CALA writing instructor Estelle Erasmus recently wrote about her teaching process in WIRED — and it’s far from what you’d expect.
In her article for the magazine, Erasmus talks about her journalism class for high school students — conducted virtually through the NYU SPS High School Academy — and what steps she takes to make sure Gen Z is paying her attention. Some of her strategies include, but are not limited: Kahoot, virtual field trips and scavenger hunts.
“I had to step up my game to keep Gen Z engaged and challenged,” Erasmus writes. “There are huge social benefits to gamification for learning for high school students.”
Interactivity and competition, Erasmus writes, are the best ways to encourage problem solving. She uses ‘scavenger hunts’ to have her students dig up sources for articles, competitive sites like Kahoot for quizzing on class content and may even take an educational trip to Youtube every now and then. Her lectures, too, have been cut short since gamification has proved fruitful.
“Right away it was more interactive than five days of straight lecturing, and going through that process helps us to learn about the real industry of publishing,” said Carley Doktorski, Erasmus’ former student at the Academy, who’s now NYU-bound and planning to major in journalism.
Read more about Erasmus’ gamification process here, and sign up for her Spring 2021 CALA course, “Writing Parenthood,” here.