Thinking of creating your first quest? Learn just how quickly and easily you can build your lessons! Learn how: - Quests support personalized and blended learning - You can use storylines, learning resources, and tools such as Google - It’s easy to build a quest in 15 minutes using your ideas!

1. Presented by the Classcraft Learning Team
How to Build a Quest in 15 Minutes
Eric Davis & Kinshasa Marshall
@classcraftgame
eric@classcraft.com

2. Agenda
● Quest/Personalized Learning webinar format:
○ Hosted by Classcraft Learning Team
○ Participant-powered!
● Participants make quest element selections
● Why use Quests? — purpose
● How do you create Quests? — process
● Live demo: Build a quest in 15 minutes or less (we hope!)
● Teaser — more quest resources
Welcome and thank you!

3. Maps → You Choose!
A.
D.
B.
C.

4. Story Themes → You Choose
A: Trial of the Adventurer:
Warriors, Mages, and Healers in
their element ...
B: Patches’ Path & Provocation:
Journey through the caverns with
Patches ...
C: The Dread Parallax Dragon:
Slaying a dragon comes at a cost ...

5. Content Selection
MS Math.
Water Awareness: A Drop in the Bucket
Contextualize fractions, percentages, and
decimals by learning about access to
water and your water usage relative to
others in the world.
HS ELA.
A Quest for Plato's Truth
Explore the definition of truth and how
different truths influence your evolving
beliefs.

6. Quest Purpose & Benefits
What’s the point of quests?
● Why and how Quests support personalized learning, blended
learning, and differentiated instruction
● Why Quests?
○ Power of narrative
○ Personalized learning: voice, choice, pace, rigor
○ Differentiated instruction: (-, =, +) and interest
○ Assessment: mode of presentation, data on individual students
and cohorts, self/peer/teacher
○ Integrating various tools

7. Power of Narrative
Why do stories matter?
● Loads of research on the power of narrative
● Connect with archetypes
● Get lost in fantasy
● Find safety in someone else’s journey
● Discover purpose vicariously
● Stories allow students to find meaning and context in relationship
to Self, Other, & the World And to experience TRANSFORMATION!

8. Personalized Learning
How do you reach each individual student? What are the tenets of PL?
● Voice — Opinion, co-ownership, pride, care, and creation: To what extent are student voices
manifest in the curriculum and learning experience?
● Choice — Relevance, interest, and order: How do students determine their pathways?
● Pace — Too fast? Too slow? Dictated by coverage? Who controls the pace at which students move,
and why?
● Rigor — Competency, skills, and habits: What is too easy? Too hard?

9. Differentiated Instruction
How do you meet each student where they’re at? What is optimally learned autonomously,
in small groups, and as a teacher-led cohort?
● Skill — Review, proficiency, challenge
● Interest — Theme, concept, real-world connections
● Level of autonomy — Teacher-directed, student-directed, self-directed (student, peer,
teacher, etc.)

10. Assessment
Who assesses student learning? Why?
● Teacher — When is this the right choice? Should it be the default?
● Peer — When is this appropriate, and how do you teach peer critique?
● Self — When and how do you empower self-reflection, assessment, and advocacy?

11. Integrating Tools
Which tools and resources do you use in your curriculum
and to drive personalized learning?
● Google
● Flipgrid
● Khan/iXL
● Newsela
● Etc.

12. Quest Building Process
How do you create quests?

13. Quest Name
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet …”
— Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet
Why do you name your quest?
What’s in a name?

14. Quest Map
What is the impact of a visual landscape for an educational journey?

15. Story Intro
How do you begin? How will you inspire and contextualize your invitation for
student learning?
STEP 3...
STEP 2,
STEP 1,

16. Quest Objective Naming
How do you imbue a noun with presence and power, such as “The Holy Grail”?
● Descriptive name = Adjective + Noun

17. Quest Tasks Naming
How do you call a student to action?
● Bloom verbs

18. Content Within Tasks
How do you frame content for autonomous learning
by individual students or peer groups?
How do you, as educators, exist as more
than direction-givers?
How do you prepare in advance to teach within
the chaos and uncontrollable circumstances of reality?

19. Quest Objectives Settings
How do you determine which powers to use and when?
● Self- or teacher-paced
● Deadlines
● Modes of presentation
● Discussion
● Notifications

20. Quest Story
Drafting Tips
What’s proven to work and why?

21. Pathways Tips
Why begin at the end?
● Backward design: purpose, direction, and scaffolding
● Linear paths
● Branching paths

22. Story Closure
Why celebrate success?

23. Build a Quest
● Build a quest in 15-minutes!
○ Classcraft Timer live while building a quest
○ Single lesson quest
○ Include story intro
○ 3-5 activity objectives with story, illustrations, and content
○ Create pathways
○ Review settings after all objectives built out
○ Encourage discussion on at least 3 objectives —
write out discussion prompts
○ Show how to share quest through my content

24. Questions?

25. Teaser
● Look forward to … subsequent webinars, tutorials, and live workshops
○ Personalized Learning Guide — including guiding principles and technical considerations
○ Technical tutorial on quest-building
○ Google Classroom tutorial — integrating with Quests and behavior points
○ Flipgrid tutorial
○ Deeper dives into key pedagogies introduced in this webinar: personalized learning, SEL,
gamifying your classroom, etc.
○ Quests of the Month and Staff Picks from the Marketplace
○ Classcraft Quests — just a handful — coming soon (SEL, STEAM, ELA)
○ Story bank for quest-building
○ Illustration bank for quest-building

26. Marketplace

27. Survey & PD Prompts
For a deeper dive or to share your feedback …
PD Prompts and Survey Link

28. Stay in Touch
classcraft.com
facebook.com/classcraftgame
@classcraftgame
Eric Davis
Head of Learning
eric@classcraft.com
Kinshasa Marshall
Learning Team Guru
kinshasa@classcraft.com