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

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The Apothecarry

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Mar 6, 2011
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It's always the little rewards that can make a massive difference. Good to see a substitute teacher actually gain attention from a modern class. Most subs I had in high school just sat back, gave us the assignment and let us do whatever.

Hit me up on Xbox Live if you're on Reach and looking for a Firefight squadmate. Congratulations for proving Gamification!
 

Areani

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Dec 18, 2008
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Awesome! Though I wonder what would have happened without the reward of candy and just have the achievements. Would that be as succesful?
 

Ledan

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Apr 15, 2009
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AWESOME :D!!
I would have loved to have something like this a few years ago, just I thing:
Have bars. Bars are always awesome, and people love to fill them.
Oh, and you need a catchy name for the documentary.
Other than that, good luck and I hope to see it when it comes out, and I really want this to spread to become the new standard for education in all countries.
 

Lucie

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Mar 28, 2011
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That was really cool, but I wonder if it would work in the long run, you know when you have the same class for a whole year. But for a substitute teacher this is perfect to use.
 

Circusfreak

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Mar 12, 2009
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please let us know when you´re done with the doc. gonna show this + the EC episode for some of my teachers :) thank you.
 

Chris646

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Jan 3, 2011
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I swear I am going to have to print this out and give this to my teachers. It would certainly be interesting. Maybe this could go a bit further with a normal teacher. The students are given a progress sheet with a bunch of "school achievements" listed on it, and when they complete the achievements, they are given progressively better rewards. If there are, say, 10 achievements on the sheet, then 1-3 achievements is a candy of their choice,4-6 is 5 points extra credit, 7-9 is a regular-sized candy bar of their choice, and all 10 is a regular-sized candy bar and 20 points extra credit.
This is an interesting concept that could really help students learn things better than now.
A documentary might be difficult, but it would be very interesting.
 

Barziboy

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Apr 14, 2009
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Hat-tip to the Fight Club reference...and the overall plan.

"Keep it up, keep it right up."
 

The Zango

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Apr 30, 2009
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This shouldn't be a thread, this should be an entire article! Congratulations sir! If I had more teachers like you during my short time at school, I might not have been such a little shit :p
 

Weaver

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Apr 28, 2008
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This was a good read, I'm glad there are people trying new things in the education world!
 

Tyynn_Kaann

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Apr 1, 2011
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I disagree that it would lose effect over multiple times for one reason: People rarely take the same class twice. Yes, if you offered those same achievements every day, it wouldn't work but I believe that an actual teacher would be able to come up with many, many achievements that would continue to hold the attention of a class for the whole year. Some of them could, with a little effort, be completed in a day, but most would span months.

So instead of "do not talk during the movie" or "do not share information on a quiz" It would be "Do not disrupt class by talking more than 3 times during the year." or "do not cheat on any test or quiz." Both would have very high rewards, and because they only happen once a year, and you only have the same students for a year, it doesn't lose their interest.

Lower difficulty, lower reward achievements that I would suggest would be things like
"Perfectionist: Get 100% on a test."
"Gifted Loser: Complete all questions on a multiple choice test and get a score of 0%"
"Extra Credits: Watch a play or movie outside of school that relates to our lesson. Write a short paper on it."

I also like the idea of using points for achievements because then you can get a material reward OR boost a flagging score with a little bit of effort. It also can be used to solve the "you missed a test because you were sick? I don't see a doctors note" dilemma.
 

snave

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Nov 10, 2009
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Chiefwakka said:
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.
Indeed. I'm going back to this said class on Thursday and I will be changing the pace a little bit and will record my findings to address this very concern.
This is indeed an interesting point. I feel the Extra Credits guys even touched on this briefly at the end with their negative comments towards marketing firms: any technique can reach saturation point. Some of the other game-type ideas floating around have already hit this point. Think of the behavioral appeal of clean simple granular game-like interfaces and how their implimentation in online stores has affected purchasing behaviour (Cough, steam game collectors, cough. Also, check out MC Frontalot's site for a perfect application of this.) These once powerful sales methods are losing their appeal (which is good). Think about it, when you first bought an iphone or Wii, didn't you have a slight urge to fill in another app slot on that main screen? But the second, third, forth device employing this method? Nope, it's just another screen now. Or at least is to me personally.

The big fear I'd say is that saturation comes from shoddy or immoral installations. Watch this video by Seth Priebatsch:
http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_priebatsch_the_game_layer_on_top_of_the_world.html

Back?

Now, note his mention of the "social" internet layer. Already we are seeing burnout of this. This is concerning. What was once compulsive due to how clean and simple it made life has since become a burden because it pushed too far, it reached saturation, and people are turning away in droves. Not necessarily by closing social networking accounts, but paying less attention to individual parts of them. Personally, I'd even attribute these factors to the general failure of social-education sites (smart.fm comes to mind, it's since completely scrapped the social model and become a typical paywall service ala a Rosetta Stone book with monthly fees).

So, back to applied game theory. I suspect we'll see the same thing here. It will see a meteoric rise, then a moderately rapid but largely unnoticed decay, with a hint of frustration thrown in.

Doesn't mean I'm not a believer that game theory in education can cause good. Quite the contrary in fact; I'm a firm believer, especially considering that selection bias (no sleep due to a Maple Story addiction?) often renders the poorest students the ones most susceptible to these methods. But still, I'd be afraid to put everything on the line on these methods.

Regardless of the outcome, I believe small bits of game theory woven into a classroom will never cease to cause results, even if the larger scale things ultimately become cliche or abused to saturation.

To the OP, Brian:
Thank you for sharing your experiment and detailed observations! Also, applause for employing a control group. I love to read genuine road tests of this theory, such a rarity between all the theoretical videos flowing around the net. I'll eagerly look forward to seeing any more results you come up with.

(As I type this, I'm procrastinating on finishing off a level up reward/achievement scheme for my ES kids. I only have to keep one step ahead of the front runner across all classes. One week ahead, one ahead, one ahead.)
 

Littlee300

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Oct 26, 2009
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Venereus said:


It's still just applied behaviorism, gamification just refined it. Seriously, we should be leaving behaviorism behind, not improving it.
If I got a cookie for every assignment I passed I would probably have straight A's. (that is mostly because I only suck at one class, English)