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

[Chiefwakka]

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

Excellent, I love dissenting opinions. The fact is, not one method is going to solve the woes of the education world. I can tell you now, this would not work in say, in an elementary grade level.

But the other thing to consider is the force teachers have to always fight with and it's a force that strips people of natural desire to do well in school and that's a rough home life. Kids who get beat, pressured to do well, hang out with scum bags...that's just a taste of the outside factors that makes a teacher's job difficult. I would love to press a button and make kids who can't stop texting care about the "Industrial Revolution", but that can't happen with everyone. Sometimes a different approach is required, but all cases are different.

Also, you forget that in getting the students to press the lever, I.E. watch the movie, they are, whether they mean to or not, engaging themselves. A transformation begins where the student goes from simply doing the simple act to actually engaging in the lesson. They begin to watch the video and they lean something from what they see. In the end, it's all about encouraging students to engage and once you get a lot students going, you'll find you got a bright eggs in your class.

I know where you're coming from. It's true that behaviorism survives because it works and is still very much needed in many contexts. I just think we shouldn't limit gamification to it. Relating learning to games can go beyond copying behaviorism in video games, and into using games as a gateway to get kids into the curricular content. An example would be using Sid Meier's Civilization to get them interested in World History, or something like that. Another point, that was raised by that same Extra Credits episode, is that games could be designed with this goal in mind, without turning them into the boring "educational games" we have now, just normal games with more approachable learning aspects.

PS: The "Excellent, I love dissenting opinions" remark was a bit too teachy, and therefore condescending. Watch it.

My apologies if I can across like that. I just love all opinions even if they disagree with me, but being condescending is the last thing I want to be, sorry.

You are SOOOO correct, achievements are just 1 of many ways Gamification can be applied and one reason I'm bringing my findings here is so that I can get that kind of feedback and expand my horizons. That's one thing I love about the internet, the ability to bring ideas to a public forum and just hear what people think. I'll be watching that EC episode a good number of times and draw up more ideas to make Gamification a reality.

 

[Agayek]

Kudos for taking the initiative to try something like this Chiefwakka -- your experiment definitely shows the potential for gamification, and makes a great story besides

While I do like what you did, I'd say try it without the bonus of candy as a fair amount of the time (my feeble memory not withstanding) achievements don't reward you with a bonus.

3) my biggest concern is that these kids may have been interested because it was something new. the novelty of the idea may wear off eventually.

These two posts caught my eye and it made me wonder whether something more like the "Gamerscore" system with xbox achievements (not sure what the parallel for PS3 is, sorry) could be used in place of a tangible reward like candy. Maybe with a more quantifiable achievement system, the achievement idea could be (a) used to give a long-term incentive for students and (b) extended past classroom behavior into things like assignment completion or academic performance...?

In any case, I can't wait to hear what people have to say on the topic, and I'm definitely looking forward to the results of your experiments! Best of luck!

You went and set off my brainpan. Since I know for a fact a decent number of people simply won't care about the meta-score. I know I certainly don't. To try and engage them, I'd say set up a deal where you rank people based on their "gamerscore" (say like 10 points per achievement, and have the leaderboards for the class prominently displayed somewhere), while at the same time people can use that score as a "currency". For example, you can buy X candy for Y points, but if you spend the points, it drops you down the rankings. It would take some fine-tuning for the prices (off the top of my head, I'd guess around 300 points for a snickers bar or somesuch), but it would engage both those who must have outside confirmation of their ego (tbh, most people in 6-10th grade) and those who don't care about such.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

This right here, good sir. This is what makes me believe that you are far more credible and trustworthy than any other analyst or psychologist that studies the effects of video games on society. You actually play the games and understand the mechanics and behavior they invoke and apply that to your study. You don't watch other people play games and ask how they feel, or any other scientific approach that denies any chance of directly jumping into what you're studying.

Gather more facts and variables, make that documentary. I feel like you'll do great things for our industry.

 

[Chiefwakka]

You have gained my respect for doing this, but I have one question, is it somehow acceptable now for kids to use electronics during class?!

What the hell, how did 4 years make such a difference?! Back when i was in school, we didnt even attempt this shit. Now you just outright allow it?

Yeah, it's crazy...it was never like this for me either and I'm only 30. Everyone has phones, ipods, DS's, etc and everyone uses them. When I say, "relax and talk", half the class starts texting right off the bat. It's gotten to a point where taking these privileges away causes physical anxiety so we can't really ban their use, but we can do our best to limit it.

 

[Chiefwakka]

You went and set off my brainpan. Since I know for a fact a decent number of people simply won't care about the meta-score. I know I certainly don't. To try and engage them, I'd say set up a deal where you rank people based on their "gamerscore" (say like 10 points per achievement, and have the leaderboards for the class prominently displayed somewhere), while at the same time people can use that score as a "currency". For example, you can buy X candy for Y points, but if you spend the points, it drops you down the rankings. It would take some fine-tuning for the prices (off the top of my head, I'd guess around 300 points for a snickers bar or somesuch), but it would engage both those who must have outside confirmation of their ego (tbh, most people in 6-10th grade) and those who don't care about such.

Good suggestion with the rankings. I'm writing that one down.

 

[jhlip]

That's brilliant man. Keep at it and show everybody what you can do with that idea. Maybe you will even show the critics that their is something games can offer besides a scape goat.

 

[Trolldor]

Did research on this last year. Children as young as eight responded to games - very basic sorts. A maths game with a single and co-operative mode. Had a rudimentary campaign. Most students liked the game, the fact that they were doing maths didn't matter to them. Platforming, shooting, etc. etc.

Learning through games has been around for a while and the research has demonstrated that it works. Why people haven't adopted it more sincerely I don't know.

 

[Venereus]

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

Excellent, I love dissenting opinions. The fact is, not one method is going to solve the woes of the education world. I can tell you now, this would not work in say, in an elementary grade level.

But the other thing to consider is the force teachers have to always fight with and it's a force that strips people of natural desire to do well in school and that's a rough home life. Kids who get beat, pressured to do well, hang out with scum bags...that's just a taste of the outside factors that makes a teacher's job difficult. I would love to press a button and make kids who can't stop texting care about the "Industrial Revolution", but that can't happen with everyone. Sometimes a different approach is required, but all cases are different.

Also, you forget that in getting the students to press the lever, I.E. watch the movie, they are, whether they mean to or not, engaging themselves. A transformation begins where the student goes from simply doing the simple act to actually engaging in the lesson. They begin to watch the video and they lean something from what they see. In the end, it's all about encouraging students to engage and once you get a lot students going, you'll find you got a bright eggs in your class.

I know where you're coming from. It's true that behaviorism survives because it works and is still very much needed in many contexts. I just think we shouldn't limit gamification to it. Relating learning to games can go beyond copying behaviorism in video games, and into using games as a gateway to get kids into the curricular content. An example would be using Sid Meier's Civilization to get them interested in World History, or something like that. Another point, that was raised by that same Extra Credits episode, is that games could be designed with this goal in mind, without turning them into the boring "educational games" we have now, just normal games with more approachable learning aspects.

PS: The "Excellent, I love dissenting opinions" remark was a bit too teachy, and therefore condescending. Watch it.

My apologies if I can across like that. I just love all opinions even if they disagree with me, but being condescending is the last thing I want to be, sorry.

You are SOOOO correct, achievements are just 1 of many ways Gamification can be applied and one reason I'm bringing my findings here is so that I can get that kind of feedback and expand my horizons. That's one thing I love about the internet, the ability to bring ideas to a public forum and just hear what people think. I'll be watching that EC episode a good number of times and draw up more ideas to make Gamification a reality.

That's also what I love about The Escapist. The internet as a whole can be utterly hazardous.

If you do go for a Documentary, watch and keep in mind "The Choir" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Choir_%28TV_series%29]. Also about unorthodox teaching techniques and a very well made documentary set in an educational enviroment.

Also, if you do get 14 year olds, assing them to read "The Catcher in the Rye" and hope one of them takes out Bieber or Lindsay Lohan. LOL

 

[Tenkage]

Thats a great story, I'm glad that the method worked...now if only I can get my achievements to appear in real life with the *bloop* sound, like "Got to work on time", "Ate a Healthy Breakfast", "Didn't piss off my sister" and so on LOL

 

[Rayne870]

snip

Very cool, and a great Idea, I think you should work gold stars into it though, I remember those being AWESOME as a kid, and I probably would have done more in high school if there were gold stars involved.

Actually I'm just gonna go ahead and go out and buy a pack on my way to work tonight.

 

[Larmo]

I had a teacher who did something similar to this, you started of the week with 10 points and every time you did well on a assignment or behaved well you got more.

But if you forgot your homework or pencil, misbehaved, or generally did what you weren't supposed to do you lost points.

So on Friday she would bring into class a tray with everything from Jellpens (those were really 'in' then) to candy and soda and you got to spend the points on what you wanted or save them for next week for something bigger, it certainly kept order and I can say I learned quite a bit in that English class.

I remember one student got caught with a CD player (remember those) and the teacher took it away, then the student saved his points for 3 weeks and 'bought' it back and I never saw it in school again.

 

[Venereus]

Did research on this last year. Children as young as eight responded to games - very basic sorts. A maths game with a single and co-operative mode. Had a rudimentary campaign. Most students liked the game, the fact that they were doing maths didn't matter to them. Platforming, shooting, etc. etc.

Learning through games has been around for a while and the research has demonstrated that it works. Why people haven't adopted it more sincerely I don't know.

We're corporate slaves. It'll go mainstream once it sells really well. Just ask video games, they lived it.

 

[Ghengis John]

Let me start off by giving a little background information. My name is Brian Person and I am a licensed social studies teacher in Colorado and am currently working on my SPED Masters. Right now, with social studies jobs being hard to come by I am working as a substitute teacher and float between a middle school and high school from where I did my student teaching and coaching.

SNIP

I loved it, read the whole thing, I burst out laughing at points. I want you to know man this is a fascinating read and I think the idea bears some exploration. It might be a few years down the line but i look forward to the documentary. I just hope the camera doesn't disturb the kids.

 

[Jopoho]

I wouldn't mention that you used one class as a control group.

 

[SketchyFK]

I am really glad to see a teacher actually posting a reply onto this topic. I watch extra credits all the time and i normally find it alot of value for my film work.

On the Getting-2-the-point bit however, my mum is a head teacher and I, more than often, talk to her about these guys. Hopefully I can show her your report and see if she'd be willing to give this a try in her school.

Unfortunately, like i think some1 has mentioned already, your control is a bit iffy for the issue of it just being survayed over 2 classes and the 2nd class might just generally have been a better class anyway. Otherwise not bad.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Slight difference easily overcome with long time teachers and goals.

Giving out actual physical treats in the class.

That's the biggest issue I have with this, but I reckon it would be easily overcome by having a system within school (say of merits and demerits) which leads to an award at the end of the year. Can you imagine if there was some physical prize (which a lot of schools have) for the best student, and you could actually chart your progress as the best student through the achievements?

It's not the material reward part, it's the immediacy of it. I understand that as a sub you couldn't have implemented my suggestion, but if this system were to be seriously considered I think an end of term gradual working towards is probably a better idea.

 

[Limie]

I'd also like to point out that, with some reflection, my school did try a watered down version of this across the board. It may be fairly common practice, I'm not sure.

It was called the Merit System. In our organisers there was a page for merit stamps, which teachers would give out for answering a tough question, getting top in the class on a piece of homework, and that kind of thing. Every now and then a merit shop was opened during lunch-time where you could spend merits on boxes of chocolate, footballs.

It didn't really work that well, but I suspect this was more due to its implementation rather than a problem with the core idea. Merits were given out far too infrequently, and the merit shop was very very scarcely open. Also, merits awards tended to be exclusive, being given out to very few people if at all. If they had been more inlusive, so that they were attainable by everyone who had the desire to get them, I think the system might have worked better.

That's just something to add. I went to school in South Wales, Britain, so this kind of system might be common practice in the US.

We had a similar system in the secondary school i went to and the merits I felt were given out for worthy actions and the rewards were readily available, however it was rarely used as they seemed to be "unappealing" or "uncool" thing to collect and had a "nerd" stigma attatched to them.

I did like how you made the reward available to everyone in the class. There are currently a number of schools in my local area that are using long term reward systems to encourage attendance i.e. an ipod for full attendance for a year. However these sorts of schemes have only been accessable to the students who exhibit "disruptive" behaviour and seems to exclude students who are interested in learning, which can be disheartening for them.

My problem is with the candy reward and the frequency the reward is given. Food rewards are a quick and easy way to gain attention but providing this every lesson makes it less engaging. This effect even ocurs with the new lesson styles that include gamification.The gamified lesson could even be used as a reward for good behaviour.

It has been said above but performing the gamification without the candy reward would be an interesting way of seeing if gamification works, I mean I don't see my xbox giving me chocolate but I still aim for that next achievement.

Another problem I see is that Gamifications of lessons on a long term basis is time consuming for teachers and requires a certain imagination and so may not be openly accepted by some.

I apologise if this doesn't make sense but it is late, but I hope you will keep me informed of any progress you make in this subject as I would welcome it greatly.

 

[Chiefwakka]

Alright, I got to take care of some evening errands. I will be back in a bit so please, please, please keep that feedback coming...I will address as much of it as I can and if I don't get to your post, rest assured I will read it.

 

[Nickompoop]

congratulations dude. I think you may have found the Holy Grail of teaching. Hey, maybe my kids (assuming I have kids, at least) will see Gamification in their classrooms. That'd be awesome.

 

[CplDustov]

It might be worth taking this to TED talks!

A great idea. I teach English in Mexico and am really interested in trying something similar. We are going to start a Blog and I wonder if it would be ok to use your OP as an entry.