Interview with Sylvain: How ClassMana turns learning into a game

Sylvain Marcoux has been a teacher in Quebec for over 8 years, working with children aged 6 to 12. Before and alongside his work in the classroom, he also spent 14 years as a youth worker and youth worker trainer, an experience that feeds his very lively approach to learning through play.

We asked Sylvain, a ClassMana ambassador, how he uses gamification to support his students' engagement, perseverance, and success.

Since Classcraft closed its doors, I had the feeling that a valuable tool had disappeared from my classroom. ClassMana filled this void brilliantly. Like what Classcraft represented, ClassMana is for me a wonderful tool to gamify learning—a positive and stimulating game that transforms the daily life of the classroom. A way to make pleasant and light what can sometimes be complex: academic, social, and emotional learning at school. My approach is inspired by the reflections of Steve Bissonnette, "a recognized Quebec specialist in effective teaching, particularly regarding explicit teaching and effective behavior management."

In this perspective, ClassMana becomes a concrete lever to put these principles into practice—every day, in the daily life of the classroom.

Every day, I use experience gains to encourage good behavior. I see the platform first and foremost as a positive tool, whose primary purpose is to highlight rather than punish. When a student fulfills their role as a learner and respects the code of conduct we built together at the beginning of the year, they deserve to be recognized. Experience point rewards have been designed around concrete values lived in the classroom: arriving on time and being ready to learn (ENGAGEMENT), being positive and hardworking, answering a question when called upon (PERSEVERANCE), showing respect to others or helping a classmate (RESPECT), or completing homework before correction. So many behaviors that deserve to be celebrated rather than just expected. Experience points are exactly that: a thumbs up, a warm signal sent to the student to encourage them to persevere in their attitude as an engaged learner. Sometimes awarded individually, sometimes by team, these points do not punish—they celebrate and encourage students to push themselves to reach their full potential!

Teams are a key element of the platform. Students form their own groups of 3 to 4 people, choose a name, and take care to identify each other's areas of weakness in order to better support each other throughout the school adventure. As soon as the teams are formed, a real reflection begins: who is strong at what? How do our strengths complement each other? How can we help each other on a daily basis? I have seen students support or call their classmates to order many times so they can achieve their goals together.

This is one of the tools most appreciated by students. By spending their accumulated gold, they access real privileges, negotiated and assumed within the framework of our classroom life: a week without homework, choosing their seat with a friend, coming to school in pajamas, an extra recess, chewing gum in class, being the first to choose their seat in the library, or a responsibility—or even, the most legendary: skipping an exam question. This store transforms accumulated experience into something concrete and desired, maintaining motivation well beyond a simple grade.

Powers, unlocked by leveling up and activated with mana points, offer real advantages in class. Here are the ones implemented in our group:

These powers are designed so that a student's strengths can support a teammate's weaknesses. Each power tells a story of collaboration and mutual aid.

For us, they are real learning reviews in disguise. The monster appears on the screen, questions fly, and teams pool their knowledge to defeat the common enemy. The students are engaged, excited, completely invested—they almost forget that the questions are academic, as you can see in the welcome video on the ClassMana site, while the students experience a monster battle. That is exactly the magic of gamification.

I use random events when the context is right: to finish an activity beautifully or propel a period with an unexpected surprise. These moments create an electricity in the classroom that is hard to reproduce otherwise. The random tool is certainly what creates the greatest number of unexpected and memorable memories; seeing your teacher forced by the revealed event to be an old man with the posture and voice for the period, or seeing all the students having to address each other with forms of politeness worthy of 15th-century nobility with many bows! The progression of the characters is a long-term motivator. Students love customizing their avatars and unlocking new equipment and powers by leveling up. With 35 levels to cross over the year, motivation is maintained week after week, hoping one day to cross even more levels!

If I had to give a tip for starting with ClassMana, it would be to first build a test class in order to "play" and explore it as the students would. Then, when you understand the tool well, dive in with your students and take the time to add the different elements with them: characters, teams, rules, and have fun surprising them with new powers that appear according to your imagination! Surprise them with rewards related to the class dynamics!

In short, the classroom dynamic is built around all these aspects, where at any moment, a student can be encouraged in their behavior, or use a power to change the course of their team's destiny. I use ClassMana on a daily basis to build and support a caring teaching approach, driven by play. It is not about entertaining for the sake of entertaining—it is about creating the favorable conditions for engagement, perseverance, and success. ClassMana is much more than a game: it is a living pedagogical tool that grows with the class and gives every student (and the teacher) one more reason to want to learn.