The honest version first. ClassSense will not take question 7 from your worksheet and put it on a leaderboard. The four games are built from practice questions that ClassSense writes for each skill pack. Your worksheet tells it which skills to build; it does not supply the exact items. If you need those twenty specific problems played as a game, this is the wrong tool.
What you expect and what you get
| You might expect | What actually happens |
|---|---|
| Each worksheet question becomes a game round | The worksheet is read for the skills it practices, and new questions are written for those skills |
| Fill-in and short-answer items stay that way | Student practice in the app is multiple choice, so the game asks recognition questions, not written ones |
| One game per worksheet | Four games, Never Look Down, Arena Brawl, Deep Dig and Escape Lab, all drawing on the same skill pack questions |
| A score to hand in | Every answer updates mastery for that student and skill; any grade is your call |
What a worksheet gives it to work with
A worksheet is mostly questions, and questions carry less teaching than explanation does. Some do better than others.
- Twenty practice problems on two-step equations. It infers the skill from the problems, and an answer key helps a lot. Add one worked example at the top and the pack has something to explain from.
- A reading passage with comprehension questions. This is strong, because the passage is real source text.
- A diagram to label. Weak. The picture is not read, so what survives is the instruction line and little else.
- A word bank and a cloze paragraph. Decent for vocabulary, and the filled-in version is better than the blank one.
If you have a worksheet and the lesson that goes with it, upload both, or paste the explanation into the same file. A worksheet on its own tells the software what you practice but not how you teach it.
Getting to the games
- Upload the worksheet (PDF, DOCX or PPTX) under Materials in a course. Use the version with the answer key if you have one.
- Read the skill packs it makes and publish the ones that match what you meant.
- Give students the join code. They pick a nickname, choose a format and play.
The games are for retrieval, not for first teaching. They work after students have met the material, which is why a worksheet, itself practice, is a sensible thing to build them from. The page on review games covers what each of the four feels like to play, and how to run one covers the classroom side.
What you lose, and what to do about it
You lose control of the exact wording. If a particular item is the one that matters, such as a trick question you use every year, print the worksheet as usual and let the games cover the skill around it. The worksheet and the game do different jobs: one is a record of what a student can produce, the other is cheap, repeatable practice.
A short routine helps. Hand the printed worksheet out first, collect it, and only then open the game on the same skills. Students arrive having committed to answers on paper, so the game works as a second look rather than a way to find out what the worksheet wanted. Afterwards, compare the two: a student who did well on paper but struggles in the game may have copied the pattern without the understanding, and the mastery record will show it.
For a pure word list, the free vocabulary game maker on this site is a separate tool that needs no sign-up, and it plays the exact words you type in.
Common questions
Can I use my own questions in the game?
No. The games draw on the practice questions ClassSense writes for each skill pack. Your worksheet decides which skills get built.
Do the games work on phones?
The app is web based and runs in a phone browser, so students can play on a phone, tablet or Chromebook.
Does a student's game score become a grade?
Answers in a game update that student's mastery for the skill, same as normal practice. Turning that into a grade is your decision, made by hand.
What if my worksheet is a scan?
Scanned pages are the weakest case. Upload the original document if you still have it; scans can come back with recognition errors.