SuperBetter

Level Up Student Mental Health with Game Psychology

The SuperBetter Mindset is an easy-to-teach mental framework that empowers mental health, resilience & student success by using the psychology of game play in all of life. Five published studies show SuperBetter improves resilience & self-efficacy and reduces anxiety & depression. The World Economic Forum named SuperBetter a Top Innovator in Youth Mental Health.

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

Wellbeing in Schools

Updated May 2025

Web presence

2015

Established

55K 2024

10

Countries

Teachers

Target group

Teachers are on the front lines of the youth mental health crisis. They see the negative impact on their students everyday. We hope that teachers around the world are empowered with a practical & engaging classroom tool that helps them play a bigger role to end the youth mental health crisis and equip their students for success in their life & career.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

SuperBetter Classroom was created to offer schools practical & engaging ways to improve student mental health, resilience & life skills. Treatment alone won't end the youth mental health crisis. We need to empower skills & resources that reduce anxiety & depression prevalence. SuperBetter fills the gap for prevention that is evidence-based, accessible & globally scalable.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

SuperBetter is a mindset intervention. Educators have been teaching the Growth Mindset for nearly 20 years. Now they can also teach the SuperBetter Mindset to empower resilience, mental health and life skills.

The SuperBetter Mindset is easy to teach, and creates a powerful mental framework that uses the psychology of game play to empower success in all of life. The SuperBetter Mindset can be taught in classrooms and afterschool programs. It is also a safe and supportive framework for mentoring and coaching.

Educators can teach the SuperBetter Mindset using a tech-enabled platform, or with traditional curriculums (without tech).

The tech-enabled platform brings SuperBetter to life in the classroom, fostering a culture of thriving. Teachers reinforce the gameful language & methodology, and host challenges that students complete on the SuperBetter app.

Teachers use a web-based Host dashboard to form student squads and host SuperBetter challenges for them. They select challenges from a library or create their own. The challenges improve social, emotional, mental & physical resilience skills. Squad challenges have 5-days of activities to achieve its goal. Students spend ~10 minutes a day completing real life activities prompted by the SuperBetter app (iOS, Android, web). Teachers allocate classroom time and can also use a flipped classroom model to have students complete activities outside of class.

How has it been spreading?

Over 1 million people have used the SuperBetter app. SuperBetter Classroom is spreading by word of mouth. SuperBetter has a TED Talk with 9 million views (Jane McGonigal's 'The Game That Can Give You Ten Extra Years of Life') and a New York Times best selling book, SuperBetter, The Power of Living Gamefully that are popular with educators and create awareness & excitement for SuperBetter and our classroom innovations.

We partnered with Phoenix Foundation in Zambia to pilot and develop a curriculum for educators in low resource schools without access to technology. The 'SuperBetter Children' curriculum teaches the SuperBetter methodology and how to apply it to overcome life's challenges. It is available to educators in developing countries.

The City of Mobile, Alabama is using the SuperBetter Mindset as a framework to mentor students who are at risk of expulsion or serious discipline. The city's Family Intervention Team teaches the SuperBetter Mindset to the at-risk students and their parents/guardians as a coaching framework to foster safe & supportive communication and positive growth.

A partnership with American Student Assistance is teaching the SuperBetter Mindset to diverse teens in the U.S. as a digital curriculum. SuperBetter is the 3rd most popular program among over 200 curriculums offered in their EvolveMe career empowerment platform. The SuperBetter online curriculum has a 99% completion rate. 11,000 students completed the SuperBetter curriculum last quarter.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Teachers can visit www.SuperBetter.com to learn about the classroom product, watch demo videos, read about the science, and subscribe to a Host account for their classroom. Schools and other organizations can schedule a presentation and demo by sending an email to alliances@superbetter.com.

Impact & scalability

HundrED Advisory Board Reviews

SuperBetter's efficacy is backed by multiple published studies, placing it among the top 2% of mental health-related apps with scientific validation.

SuperBetter's scalability is attributed to its engaging gamification, minimal preparation, and seamless integration into existing curricula. Its customisable challenges enable widespread adoption in diverse educational settings.

- Advisory Board member

Advisory review results

Impact

Scalability

Exceptional

High

Moderate

Limited

Insufficient

Exceptional

High

Moderate

Limited

Insufficient

Implementation steps

Learn about SuperBetter

Review the demo videos on the SuperBetter.com website. Optionally, watch Jane McGonigal's SuperBetter TED Talk. Read about the published studies and how it works.

Subscribe to a Host account at SuperBetter.com

Select a plan based on the number of students who will participate.

Create your Student Squads

Add your students as players in the web-based host account, using their email address. Create your first squad by giving it a name and selecting its players. You can create a squad for the whole class, and for sub-groups within the class.

Have Students Create Their SuperBetter Account

Students can download the SuperBetter app from the app store. Or they can create an account on the web app at SuperBetter.com. They can play squad challenges you host on a free Player account, or with a Hero account that also lets them play SuperBetter on their own. They will find your invitations to join squad challenges in their app. If they have not yet created a SuperBetter account they will receive the invitation by email with a link to create their account.

Introduce SuperBetter to Your Students

Explain that SuperBetter is a mental framework that uses game psychology to overcome obstacles & achieve goals in everyday life. Share the 7 SuperBetter rules and discuss them. Have students read the science card for each rule by clicking the science icon at the top of their secret lab in the app. Have students watch the SuperBetter TED Talk to build excitement & interest. Find it at TED.com by searching for Jane McGonigal and selecting 'The Game That Can Give You Ten Extra Years of Life'.

Have Students Take the 'How Gameful Are You?' Quiz

Students will find the quiz in their secret lab. It is a 20-question assessment that measures 7 psychological strengths developed by playing SuperBetter. The 7 strengths are associated with higher resilience. Having students take the quiz right away establishes a baseline score. Then have your students retake the quiz about once a month to track progress. You can find aggregate squad scores in the squad analytics tab of your Host account.

Host your First Squad Challenge

Search the SuperBetter library for a squad challenge that meets your goals. There are over 90 challenges in the library that improve social, emotional, mental and physical resilience skills. Each challenge has 5-days of activities. Select a challenge to host, then select the squad, set a start date and end date, and send an invitation to the squad members. Optionally, you can create your own challenges to have your squads go for any epic win you choose.

Bring the SuperBetter Gameful Language to Life in the Classroom

Use the SuperBetter language (e.g. epic wins, bad guys, quests, power-ups, allies, etc.) in the classroom to foster a culture of thriving & resilience, and reinforce the gameful mental framework. Get creative! For example, have students complete a quest together or check in with an ally in class. Consider having a bulletin board to share favorite power-ups and having students talk about, or write a reflection about one of the week's bad guys they battled.

Monitor Squad Performance

Students will spend about 10 minutes a day completing the activities on their SuperBetter app. Their daily goal is to 'Win the Day' which means completing a quest, battling a bad guy, activating 3 power-ups and checking in with an ally. In your Host account, you can track to see which students accepted the invitation to join the challenge and which days they 'Won the Day'.