Compete with yesterday

The mechanic

The leaderboard that resets

Weekly or resettable point leaderboards can be an effective way to use gamification in the classroom, because they give students a fresh start and keep competition from becoming something only the highest-performing students can win. When a leaderboard runs for an entire semester, students who fall behind early may decide there is no point in trying, because they have no realistic chance of catching up.

Resetting weekly lets students compete again regardless of how they performed the week before. It also gives teachers opportunities to introduce bonus challenges, reward improvement, and recognize different types of achievement. In my classroom, this fits nicely into a gamified system where students earn points for completing assignments, participating in challenges, and demonstrating mastery of science concepts.

However, leaderboards become counterproductive if the focus shifts from learning to collecting points. Students may rush through assignments, prioritize easy tasks, or get discouraged when they repeatedly see themselves near the bottom. I would rather use weekly leaderboards alongside individual progress tracking, achievement badges, and team-based challenges, so students have multiple ways to succeed. Students could compete for the most points earned that week while also working toward personal goals or contributing to a team.

The key is making the leaderboard a motivational tool rather than a public ranking of who is the best student. A reset gives everyone another opportunity to compete, but meaningful progress should still carry over.

The goal is to get students competing with yesterday’s version of themselves, not just with the kid sitting next to them.

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Ethical AI

A practice partner, not an answer key

Using AI to generate quiz questions for self-assessment can help students take ownership of their learning. Instead of waiting for a teacher to create a review, students can use AI to generate practice questions, adjust the difficulty, and identify where they need more work. In my physical science classroom, students could ask AI to create questions about atomic structure, forces, or chemical reactions, then use their answers to work out which concepts they understand and which still need attention.

This encourages students to engage with material actively rather than rereading notes and hoping the information magically sticks. The real benefit is that they can practice at their own pace and get immediate feedback, without waiting for the teacher to grade another stack of assignments.

However, AI-generated questions are only useful if they are accurate, aligned with what students are expected to learn, and appropriately challenging. AI can produce incorrect answers, confusing wording, or questions that test memorization when students need to demonstrate deeper understanding. Students may also convince themselves they understand a concept because they recognize the correct answer in a multiple-choice question.

I would encourage students to ask AI to explain why an answer is correct, provide a similar question with different information, or create an application-based problem that requires them to use what they learned. Teachers should also model how to verify AI-generated content rather than treating it as an unquestionable source.

Ultimately, AI should function as a practice partner, not an answer key. If students use it to identify gaps and then work to close them, it supports meaningful learning. If they simply generate questions until they find a set they can answer, they may be practicing confidence rather than competence — and those are two very different things.

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The read

Better instructional design, not less screen time

McGraw Hill — Global Education Insights Report 2026

The report makes a point that I think gets lost in a lot of conversations about education and technology: technology should support learning, not become a replacement for it. McGraw Hill surveyed more than 1,300 educators globally and found that 42% believe students’ ability to focus has declined over the past five years. It also found that 95% consider critical thinking and problem-solving important for students’ future careers, with real-world applied learning scoring the same.

As a teacher who enjoys incorporating technology, AI, robotics, and gamification into the classroom, I agree with the general message. However, I think we need to be careful about blaming technology for problems that may have several causes. A student staring at a screen is not necessarily learning, but a student building a robot, programming a simulation, or using AI to investigate a scientific problem may be doing some of the most meaningful learning of the day. The real question is not whether students are using screens, but what they are doing with them.

One of the report’s biggest strengths is its recognition that human connection remains essential. Around 73% of educators believe AI cannot replace social-emotional support, and 72% say it cannot replace teacher-student relationships.

That sounds obvious to anyone who has spent time in a classroom, but apparently we need a global survey to remind people that teaching involves more than delivering information. AI can generate a lesson plan, create practice questions, and help differentiate instruction. It cannot fully understand the student who suddenly stops participating, recognize every reason a student is struggling, or build the kind of relationship that makes a student willing to try something difficult. At the same time, the report could go further in explaining how educators can use AI to strengthen those relationships. If AI saves teachers time on administrative tasks, that time should be reinvested in students rather than used to squeeze another task into an already overloaded workday.

My biggest criticism is that the report raises important concerns without fully explaining how schools should address them. McGraw Hill reports that 59% of educators want guidance on generative AI and 54% prioritize protecting student and school data. Those are important findings, but schools need more than another set of guidelines telling teachers to use technology responsibly. They need training, time to experiment, equitable access to tools, and clear expectations about what responsible use actually looks like.

I also think we should examine the source: McGraw Hill is an education technology and publishing company, so its findings deserve consideration alongside independent research and classroom evidence. The survey included educators from multiple countries, but the report acknowledges that responses were not weighted to reflect population sizes — so its global percentages should not automatically be treated as representative of every education system.

Overall, I agree with the report’s emphasis on balance, critical thinking, and human connection. But I would argue the solution is not simply less screen time or more AI guidance. It is better instructional design. If students are passively consuming content all day, we have a problem whether that content comes from a textbook, a laptop, or a teacher reading slides. Technology should give students more opportunities to create, investigate, collaborate, and solve real problems. Otherwise we are just digitizing the same old classroom and wondering why the students are still bored.

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Field notes

The bulletin board became a game board

One of the things I enjoy doing in my classroom is finding ways to turn something ordinary into something students actually want to interact with. Take bulletin boards. Most classrooms have them, and most of the time they become a place where old announcements go to retire.

I started looking at mine differently. What if a bulletin board could become part of the game instead of just a decoration? Since I already use gamification in my physical science classroom, I began turning my bulletin boards into game boards that connected to our zombie apocalypse theme. Instead of simply posting standards, vocabulary, and student work, I wanted students to see their progress, make choices, and feel like they were moving through a challenge. Suddenly the board wasn’t just something hanging on the wall. It was part of the classroom experience.

The idea fit naturally into the way I approach teaching. My students were already earning points, completing challenges, and working to keep their academic health above the point where they became “zombified.” The bulletin board gave that experience a physical presence in the room. It made progress visible and gave students something to connect with beyond a grade in the online gradebook.

The best part was that it didn’t require another expensive piece of technology or a complicated new platform. It required rethinking something I already had.

That reinforced an idea I keep coming back to: sometimes innovation isn’t about adding more technology to a classroom, it’s about looking at what we already have and asking a better question. A bulletin board doesn’t have to be a place where learning goes to be displayed after the fact. With a little creativity, it can become part of the learning itself — and maybe even keep a few students from joining the zombie horde along the way.