess progress – One of the best features playlists offer are assessment questions. This item lets you gage student knowledge and progress anywhere in a playlist; before, after, or in between games. You will know whether students are getting the larger lesson or not in real-time.

6. Stations – If your students are rotating through stations, between labs and other activities, playlists are a perfect addition; you can build them to last as little as ten minutes. This is a good option for classrooms that do not have one-to-one device access.

7. Test Review – Study guides, jeopardy, and practice tests help students prepare for tests from many different angles. Playlists add another element, mixing engaging gameplay with strong subject matter review.

7.5. Past unit recall – In that same vein (thus, the 7.5), if your students need to review foundational concepts you taught them months ago, launch a playlist for their blast from the past! This can be particularly useful for highlighting NGSS Crosscutting Concepts (CCC), which you can read about on our blog.

You can learn more about playlists on our help site. Log in today, and create a playlist for your next lesson!

The new playlist feature from Legends of Learning gives teachers the ability to deliver engaging middle school science games while closely monitoring student achievement and growth. Here are five reasons to use playlists in your class this coming year:

1) Real Time Data Dashboard – The live teacher dashboard displays student progress in real time. Each student has a dot that moves along the playlist and shows their answers to the questions from the games.

Once the playlist is over, the data is automatically stored in your account. Since every playlist is saved, you can see how student and class performance improves over time.

2) Differentiated Playlists – Creating multiple playlists allows your classroom to divide into cohorts based on academic performance and play the games most appropriate for their academic level. For example, you can create three different playlists for your advanced, proficient, and basic students, or even create a unique playlist for every student in the class. Unlimited playlist creation makes personalizing content easy.

3) Total Teacher Control – Three features give you control of the gaming experience:

• Playlist length – You can set the timer for 3-60 minutes of game play. If you want to shorten the playlist in live mode, click the stop button and every student’s game will end.
• Dot Color – Dots turn red if your students stop playing and wander into a different tab. This makes it easy for you to know who is actively engaged in game play.
• Pause Button – In live mode you can pause all students simultaneously. This ensures you have every student’s attention while you teach.

4) Student Voice – If you offer students Free Play, they can choose which games to play within the current lesson’s learning objective. There are two ways to deploy Free Play:

1) Launch a playlist with extra time built in after the games are completed. When the students finish their assigned games, they can pick which games to play with any remaining class time.

2) Free Play occurs when you launch an “empty” playlist with no games in it. In that case, students can choose whichever games they want throughout the time period.

Free Play Option 1

Free Play Option 2

5) Scheduling Playlists – This soon-to-be deployed feature will allow you to schedule a playlist to deploy automatically at any time. For example, on Monday you could set a playlist to launch on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m., or on Friday you could set a playlist to launch at 2:00 p.m. and end Sunday night at 7:00 p.m.

This feature lets teachers deploy playlists for homework, or provide substitute teachers playlists as an assignment.

As you think about ways to introduce game based learning in your classroom this coming year, consider using playlists from Legends of Learning. With all the features playlists offer, you can be confident that fun will translate into real academic growth. Sign up and start creating your playlists today!