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

[Ace of Spades]

Very well done. Thank you for applying video game principles into a real-world environment. I also would be happy if more substitutes did that, because no one in my class pays attention when we have a sub, since they are usually just working from a few notes the teacher left them, and we end up doing busy work. This would be far more engaging.

 

[Erana]

That's really really cool!
Any way we could help?

Any feedback you guys could give would be awesome. To keep the topic alive, I'm thinking I will split it up into multiple video segments and update weekly, giving my different findings and what not.

You know, what you could do is make a thread with which to share your findings publically, and make a usergroup for discussion on your process.

 

[Chiefwakka]

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!

Yup, I am going to have to adjust the rewards and see how far the system itself, simply getting an achievement, can go to increase student motivation. I think, in an actual classroom, where I can be with them everyday I could do this a lot easier, where as being a sub for 1 day it might be hard to establish instant credibility in a system without some reward.

 

[Chiefwakka]

Congratulations, you found out humans (especially young ones) are impressionable folks and succeeded in conditioning them to do what you want , can't wait till this gets more wide-spread and the corporations will have a field day over this with "Achievements" for buying products, using their shoes/cars or whatever

Btw. if you want to watch a more thought-provoking video about this take a look here: http://www.ted.com/talks/jesse_schell_when_games_invade_real_life.html
It's from DICE in 2010 and by Jesse Schell, who teaches game design and leads some research projects at Carnegie Mellon in the US.

Link favorited, I will watch this later tonight...thank you

 

[zombiejoe]

You sir/madam have just gained my respect. You may use this at your local stores that takes this as currency.

I would love to see this happen in more places.

 

[Chiefwakka]

That's really really cool!
Any way we could help?

Any feedback you guys could give would be awesome. To keep the topic alive, I'm thinking I will split it up into multiple video segments and update weekly, giving my different findings and what not.

You know, what you could do is make a thread with which to share your findings publically, and make a usergroup for discussion on your process.

Ahhh, I just went and clicked on user groups to see what that was about and I must say, that will be a nice tool to use. I will certainly get on top of that as well as using the forums. Thank you

 

[Your Nightmare]

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

Care to elaborate?

Also, nice effort. But it's going to take a lot of effort and time before your research is somewhat seen as consistent.

EDIT - Also, this sounds a lot like Token economy. Reward actions with a token, they use these tokens to buy items. It does sound like that you are just replacing the concept of token with achievements.

 

[Radoh]

Well done, I'm glad you are doing this and might I add that I totally approve of using students as test subjects? I hope to see a documentary out of this some day.

 

[monstersquad]

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

Well said, well said. I can appreciate the impact that this had on 14 year-old kids on a one-day trial basis, but would this work day-to-day? What happens when the kids are older and no longer interested in the paltry choice of candy?

 

[Chiefwakka]

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

Care to elaborate?

Also, nice effort. But it's going to take a lot of effort and time before your research is somewhat seen as consistent.

You are indeed correct, these are just first impressions.

 

[Rune342]

It's nice to hear that something like this works. Give them something they can relate to and they seem to be more cooperative. And good for you for taking the "Gamifcation" idea and putting it to practical use.

 

[Venereus]

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

Care to elaborate?

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.

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

Well said, well said. I can appreciate the impact that this had on 14 year-old kids on a one-day trial basis, but would this work day-to-day? What happens when the kids are older and no longer interested in the paltry choice of candy?

That's actually one of the many criticisms to behaviorism. We're a bit more complex than rats.

 

[Gunner_Guardian]

Very good first experiment but honestly I can see this being just another grading system and eventually students will treat as such (i.e. ignore it), I could also say they only cared about it because it related to them (Xbox) and you offered a really good immediate incentive (candy).

I'd be interested to see how this would work out if you took away the candy and did this over a long period of time and tell us the results.

 

[tlozoot]

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.

 

[Raiha]

that is very interesting. i am very curious to see what other kinds of gamification you can come up with and see how effective each one is. please post updates on other methods of gamification you try and how the documentary is coming.

 

[Chiefwakka]

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

Well said, well said. I can appreciate the impact that this had on 14 year-old kids on a one-day trial basis, but would this work day-to-day? What happens when the kids are older and no longer interested in the paltry choice of candy?

It's very difficult for a teacher to have a large impact on a student once they have moved on from the classrooms. As a football coach I'll get a call, once in a while, for a recommendation from students looking to play in college. But yeah, all we can really do as teacher, is take the moment that is presented to us and hope that by getting students to engage that they will find something beyond the reward. Yeah, a student reading up on an Algebra book to get a reading achievement might not seem like much, but just think, if in reading it the student gains a real interest in math....next thing you know he's taking bio-chemical engineering in college.

It's just but a moment, yet we must encourage as best we can.

 

[hardpixelrain]

Fantastic! Looks like extra creditz is already proving itself both practical and useful. Gamification is a fantastic concept and I'm glad to hear some results from it actually being put into practice.

 

[Phoenixlight]

Very interesting, nice work!