EXTRA: Current thoughts

I'm getting everything set up for the launch of the game on Friday this week. Not sure how it's going to work yet. I still want a smartphone app type of thing to keep track of the students' points, but I haven't found anything yet. Grr. I'm anxious to see how the students react to the game itself, and I'm not sure if I've done everything I want to have done. I want their points cards to be laminated, and the reward tokens too, and I want a way to mark the tokens so I will know that I gave it to them and it wasn't taken from my bin - but not permanently, because I will want to re-use them. I think I might be asking for too much, but that is why this is a trial run, right?

I hope it works out... I'm off to write some report cards!

Problems yet to be solved

This should be a very short post... since I have no solutions yet, pretty much all I can do here is brainstorm. My two biggest concerns now are how to keep track of the points, and how to address penalties (late work, incomplete work, missing work.)
My class has been using Edmodo this year with excellent results. Having all calendar dates, due dates, homework submission bin, and communications all linked together online has helped me organise myself and helped a lot of my students organise themselves too. I am thinking to use badges as one alternative for keeping track of points. I am also considering index cards as the simplest way to keep track, but I have a feeling they will go missing. ClassDojo looked very interesting, but it ended up being restrictive for what I wanted to do, which involved giving a variable amount of points for an action. (That said, I would still like to incorporate ClassDojo in some way.) So far, it looks like it will be Edmodo, although I think it would be a LOT easier if I could award badges from the app.
As for penalties, I'm not sure if I want them to be an explicit part of the game. One of the things that attracted me to the idea of gamification was that it is merit-based, not deficit-based - you start at zero and GAIN points through your positive actions, instead of starting at 100% and then losing points for your failures. I am really attracted to the idea of rewarding merit instead of punishing deficit. Current psychology and educational theory seem to be pointing in that direction as well. So, I think I will continue to leave consequences aside from the game, at least for now. What I am considering maybe implementing later is a percentage-based penalty - you lose 5% of your final score for each day it is late. We shall see.

Next time: Roll out! What happens when we start?

How I wrote my game

I am fortunate enough to work in a school that, up until the province mandated report cards, did not have grades. We used an anecdotal reporting system, co-written by the student and the teacher. Although we have to report percentage grades for grade 7 and 8 students, we still maintain the mentality of using co-constructed criteria to create rubrics specific to the class and students, and anecdotal comments for all types of assessment. So when writing my classroom game, I am able to completely ignore the question of how to connect the game to a final grade. While a lot of other sites suggested making the grades and levels correspond directly, I didn't see the need to do that. This is really good for me, because I am not the kind of person that has a series of assignments and assessments set up for the entire term in advance.
So after doing all my research, my biggest stumbling block was how to make the levelling system and how many points should each "encounter" (assignment) be worth? Fortunately, I am a Dungeons and Dragons player. I shamelessly pilfered my levelling system from there. It goes up to level 30 and has a set progression so that each subsequent level requires more experience points to gain. 30 levels may seem like a lot, but I am a 3-year multi-age teacher, so I am still toying with the idea of having the students retain their experience as they move through the years. I'm also no sure how quickly the students will find themselves moving through the levels at this point, so I thought I would keep my options open.

My next question to answer was how was I going to award points in such a way that the highest quality assignments would get the most points, and the most important sections of each project would grant the most points? The co-constructed rubrics we use gave me the answer. I decided to assign a point value to each objective we chose for the project, and use the rubric score as a multiplier. We would continue to co-construct the criteria to meet each objective, and a point score would be given for each objective as well as the final score. Students could also be given a re-do time frame, during which time they could go back and change anything, hoping to max out their score.

Finally, I had to deal with the issue of levelling bonuses. I was very frustrated with this section for the longest time. In video games, when you level up, your stats improve (you get stronger, faster, more resistant) and you gain abilities (now you can fly, cast more magic spells, gain access to higher levels of magic). In the real world, they do gain knowledge and abilities, which is very valuable intrinsically, but doesn't work especially well with my idea to have some extrinsic rewards associated with the game - it is a big part of gaming. Eventually, I went to the internet to consult with my fellow educators. After a quick search for "classroom rewards," I came up with a list that I felt my students would respond well to, as well as adding a few of my own. I organised them into A, B, and C-level rewards, and tied them into the levelling system. On the advice of those good folks at Extra Credits again, I also added some bonuses for individuals for behaviours I would like to see more of (+50 bonus XP for helping a classmate) and group bonuses to encourage the students to cheer each other on (+250 bonus XP to everyone when three students reach level 3). This was all right around Easter, so I also bought some plastic hollow eggs so I could put some of the rewards in there and toss them out randomly to students who are participating in class or groups discussions, or who are dedicated to the work at hand.

At this point, I was feeling pretty good about my plan, and presented it to the class. I posted the rewards and bonuses, as well as the levelling system, and asked for their input, suggestions, and a name for the game. The name of this blog comes from one of their suggestions. Although we haven't yet named the game, Realm of the Mad Silver is my favourite so far of all the suggestions.

So, with the Beta test ready to roll out June first, there are a few problems I am still facing, but I will save those for the next entry.

Next time: Problems yet to be solved.
(How to keep track of the points;
Penalties: late work, incomplete work, missing work.)

Starting out

So, I first heard about gamification through the fine folks at Extra Credits who also dedicated an entire episode to the concept of gamifying education. As a gamer, with many other gamers in my classroom, I was immediately fascinated with this idea. I looked into the research behind it, and there was a lot there that I liked.

I have always wondered about the students I have who are so willing to keep trying a repetitive task over and over and over again, until they succeeded - as long as it was in a video game. But try to get them to do the same thing for a science experiment, or a writing piece, or ANYTHING in school, and it's like pulling teeth. The concept of gaming being a "low-risk, immediate reward" scenario, while the tasks we are asking them to do at school are "high-risk, distant-reward" tasks caught my attention and really held it. Why should the tasks we ask them to do be so high risk? Well, we have them do SO much preparation before they get to the point of trial that they feel they are risking starting all over again if they fail. It's why video games have save points right before the final boss - if you fail, you can just start over again from the point at which you failed. You don't have to do all that prep work over again. However, when we ask our students to go back and review a piece, it has all that preparation work attached to it again. I noticed that when we did a science experiment in which students were asked to keep making modifications to a model aircraft they built until it glided, they were constantly in and out of the room, making modification after modification. They had to document their changes, but just by jotting down what they were. They weren't required to analyse each step; they did the analysis only of the final design - what worked, what didn't, and why. Even the students who never got their glider to meet the criteria for a successful glide were satisfied with their work. Each time they made a change, they could immediately see the results - immediate reward.

So, to sum up:

• If students are required to wait until an entire project is complete before receiving feedback, they won't be sure where to go or really be interested in the results by the time they get them; if students can see immediately what they have done successfully and what they have to improve upon, they can better make the connection between what they did and the results thereof, and they will care about it more. this ties into basic behavioural psychology.
• If students have a lot invested in each trial, they don't want to risk failure; if they fail without losing much other than time, they will be more willing to fail. This also ties into their sense of agency - control over their lives.

My concern with gamification is that it relies quite heavily on extrinsic rewards, rather than intrinsic. However, promoting intrinsic rewards is a big part of how I assess and I don't intend to change my assessment practises; just adapt them to a new system. I am hoping this will give students who connect with extrinsic rewards a way to relate more with their work. It is a concern I will keep in mind, and I hope to address it in a later post.

Another a big part of gamification was a sense of accomplishment and a sense of where to go next. This isn't any different from what we do as teachers every day; just the way we do it can be more transparent and relatable to the gaming student if we couch it in gaming terms. So, grades become levels. Marks become experience points. Rewards become random drops.

Next time: How I wrote my game.
(Hopefully it works easily - fingers crossed!)