A Book Review on Michael Matera’s Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired

Course Design to Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners

Chuck Stowell

EDTECH 601: Introduction to Doctoral Studies

November 7th, 2021

 A Book Review on Michael Matera’s Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired
Course Design to Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners

Numerous educators are aware of the recent focus on games and learning across

education. While many may be familiar with gamification and its uses in the classrooms to

increase student engagement, motivation and learning results, they may not know how to use or

implement it into their classrooms. There has been a renewed focus on digital game-based

learning by many different stakeholders in the past few years but not all schools or teachers have

the means or technical knowledge to implement and effectively use digital games in their

classrooms. Barriers such as the cost of digital game services or technology to use those services

may also prohibit their adoption. What then should educators do?

Game-based learning does not need to be either digital or difficult to implement. At its

core, gamification is about deepening student engagement with educational material, increasing

motivation to learn, and producing improved student learning outcomes. Michael Matera has

taken the pressure off the teacher by creating a step-by-step guide to using and creating

gamification that, by the end, will have teachers utilizing fully gamified lessons and units.

Michael Matera is a nationally known teacher, speaker, and author who was recognized

in 2015 by ASCD as an emerging leader based on his work with gamification and game-based

learning in his 6th grade classroom. He continues to present and promote gamification and game-

based learning on his podcast, WellplayED, as well as through his personal website

mrmatera.com.

In this book there are three parts. The first part Matera begins with an overview of the

theory and background of gamification and its uses. He addresses how and why gamification

increases student learning as well as pointing out how gamification works in the best parts of

games, in particular how they motivate and encourage players to continue to play the game
despite running into challenges. He analyzes and discusses different myths on using,

understanding, and undertaking gamification in the classroom before then offering a counter

argument for those same myths. Matera relates personal stories from peers and parents alike in

how students modified their behaviors and approaches to learning after experiencing

gamification, often going from students for whom school held little interest to ones who were

driven to learn and complete extra projects for points. He advocates for the use of challenges and

choices in conjunction with specific subject content to enhance student engagement to produce

student action and inquiry to go beyond the traditional educational experience. His goal is to

enable any educator, regardless of their background, to be able to understand the nuances of

gamification and its benefits.

The second part discusses how Matera used games in his classes and in turn inspired his

students to play and inquire more deeply into their learning beyond the traditional project or

content test. Examples are given of student initiated learning where learning and mastery was

demonstrated in ways not limited to traditional rubrics and tests. He illustrates the use of side

quests and gives tips on having students choose the projects and elements that interested them in

relation to what their content topic was. He explored what elements of classroom games

motivated students and how this motivation occured. Matera continued to use various game

theories to illustrate which game and design elements should be adopted and which ones avoided

to keep the class inspired in unit or year-long games.

The third section is the toolbox for the teacher and provides dozens of examples of games

and different design elements. These elements are all used to give additional ideas to those

interested in gamification to motivate and inspire their students through meaningful play and

innovation. Here, Matera offers all of his experiences and ideas with different games, examples
of subject contents, or design elements for direct insertion or adaptation for any lesson or unit

plan. Using easy to follow instructions, Matera organizes the elements around themes, settings,

characters, and actions to illustrate how to build a game in order to strengthen student

understanding and engagement. He also provides examples of his own and others games and

how they may be used or adapted.

The strengths of this book are such that anyone can use it to change the way they

approach their classroom and begin to immediately use gamification with their students. The

ease of adaptability with the multitude of variables allows any educator, whether new or veteran,

to approach the content. Regardless of whether their school used digital games or not, Matera

makes it so convenient that anyone can begin the journey of gamification.

The only limitation of this book is that it was published several years ago so digital

games were not prominent. Though Matera did not address digital games specifically, most of

his ideas could easily be carried over to digital games. This book remains invaluable in how it

approaches the basics of using, building, and applying gamification elements and designs for use

in educational settings. Educators with an interest in gamification or those looking for sparks of

inspiration would find this book to be an excellent source of reference.

 References

Matera, M. (2015). Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to
Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners. Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

Matera, M. (n.d.). New-index. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from

http://mrmatera.com/new-index