What is prodigy?

https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/

prodigy is a game math game designed for students and teachers to learn/teach within a classroom. Prodigy is a great example of gamifying the classroom, It is interesting and engaging yet has great learning outcomes. Prodigy allows students to collect pets which they can then use to beat villain’s and collect more pets. Too beat these villain’s students are required to answer math questions to use their powers. Students can select between their own character or the pets they have gained. There is also a game for language arts although I have not explored this yet but from reading a quick definition on this game it seems great as well.

Pros of prodigy in a classroom

Prodigy has a great deal of customization for the students, I believe this can encourage engagement for the students as they will want to continue collecting more animals and customizing their characters. The platform also gives great customization too teachers. Prodigy allows teachers to view their students progress and customize students learning outcomes based on where the classroom is at and based on where students individually are at. I believe this platform will engage students too the point of students playing the game outside of school time.

Possible Cons of Prodigy in the classroom

The biggest con that I have thought about is how students will develop a love for the game and not the math. While this will create engagement and most likely lead students to more learning there is one thing that is bad about this. We have learned throughout the year how giving students prizes after completing tasks can become ineffective in later years as students wont be prized from their actions and will fall out of love of reading, math, etc. This could happen with prodigy as without the extra dopamine students would be familiar with using prodigy they will not want to do math without an extra prize.

Another possible con is it may become distracting for students. due to the amount of customization students may become distracted and focus on this part instead of the math. However to unlock items students must answer math questions, this may encourage the students to continue with the math to know the outcome is the ability to costumize their character more.