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turn up the heat with classroom leaderboards

Duolingo for Schools

October 2022

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wait, there are classroom leaderboards?

I’m not just talking about Duolingo leaderboards where you are trying desperately to win the Diamond League, I’m talking Duolingo for Schools leaderboards! Yes! Classroom leaderboards were launched shortly before the 2022-2023 academic year, and we are really excited to stoke some friendly competition within your classes.

In order to see classroom leaderboards, you will need to turn them on in the settings of your Duolingo for Schools account. Please know that if your students are in your classes leaderboards, they will no longer be able to participate in the public leaderboards.

Your class leaderboards will reset every week in order to give everyone a shot to get within the “top 3” where their name will appear with a ribbon - gold, silver, or bronze. This is important because we think everyone should be able to have an equal chance to get to the top 3!

As we see in this screenshot, the leaderboards are based upon XP (or experience points) gained for the week, Students will also be able to see how many days are left before the leaderboards reset. Currently students can only see the leaderboard on their desktop, but we are planning on bringing this feature to mobile devices soon!

You can actually change the day that your leaderboard starts and ends within your settings, too!

And if you ever feel like classroom leaderboards are not a good fit for your students, you can disable classroom Leaderboards in your privacy settings. Simply toggle the button to the left of “Classroom Leaderboards” to the off position, and they will no longer be displayed in your classroom.

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how can you leverage leaderboards in your classroom?

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weekly rewards

Link to Duolingo Dollars PDFs: https://duolingoschools.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6572986788749-Duolingo-dollars

You can give a weekly reward to your students on the leaderboard - something small and easy such as candy, stickers, or you can create a class economy and give away Duo Dollars to the top 3! We have created this printouts of Duo Dollars in denominations of 1, 5, 50 and 100.

To avoid demotivating other students who aren’t in the top 3 for that week - you can also choose to acknowledge and celebrate student personal improvement from week to week with some Duo Dollars, too! If you do decide to create a class economy and give away Duo dollars for a chance to “cash them in” for rewards, make sure you are clear and intentional about how students can earn these Duo dollars, what the amount would be, and what they are able to “purchase”.

Some ideas that students may be able to “purchase” with their Duo dollars from week to week could include:

An opportunity to listen to music on their headphones
Choose where to sit for the week
Choose the review game the class will play that day
Bonus points for a test or quiz
Stickers, candy, or other small prizes
15 mins of free time
A free HW pass
A redo of a test or quiz

These are just examples, but you can really offer anything up for sale in a classroom economy.

Remember, any way you decide to leverage this competition - you don’t want it to be too “high stakes”, which can cause students to feel pressured to succeed, causing stress and anxiety. So keep it light and friendly, and encourage weekly participation so everyone has a chance to win throughout the academic year.

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spicing up the competition

Some ways to spice up that competition even more… Class to class same teacher - Class to class different teacher - Adults vs students. And I will each of these in more details…

Class to class same teacher -

If you teach multiple sections of the same level, try creating a visual (either in your classroom, or even your hallway!) and keeping track of the leaderboards and XP from class to class! This is a great way to encourage even further participation and competition amongst your classes. We do suggest you foster these additional competitions amongst students at the same level or with similar abilities, as students in a more advanced class may have an advantage over a beginner level class, for example they may meet more often than the lower levels and therefore are expected to be completing more lessons on Duolingo. But, if you do have a beginner student blowing out of the water the more advance students, that probably does deserve a serious shout out and kudos!

Class to class different teacher -

Additionally, do you have another world language teacher in your building? Think about ways you can collaborate with the teacher and create some competition between your students and theirs! This is an example of Sra Bell and Sra Taylor’s competition specifically between their Spanish heritage speakers in their classes.

How can other students get involved with these leaderboards and cheer others on? Pamela -

“First thought is that you reward the other students with some little stickers during class time, and then they are allowed to go up to the leaderboard and "vote" for one of their classmates who has been most helpful in class, to boost their position on the leaderboard (or to award them more Duo dollars!) … they would put the stickers next to the heritage speaker's name to vote for them. That would encourage the heritage speaker to take a leadership role in class.”

Even if you don’t have heritage speakers as in this example, you can foster that same time of encouragement between your students. Ask your students to be intentionally when they give a “sticker” or other kind of “kudos” to the students on the leaderboard (and it could be anyone, not just the top 3!) For example, perhaps one of your students helped another student with a concept they were struggling with - and so they wanted to give them a “kudo” and added a sticker to their name on the leaderboard and called them out for helping “This is for X because they helped me understand how to conjugate verbs in the past tense yesterday!”

Adults vs students -

Jan - We display the top 10 on our board and also acknowledge the staff who participate using a different colour.

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top 3 certificates

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tips

make the learning visible

encourage students to cheer on others

encourage goal setting

Create a leaderboard in your hallway or somewhere in your classroom so that the competition (and student XP - which is representative of their learning) is visible to them, other students, and even administrators! One of our educators in the Educators Network, Edson, actually shares the results week to week in his class whatsapp group.

Update the leaderboard regularly, and involve students while doing it! For example, if students have some downtime and are on Duolingo in class, refresh often and check the leaderboard! If an update needs to be made, allow the student to put their own name on the leaderboard (or pass others.) Make sure all messaging is friendly and encouraging, and cheer the class on as they compete.

Encourage goal setting

Helping students to make goals for themselves is a great way for teachers to instill motivation and a desire to learn, as well as encourage growth and progression in their proficiency as they are moving through the Duolingo path.

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From our EdNet

“I love the idea of rewarding "personal best" and other non-numerical achievements”

-Liz

“We have a display where the top 10 names and xp amounts are shown and certificates awarded every Monday. Personally I have not noticed the children lower down the board being demotivated. I do award the them occasionally in other ways e.g personal best, completing x amount of levels.”

-Jan

“…one thing I do is, since I put myself in all my classes, I show the students how much they are beating me by.”

-Pamela

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Feedback!

How can we improve the leaderboard experience for your and your students?

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Join us on Facebook

Follow us on social

https://www.facebook.com/groups/duolingoeducators

Collaborate with other educators and with the Duolingo for Schools team

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Twitter: @DuolingoSchools

TikTok: @Duolingoschools

Facebook: Duolingo for Schools

Instagram: @Duolingo4Schools

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interested in giving PD (+ want some swag)?

download this slide deck
schedule your pd session + invite attendees
fill out this form to share some info and pictures with us and get some swag
make sure to have your attendees fill out this feedback form, too!

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attendee recruiting ideas:

schedule a PD session with your department
post about it on Twitter and tag us
recruit teachers from the EdNet

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PD materials

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PD work session ideas

Discuss techniques from the session and brainstorm new ideas
Break out into groups to brainstorm what these ideas might look like in the classroom
Create a new lesson plan around one of your (or our) ideas!

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questions?

Check out our Help Center for more information or contact the team at educators@duolingo.com!

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thank you