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

[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.

"Intrinsic" and "extrinsic" only means the reward is internalized by the individual or provided from the outside. True, badges are extrinsic, in that they are a recognition of an achievement, but so is an scholarship. The difference between the badge and the scholarship is that the badge is abstract and the scholarship is a practical reward. The badge only holds a consensual meaning: it's only important if it's recognized as being important in the environment, be it a game or society. The motivation they generate is not based on a real world item (candy, money) but on a, now properly used, intrinsic desire to have your accomplishments recorded and recognized by other people.

In education those terms get very mixed up, really, often misused to mean "long term rewards" versus "short term rewards". What I was saying there was that short term rewards don't necessarily get in the way of the long term reward as an ultimate goal, they just make the process of getting there more enjoyable for the subject. In a game structure used to reach a long term goal the original and ultimate desire to obtain the goal still needs to come from the subject, but the sense of engagement in the process is provided through the game.

That means that the reward can still be an abstract, long term goal: "Get a good grade!" "Become a doctor" "Become a wise, literate, productive adult" without requiring the kid to hold his interest for a long, long period based only on a purely intrinsic motivation to reach the goal to reap its benefits. By providing the satisfaction of abstract rewards in a game structure you are actually able to remove a lot of the need for practical extrinsic rewards, keep the kids' eyes on the ultimate real-world benefit and make it less of a chore to get there without having to trick them with, you know, candy.

I was referring to the game design definition of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. You're right that it basically comes down to a "practical" reward and an abstract one.

You're also right that with education these terms are a bit more vague. Teachers usually refer to motivation rather than rewards. In that regard, an achievement might be both intrinsic and extrinsic. Some students might want an achievement because it shows that they have mastered a subject, whereas other students might just want it for bragging rights or as sort of a "collect them all" mindset.

Anyway, my issue with solely limiting yourself to abstract rewards is that they aren't valuable rewards to everyone. Achievements, badges and points are only effective if they are desirable. To some people, those types of rewards are actually a "badge of nerdiness" and as such they become a punishment of sorts. This isn't just true of education. Even in games some people are extremely put off by achievements, and they make fun of those who brag about their gamerscore.

Having said all that, I do agree with you that more attention should be spent on structure.

My ultimate goal is always to show my students the inherent value in what they are learning. Sometimes this means rewarding them with a totally externalized reward such as candy, simply because it will enable me to make more progress with them later on.

 

[ran88dom99]

Let the ppl who do well on test and act nice do what they want. Best reward.
Use Larry gonik's books.http://www.larrygonick.com/

 

[Heathrow]

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'd never heard watching television described as "engaging" before.

Classroom movies suffer from the lecture format problem of being inherently passive. If you actually want to engage students you need to get them thinking critically about the subject at hand.

The only reliable way to engage students is through classroom discussion/Socratic seminar. Asking the right questions at the right times and leading students to a way of thought which allows them to create the answers and facts you are trying to teach in their own minds rather then have those facts dictated to them.

Your experiment is notable because it has elicited cooperation but we should not pretend that has engaged your students or necessarily allowed them to learn anything.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

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

Id agree with you here but behaviorism keeps society together. Some jobs are things people NEED to do. They might not be fun things. But they are things. They are levers that need to be pulled. For everyone. Someone has to do it. Offer people food for pulling their levers and hurah, society works again. In the same way the reverse skinner box of negative action = negative consequence keeps more than a few people from doing whatever they please. Of course not everyone NEEDS behaviourisms to function. It just really really helps. Especially those less inclined to work "for the greater good" or not commit crimes because "they are wrong". The lower denominators.

Still missing the most important of my questions. Why should I believe what you're saying? What's backing your statements?

Have a rat sit in a cage. Have something large suddenly appear and make a loud noise. The rats reaction and the persons reaction will be the same. Test it. Go ahead and test my hypothisis, you have the basis to prove me wrong. You wont though. The test will prove that on an instinctual level we have a lot of the same functions. Think about it this way. If we didnt like behaviourisms sex wouldnt have to be enjoyable. We like to pull thse levers. Its the easiest way to effect a change in behaviour without overhauling a persons priorities.

For example imagine a friend of mine doesnt care about school but does about games. Before you come in with "we can do better than animals" let me ask you these two questions.

Whats easier, forcing him to unlearn his enjoyment for pulling levers (the basis for many games, action > reward) and to re learn the same enjoyment for learning.

OR

Using a pre existing behaviour to effect the same change.

Also ask this:

Its nice to be better than animals but whats better really.

Using methods that show we are better than behaviourisms and have this boy become a drop out and a leech on society, with the possibility of drugs, crime ect

OR

Using behaviourisms and giving him a better life, in which is he contributes to the world at large?

 

[Cowabungaa]

We are more than what neuroscience can explain.

Just a little snippet but; oh? Sounds like an awfully floaty thing to say in an otherwise logical post.

While I can see your point, that gamification is just Pavlov-like conditioning in a nice shell, I must add that gamification can be a nice tool to start out with, especially for therapists. I myself am proposing it to my psychologist as a method to train discipline. The ultimate goal of course is that patients like myself don't need such structures any more, but gamification might be incorporated in the start of the treatment, like maybe my own treatment. As long as it's not the end of it.

Then again, this realisation might nullify it's effect on me. Which sucks because, while I can conciously reason what I need to do, that hasn't penetrated my sub-concious yet. And honestly I don't know how to.

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.

But that doesn't change the core of the idea. It makes it more intricate and suitable for sentient species like ourselves, but it doesn't change the fact that you're still doing it for the reward. It's still, at it's core, a Pavlovian method.

These kids the OP is teaching for example, are they silent and submissive because they understand why they should be, and because they understand why it's the best course of action to take in the long run? Or is it because they want those rewards?

That's the main problem with this refined form of behaviorism; there's nothing that leads to an understanding of why they should do what they're asked to do. Doing the behavior that is wished of them should be the reward in itself after logically concluding that it's the best thing to do. Gamification does not teach them that.