When I was in 6th grade, one of our big projects was to make a Rube Goldberg machine that spanned an entire classroom. It was a ton of fun as we experimented, tested, and finally watched the entire machine happen - one kid even had his portion of the machine go outside and then back into a window. It was a graded project worth a significant portion of our grade, but we weren't worried about that; we were fascinated by creating this Rube Goldberg machine. In middle school, my teacher had us play the Oregon Trail role-play game. In high school, my civics teacher had us play the Path to the Presidency game on iCivics.com, which had us role-play as a presidential candidate.
Overall, I've had a lot of experience with teachers using gameplay as a means of assessment. From a student perspective, it's a ton of fun to play games. Even though I knew they were educational games and I was being graded, I still had a ton of fun playing these games with my friends. I also learned more and formed a personal connection to the material we were learning. I think gameplay as assessment is a great tool for teachers. I'm personally a huge fan. It puts less pressure on kids to perform, helps establish a personal connection/motivation, and is overall just fun. And when kids have fun, they get engaged in learning.
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