Tried "Gamification" in my classroom.(Check updated post 283 for User Group info, it's now ready)

[LetalisK]

This is very interesting. Just to be a turd in the punch bowl, though, this is also a temporary solution to a much more complex problem and having extrinsic motivation instead of fostering intrinsic motivation isn't going to work nearly as well in the long term. Of course, that's a hell of a lot harder too. Also, you're a sub. You don't really have to worry about that.

 

[KingofMadCows]

snip

Is behaviorism bad because it gives off an enorphin (or whatever it is) to your body? Thats like saying we should ban sex. Besides this is for education, not to get your Farmville crops done.

No, it's bad because it actively ignores all those things it can't explain: the inner workings of the mind, like creativity and volition, don't matter. For behaviorism we're all passive beings, subdued to our environment, instead of active agents free to modify the world around us, able to stand our ground against society's problems. For decades now we've had better and more empowering ways to understand psychology and education, yet behariorism remains.

Anything that make us feel good is a good thing? Even ignoring your strawman about sex, that's just wrong. Panem et circenses [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses], think again.

And what are you trying to say with "besides this is for education, not to get your Farmville crops done"? That when it comes to education the ends justify the means? That education should be forced upon people? Paulo Freire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire] would like a word with you.

That's not true at all. This is not the 1950's. Behaviorism does not ignore the inner workings of the mind. It simply operationalizes them in such a way that they can be analyzed. Just look at how applied behavior analysis treats mental illnesses and developmental disorders. Behavior analysis can reduce delusions and hallucinations in people suffering from schizophrenia. Behavior analysis can help people suffering from bipolar disorder to control their moods. Applied behavior analysis can help autistic people come out of their shell and make more meaningful connections with the social world. In fact, applied behavior analysis is the only treatment for autism that has been empirically shown to be effective. Also, behaviorists are probably the most active psychologists in helping the mentally disabled. Behaviorists don't believe that there's anything "normal" people can do that mentally disabled people can't do.

 

[Chiefwakka]

Ok ladies and germs, the User Group Gamification Project is up and running and ready to use. This is my first user group, so I'm doing a lot of poking, but this is an awesome tool I intend to make full use of. Here's a quikie link if you're interested in joining in.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Gamification-Project

Tonight I'm going to post some of my tweaks that I will be trying tomorrow with the same classes I worked with on Wednesday. It's very different from my initial experiment. Hope to get some good discussion going

 

[Chiefwakka]

Double post.

 

[Venereus]

snip

Is behaviorism bad because it gives off an enorphin (or whatever it is) to your body? Thats like saying we should ban sex. Besides this is for education, not to get your Farmville crops done.

No, it's bad because it actively ignores all those things it can't explain: the inner workings of the mind, like creativity and volition, don't matter. For behaviorism we're all passive beings, subdued to our environment, instead of active agents free to modify the world around us, able to stand our ground against society's problems. For decades now we've had better and more empowering ways to understand psychology and education, yet behariorism remains.

Anything that make us feel good is a good thing? Even ignoring your strawman about sex, that's just wrong. Panem et circenses [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses], think again.

And what are you trying to say with "besides this is for education, not to get your Farmville crops done"? That when it comes to education the ends justify the means? That education should be forced upon people? Paulo Freire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire] would like a word with you.

That's not true at all. This is not the 1950's. Behaviorism does not ignore the inner workings of the mind. It simply operationalizes them in such a way that they can be analyzed. Just look at how applied behavior analysis treats mental illnesses and developmental disorders. Behavior analysis can reduce delusions and hallucinations in people suffering from schizophrenia. Behavior analysis can help people suffering from bipolar disorder to control their moods. Applied behavior analysis can help autistic people come out of their shell and make more meaningful connections with the social world. In fact, applied behavior analysis is the only treatment for autism that has been empirically shown to be effective. Also, behaviorists are probably the most active psychologists in helping the mentally disabled. Behaviorists don't believe that there's anything "normal" people can do that mentally disabled people can't do.

All true, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an awful and lazy thing to do in the class room.

 

[KingofMadCows]

All true, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an awful and lazy thing to do in the class room.

But it's only a part of a process. The end goal of behavioral therapies is to get the client/patient to continue their behavior without those simple reinforcements. How do you think behaviorists are able to eventually mainstream many of the mentally and developmentally challenged people they treat?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

You conditioned a classroom. This is not something new.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

It's still just applied behaviorism, gamification just refined it. Seriously, we should be leaving behaviorism behind, not improving it.

Why? Human beings are animals. It's time it was exploited for good instead of evil, like most companies do.

We're animals who can do better.

We can do better, yes, but you can't modify someone's behaviour as much as people claim you can.
They must be receptive and have a predisposition to the behaviour or else you're going to have to seriously fuck with how their body behaves.

A child doesn't grow up to be abusive because he was abused, but because he shares the genes of his abusive father.

Way to ignore the whole "Nurture" part in the "Nature vs. Nurture" debate.

 

[MisterDyslexo]

Yes! I'm only 18, but want to get into teaching, and I just know this can work! Somebody just has to be willing to try. Most school systems punish, but rewards are always more motivating than punishment. Its as simple as that. A few other videos in the extra credits series itself just reinforces that.

 

[LetalisK]

It's still just applied behaviorism, gamification just refined it. Seriously, we should be leaving behaviorism behind, not improving it.

Why? Human beings are animals. It's time it was exploited for good instead of evil, like most companies do.

We're animals who can do better.

We can do better, yes, but you can't modify someone's behaviour as much as people claim you can.
They must be receptive and have a predisposition to the behaviour or else you're going to have to seriously fuck with how their body behaves.

A child doesn't grow up to be abusive because he was abused, but because he shares the genes of his abusive father.

Way to ignore the whole "Nurture" part in the "Nature vs. Nurture" debate.

I wasn't even aware it was even a debate anymore, at least in the psychological community. Isn't generally accepted that both parts are used?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

It's still just applied behaviorism, gamification just refined it. Seriously, we should be leaving behaviorism behind, not improving it.

Why? Human beings are animals. It's time it was exploited for good instead of evil, like most companies do.

We're animals who can do better.

We can do better, yes, but you can't modify someone's behaviour as much as people claim you can.
They must be receptive and have a predisposition to the behaviour or else you're going to have to seriously fuck with how their body behaves.

A child doesn't grow up to be abusive because he was abused, but because he shares the genes of his abusive father.

Way to ignore the whole "Nurture" part in the "Nature vs. Nurture" debate.

I wasn't even aware it was even a debate anymore, at least in the psychological community. Isn't generally accepted that both parts are used?

Until someone comes along and says it is all Nature. Like what happened here.

 

[KingofMadCows]

It's still just applied behaviorism, gamification just refined it. Seriously, we should be leaving behaviorism behind, not improving it.

Why? Human beings are animals. It's time it was exploited for good instead of evil, like most companies do.

We're animals who can do better.

We can do better, yes, but you can't modify someone's behaviour as much as people claim you can.
They must be receptive and have a predisposition to the behaviour or else you're going to have to seriously fuck with how their body behaves.

A child doesn't grow up to be abusive because he was abused, but because he shares the genes of his abusive father.

Way to ignore the whole "Nurture" part in the "Nature vs. Nurture" debate.

I wasn't even aware it was even a debate anymore, at least in the psychological community. Isn't generally accepted that both parts are used?

The debate is more over what cause behavior. The idea that genes can cause a person to become a smoker or an alcoholic or an abusive father is not valid. Genes can make people more susceptible to conditions that cause behavior but genes are not responsible for very many complex behaviors. For example, a person might have a higher tolerance for alcohol and be reinforced more strongly by the effects of alcohol but that's not going to just automatically turn that person into an alcoholic. They would have to be exposed to an environment that makes the behavior possible.

 

[willsham45]

Good to hear it worked...would be interesting to see if it would work for an extended period, sweets at the end of class is one thing but a new thing is a novaty...if it became the norm how will it change would be interesting to see. Or would what I am saying pointless when all you would/could do is have a huge achevment at the end of the term where you give everyone with a perfect score or a score over X% a fredo or something simular

 

[Venereus]

All true, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an awful and lazy thing to do in the class room.

I'm generally with you. The same results and even processes behaviorism uses can be applied in a more constructive way from other perspectives. For instance, the flaw in the OP's process is the candy. It will erode over time, as others said. It will also mean that without the "achievements" the behaviour stops being reinforced. Regardless of what others have said, this IS a problem, specific behaviours may be locked down, but the underlying structure of them, the reasoning for them, not so much.

Gamification can work, but behaviourism doesn't get to keep all the credit for it. Gamification isn't just about abstract reward structures, it's about communication through rules and rewards. Behaviourism never got that part right, videogame developers needed to come in and pick up the slack. As it turns out, the reward structure alone wasn't working before videogames came along and realized you can create a communicative link between the creator of the ruleset and the subjects to which it's applied. You can design a system in which their internal train of thought is guided through a message or a feeling is replicated in them besides mere reinforcement, which behaviourism. These are things behaviourism never concerned itself with, which is why it never quite succeeded on this level.

Had they actually owned these breakthroughs, we would be living in 1984 since 1955, for better or for worse.

Exactly, that's the thing. Once you take language into it (something behaviorism has always struggled with), other theories become more useful, both at explaining what's going on and at developing practical techniques. Since Bandura, psychological theories about learning have increasingly become theories about communication.

 

[HentMas]

Give people a good enough incentive and they'll be putty in your hands. In any case, I hope to see your documentary.

thing is, it was candy, seriously, how many "funny kids" would give up candy just to make everyone laugh??, and other kids don´t really care about candy, they were all following the "achievements" for the sake of making "achievements"

thats something you don´t see every day, hell, not only temp teachers have this problem, i remember quite clearly we as a class made 2 or 3 teachers cry because we didn´t cared about her class, and after the first stormed out we were all "heh, we broke her" i feel kind of ashamed to admit it, but as it was a group effort we felt like we accomplished something not so common, we made a grown up cry, and we worked towards that end with other teachers, some reported, some actually implied physical violence, others just sat there flabbergast, but we had a goal and we were making everything possible to accomplish it

now, It might sound stupid, but our "achievement" was "make the teacher cry", so if someone came and told us of the new "achievements" we would have probably accepted them.

 

[IvoryTowerGamer]

All true, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an awful and lazy thing to do in the class room.

I'm generally with you. The same results and even processes behaviorism uses can be applied in a more constructive way from other perspectives. For instance, the flaw in the OP's process is the candy. It will erode over time, as others said. It will also mean that without the "achievements" the behaviour stops being reinforced. Regardless of what others have said, this IS a problem, specific behaviours may be locked down, but the underlying structure of them, the reasoning for them, not so much.

Gamification can work, but behaviourism doesn't get to keep all the credit for it. Gamification isn't just about abstract reward structures, it's about communication through rules and rewards. Behaviourism never got that part right, videogame developers needed to come in and pick up the slack. As it turns out, the reward structure alone wasn't working before videogames came along and realized you can create a communicative link between the creator of the ruleset and the subjects to which it's applied. You can design a system in which their internal train of thought is guided through a message or a feeling is replicated in them besides mere reinforcement, which behaviourism. These are things behaviourism never concerned itself with, which is why it never quite succeeded on this level.

Had they actually owned these breakthroughs, we would be living in 1984 since 1955, for better or for worse.

Exactly, that's the thing. Once you take language into it (something behaviorism has always struggled with), other theories become more useful, both at explaining what's going on and at developing practical techniques. Since Bandura, psychological theories about learning have increasingly become theories about communication.

I'd say it's more a mix of both (although maybe this is your point).

I think that most people here would agree that taking a purely behaviorist approach to education is not ideal. At some point you want to show children that there is a greater reason to study than simply getting some sort of physical reward. Having said that though, there are some instances where extrinsic rewards are the only way to show the value of a certain action. Either the child is not mature enough to understand the implications of a sort-term reward vs a long-term one, or there are simply too many external factors competing for their attention. Behaviorism should be one of many tools at the teacher's disposal.

Incidentally, I think substitute teachers in particular can benefit from it. If any one should be able to use candy as rewards it's certainly them.

 

[IvoryTowerGamer]

I think that's the wrong approach, actually. The extrinsic reward is not the point. It is not even what is causing the modified behaviour.

First, I'd argue that without the candy, the system would have worked pretty much just as well. As long as it is game-like, children will engage more than with the negative threat of a punishment. This is not new, teachers have been using it forever. Boy Scouts invented Achievements ages ago, they called them badges. It seems to have worked for them to put a gaming structure over reality.

Once you embrace that it's the structure, not the reward, which is engaging, that changes everything. You move on from providing a way to reach the reward that generates learning as a by-product through friction with the system and into designing a system that helps in obtaining the long term reward in an engaging way. And the best part? You don't have to lie about it. You can present it as what it is: a way to make the learning easier and more interesting.

That, not the other thing, is gamification. And on that, creativity is as much of an element as behaviourism.

Badges are extrinsic rewards as well.

A reward that is truly intrinsic is something that helps you progress further towards your ultimate goal. In game design terms, a high level item would be an intrinsic reward whereas an achievement wouldn't (unless it gave you a bonus perk). In education, a scholarship would be an intrinsic reward.

I agree with you that structure is just as important as the reward, but without meaningful rewards students (and players) quickly lose interest. Different situations make different types of rewards more meaningful, which is why most games nowadays include both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The most effective education systems seem to realize this, too.