Gamification of games in PE for motivation

Although this isn't an example of traditional gamification, because I was already using a TGFU approach in practical lessons, I thought i'd share how I encouraged learning through modifying games so they were slightly more like the 'games' that students play today.

I have just started teaching a hockey unit with a challenging group of year nine students and thought i'd adapt a game of minefield (students have to dribble through an area without hitting the cone) to become more relevant and engaging for the youth of today.  I modified the game so it was based on 'Call of Duty' which most of the boys are obsessed with at the moment - and changed my hockey drill to 'Call of Hockey - modern ball-fare'.  This led to blowing boys up with landmines and snipers on
the roof with 'quick scope' who would take people out to be 'ghosts' and stand on a cone to do '360' manoeuvres on students dribbling through 'no-mans land'.  The boys were happy to play along and wanted to continue this warm up drill for the whole lesson!!  Each round we invented a new layer of 'COD' lingo and chat about gaining 'intel' and getting to the other side!  If you used the wrong side of the stick you were tasered and if it touched your foot you were also taken down.  By the end of it all the students were improving with dribbling and their skill had definitely improved.  If I had just asked the boys to dribble around a cone and back 50 times I don't think it would have gone as well - this generation of students don't walk around the streets playing with a 'stick and a hoop' and then go home to read a book, so a TGFU approach is the key to engagement and progression.

In my last lesson I have 12PD and we are looking at 'move to improve' 2.2 where students have to look at biophysical principles to learn a skill.  The students decided to use a left handed (or opposite hand) throw to analyse and improve.  We set up a game of handball, with modified rules - the boys changed it so it was like ultimate frisbee, and you were only allowed to throw with your opposite hand - while I filmed the individuals with 'coaches eye' on the ipad for later deconstruction, the rest of the class carried on with the game.  Every now and then I would stop the game and introduce a modification, going on the success of the COD intro for year nine we decided to bring in a 'power-up' rule.  The boys were struggling to score with a left handed throw so we agreed on 5 consecutive passes to different team members would enable a 'power-up' and you could throw with your strong hand.  The boys then wanted to bring in 'trick shots' like COD, and a 360 goal was worth double points!  Here is a clip of the final goal to claim the win - these are 17 yr old boys who are sometimes a bit hard to get anything out of, they were excited and trying their best to involve the whole team so they could get a 'power-up'!  As you can hear from the clip I was quite excited as well!  What a great day!!!