Ideas for gamificaiton of educaiton
polycounter lvl 6
I've read and seen a few things about gamification of learning and it got me to think about some ways that may improve the effectiveness of education through adding game mechanics. This is just a fun mental exercise intended to generate ideas, so don't take it too seriously. Who knows, maybe this could be rolled into something practical?
My first thought was (and this is a remix of ideas I've heard from a few sources) using an experience point system where students earn XP through their "skills" practice. Instead of starting from an "A" (100%) and having points taken away for mistakes, they would start from nothing and work their way up to higher levels of skill. In addition to this, you cannot move on to a new "skill" until you meet the XP requirements to progress to the necessary skill level.
So, students would be required to continue working, and improving, on a "skill" until they perform at a sufficient level to move on. Their progress is measured by their level of mastery of the skill, not by how much they've completed by the due date. It's like an achievement system where the students "unlock" new learning materials once they've satisfied certain criteria.
Even though the deadline criteria is removed, the student will be compelled to keep up with classmates and even encouraged to collaborate to help each other get through parts they may be struggling with.
Edit: Gah! I misspelled the title!
My first thought was (and this is a remix of ideas I've heard from a few sources) using an experience point system where students earn XP through their "skills" practice. Instead of starting from an "A" (100%) and having points taken away for mistakes, they would start from nothing and work their way up to higher levels of skill. In addition to this, you cannot move on to a new "skill" until you meet the XP requirements to progress to the necessary skill level.
So, students would be required to continue working, and improving, on a "skill" until they perform at a sufficient level to move on. Their progress is measured by their level of mastery of the skill, not by how much they've completed by the due date. It's like an achievement system where the students "unlock" new learning materials once they've satisfied certain criteria.
Even though the deadline criteria is removed, the student will be compelled to keep up with classmates and even encouraged to collaborate to help each other get through parts they may be struggling with.
Edit: Gah! I misspelled the title!
Replies
I personally think the XP system you described is great, although I think you would need some kind of exams and graduations(read: deadlines) or else I fear some people may never get on with the education. As for the collaboration, I think that class wide xp bonuses that gets released if groups perform well on the different tasks would help the students encourage each other to do their best in class. It might be able to help on kids getting picked on by bullies since its 'often' the outsiders that performs best(well.. atleast thats how it was in my class anyways)
http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard
There we go.
Perhaps, but I think it would be better if the educators paid attention to students not progressing as fast as the rest of the class and helped them "catch up" instead of imposing hard deadlines. Also, planning the difficulty and scope of the material with consideration to the amount of time it will likely be completed by most students would be a much better plan than saying "this has to be done by this day or you get no points". Dictating to students how fast they must learn isn't very realistic IMHO. Besides, it can be an opportunity to develop self-discipline, self-organization, and goal setting skills as well. It might also be possible to issue extra points to those that complete the material to a certain level of mastery in a given amount of time (like time-trials in games).
Oh, the education should probably be comprehensive. That is, they need to use what they learned earlier to complete future goals (like Portal teaches you physics concepts to solve difficult puzzles).
also your argument about deadlines really deadlines teach time management skills.
the whole idea of gamification of education to me is essentially just rewarding the newer generations for having the attention span of a goldfish.
Well, that's just your opinion. It really doesn't add anything to the topic. You don't like it, fine. You don't have to participate. I'm not going to twist your arm.
I disagree. That's a very old frame of mind that doesn't hold up to reason. Teaching time management through deadlines is like throwing a novice swimmer in the deep end and forcing them to "sink or swim". Deadlines impose an anxiety effect that compel the student to make haste in their work to meet the deadline. It never taught me to manage my time, it's quite the opposite. This causes a "just get it done" attitude that sacrifices quality in favor of alacrity. I think time management skills are better taught by teaching the student directly about using the tools they need to set their own timetables. Encouraging the student to find their own pace at which they are most productive is going to serve them better than stressing them with due dates. The game industry is rife with stories about managers that didn't manage the teams time properly and pushed out inferior games that didn't perform well in the market.
That's a rather shallow perspective. Does the newer generation have shorter attention spans or has education fallen behind the information and media rich world we live in? I think it's the latter. The assembly line model for education is showing its age. It was a system devised in the industrial age and we are in the information age. An information age approach is required.
Virtual simulation.
Would you rather have open heart surgery from someone who did 500 hours of open heart surgical simulations? Or someone who studied from a book, and took a multiple choice exam, and barely passed?
Because that's what's now happening. CSA has developed technologies and programs used to simulate open heart surgury for doctors. They can thank the Video Games industry for the UI development, the Game engine, the graphical capabilities, and the CPU's ability to randomize situations.
Also happening with the military, with military simulations.
I can see these game programs permeating ALL education. Standard testing does NOTHING to help anyone internalize anything.
Can you imagine if Vet students had to figure out what was wrong with a dog given various symptoms (as opposed to writing a bunch of exams).
Or if police officers were put into actual randomized VR scenarios (rather than write multiple choice exams).
Or if engineers had to solve randomized mechanical/structural problems, rather than write a multiple choice exam).
I've talked to a few teachers about this, and they VERY much agree with this.
Well, how about rehab games? Simulations that are used to help people regain mental and physical capability they may have lost due to an injury.
Not sure what country you live in, but this is very much already part of the UK education system. You gain marks by answering correctly, whether its Maths or History. New skill level = going from intermediate Maths to higher Maths, likewise with other subjects. From GCSE to A Level = Level Up. University = top of the game, then the mastery levels of Masters, then PHD.
Shouldn't they have access to all materials already?
No deadlines? Might be some kind of reverse psycology you're thinking of, also depends on how mature the student is. Some students just aren't interested.
Also don't believe, students should have to unlock material, if they want a challenge and want to jump into the deep end of a subject let them, They will either embrace the challenge and do well or drop-out, to something simpler.
also my other objection to gamificaiton, is in the world not everything is fun, your going to proly start off with a shit job, that you hate, maybe even multiple ones, but you still got to push through and do the work, and look happy doing it or your out of a job.
Unless the entire classroom is computerized / automated (which would be a problem itself) the "processing" required to keep track of XP and stuff is just too much and too annoying for a teacher.
Also, as someone who's been involved with some games for learning initiatives, the best approach seems to be adopting the interface metaphors ("graduation" = "level up") but keeping the underlying mechanism relatively the same. That is, don't actually gamify anything, but make them think it's gamified so they begin to see the systems logic that governs the school system, whether it's a dysfunctional system or not.
In the US we have a grade system (at least when I was a student) of A-F A being 100% and F being less than 60%. The levels I'm talking about are skill levels they reach as a matter of mastery (Reading skill level, language, math, etc. like attributes in a game character).
By "materials" I mean new lessons or learning challenges. Of course learning resources should always be available, but letting a student move on to lessons that require competence in the previous one wouldn't be beneficial.
Yes, no deadlines. It's better to teach them how to form their own deadlines than to impose deadlines on them. Later on you can introduce due dates and deadlines once they've mastered time management tools and skills (i.e. time trials).
If they want to challenge themselves, they can do so if they want to, but they should know the fundamentals of the subject before they go deeper. Otherwise they may become disillusioned with the subject because it's "too hard" and give up on it.
So once they complete the lesson, there should be bigger challenges related to the learned material (like a side quest, higher difficulty but continues to utilize learned skills). It's the same way you come to a way-point and some challenges become available to if you want to expand on the skill you just learned. Rocksmith does this. You learn a skill, you practice it, and you can seek out greater challenges to attain greater mastery. It tracks your progress and throws out new skills to practice as you get better.
Yeah, being an adult sucks. So why can't learning be fun? You have your whole adult life to hate your boss or bust your hump cleaning toilets. Would it not be nice if, for a little while, you did things that didn't suck? I don't agree with the idea that since being a working adult sucks, so should school.
If anything, there should be work done by the parents *before* a kid even enters school, so that his/her brain is developed appropriately for learning, and his/her personality is strong enough to see interest in education. Granted, schools and teachers are not always as good as they could be, but turning them into a game would not make learning better, easier or faster. Some teachers are very innovative already, sparking great interest in kids without having to sacrifice anything about great teaching methods.
BTW, you got that Megaman model to work on, based on the good advice that was given in your thread, so that you can make it as good as other A-graded game art pieces out there
Does it ? I think it's pretty awesome. You can create your business, or not ; follow the things you genuinely like ; and learn new things everyday.
Sometimes there are even boobs involved.
You're not an ass, you're just a guy who clearly enjoys talking about games more than doing anything else related to them. Go start a blog or something. You also like to whine when people disagree with you.
Actually, that does make you kind of an ass.
I completely disagree with this.
Why must teachers and students have a sterile unfriendly relationship? It would seem that both parties would put much less effort into teaching/learning in this type of situation.
I also think that learning can definitely be made to be fun. Khan Academy seems to be doing a good job of that, and with math no less.
Here's a good talk about the future of education. I think we're in for a lot of changes in the coming years.
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I have fond memories of great teachers (mostly geography and history teachers now that I think of it) using great educational tools to make us (a.k.a : 15 years old stupid kids
There is also a great mathematician who recently quit his job to dedicate his life to Origami, and now uses it as a vector to teach math and geometry to small kids, with great results. (check out Between The Folds on Netflix, great documentary). IIRC there are some cool TED talks on that kind of approach too. In that sense, I totally agree - learning can be cool and fun *by itself*.
I just dont agree with the "unlockables/bait/no grades" side of things, because in my opinion these just deal with the surface of things, instead of dealing with core educational issues that young kids are facing.
There is also a strong distinction to be made between classes that one has to take as part of a global set of courses (mathematics, vocabulary, foreign languages...) and stuff that one chooses to take later on (basically picking up an education path to follow : art, advanced mathematics, and so on), because motivation is obviously much stronger when one picks what to learn.
But still, I don't see where unlockables, achievements and deadlines would fit in there either, as these tend to appeal to the more "unproductive" part of one's personality - the one making us grind for hours to unlock cool loot or making us wait for facebook stuff. I guess I simply tend to give education a much higher value than this ... No need for baits and rewards, the pleasure of learning is enough by itself!
Just my 2c !
There are actually two takes on gamification. One side is the shallow end with xp grinding, achievements, unlocks, etc... The other side has much more depth encouraging things like the challenge of overcoming difficult problems and community interaction/cooperation.
Obviously the shallow methods of gamification aren't a great addition to education, but the deeper ideals of gamification can probably be harnessed to improve it.
Gamification is still in it's infancy and certainly needs some time to mature further. There are likely going to be some horrible implementations at first but hopefully also some really great ones as people experiment with it more.
As it stands now, we're telling students to learn about thermal convection because it's on the test. Telling students to learn about thermal convection because it levels them up isn't much better in my opinion. Education shouldn't be about immediate rewards or meeting the expectations of a ranking system just so you can one day graduate and escape the educational system. I think that entire train of thought is why our education system is so shitty and hemorrhaging morons.
Life isn't about immediate rewards, and I don't think we should mislead our children into thinking that it is with their education. Until we can create a system that instills a desire for knowledge for the sake of learning and growing as an individual, I won't be satisfied. Maybe that comes off as some real hippy shit, but I'm absolutely serious.
Reformation of education is something pretty dear to my heart. I think there are many, many better options than just adding levels and experience points.
That's the most compelling argument against gamification I've heard so far. Well said.
Perhaps adding game methods to the entire system is unwarranted, but I think applying it to the really boring part (the repetition, a.k.a. grinding) of learning something they want to learn could at least prevent students from giving up before they gain some competence in the subject. If the problem is we aren't giving them compelling reasons to learn it other than, "it's required", then I agree. We need to change that. Maybe showing them why they would want to learn about thermal convection would be more effective than telling them they need to learn it. It really is about incentives. Right now, students have little to no incentive to grind away at the books. They just think it's something they have to do and it doesn't matter if it's actually pertinent to what they want to do with their life.
Take the guitar for example. How many people give up on that before they gain proficiency with it because the practicing is frustrating and boring? If you turn that boring, frustrating shit into a game, you might stick with it longer and get better. I don't see this just for kids either. As an adult student, it's even harder to stay focused on your education when you have other distractions like bills, rent, job, relationships, etc.
Also, I think these concepts might be applicable to the workplace too in some way. Or maybe I'm just being unrealistic?
And we are not willing to try cuz the dirty dirty games might infect are incredibly pristine perfect educational systems?
This is an area I have put a lot of sweat into. ( not that I worked on an active project or contributed to something that was actually published )
I have pages of notes and a treatment that has evolved over the past ten years. And considering some attitudes I did not know existed, I don't think I would have the balls to share as much here! But that some think that games are inherently a negative thing is kind of depressing. There is a fanatic political force out there doing everything in it's power to paint games in only negative light.
Why be so dismissive? And to be that quick to dismiss the idea one might assume that all the anti-game propaganda is working on our own psyche more than we know?
A game would only be frivalous and waste of time if that was what we were only capable of.
I don't buy that at all.
That a new paradigm for interactive real time education where immersion levels are so challenging that students invest as much interest and passion as any other "GOOD IMMERSIVE WORK"...
That this new language for such a game does not yet exist does not mean that the best of us could not make that game?
Perhaps thats the problem... That we are settling for the serious game crap that already exists?
And because so much of current serious games seem to be lowest common denominator crap we imagine that to be the only course.
In my own case, all my sweat comes from the very fact that all the educational efforts seem as cheap as cheesy christianity game ( which in their own right, do not have to be so tacky either! )
The only reason the AAA effort has not happened yet is because the best minds generally make what interests them. And although it would be nice if civic responsibility drove a large percentage of their hard work... That just isn't human nature.
Maybe a game solution is not possible for every subject...
But I find i hard to believe that creative minds can not intuitively see aspects of interactive learning that could be very effective and very addictive!
Particularly technical artists! who I would assume know how easy the math war game would be! ( Any visual person who despised math but now embraces matrices and vectors happily knows how effective that math war game could be! )
( heck, anyone who took part in melbot wars knows how effective and addictive that math war game could be! )
I think another big area that leads to such disagreement depends on whether you agree or disagree with the current education systems. Coming from inner city USA I do not care if u want to blame parents or Teacher's Unions. But I am positive a new paradigm that works IS NEEDED! And I think that paradigm that I know already has every inner city kid I know addicted to their games could do wonders if they put their brilliant minds to the task. And despite what negative view you might have toward video games... Even with the most ruthless of drug dealers in East Baltimore their time playing Madden and Gears of War have always been positive social experiences! Even if the educational system works fine for a majority of Americans... There are a lot of kids living a sub-human oodles of noodeles/Black Market babyfood nightmare of a life. And they are getting left behind. I think an effort with the complexity of spore ( an educational game with huge procedural adaptability ) that tackled the problem. And with entertainingg high production value. And was built to accept/evolve failure would fill an educational role for a large population.
Considering this industry is very talented when it comes to immersion you would think that it was obvious that they contribute that talent to education. Perhaps even a responsibility.
i agree 100% something "fun", and new is needed. it also is about WHAT they teach because in the inner city schools around here they don't even teach proper history. it's sad as hell, nothing about the constitution... nothing. they're treated like they're in a daycare not a school. but that's my own opinion.
The Many Benefits, for Kids, of Playing Video Games
Considering that games empower the player maybe that aspect of gaming can be used to turn this trend of education around.
The Dramatic Rise of Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents: Is It Connected to the Decline in Play and Rise in Schooling?
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A website that turns solving protein chains for biochemistry into a game and it's works better than anticipated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=zDZFcDGpL4U
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
I worked on a project making training software for the local oil industry. The software was aimed at beginners and it tackles issues like worker safety and proper maintenance procedures on stuff like diesel engines (changing oil, disposing old oil, etc.) and oil rig structures (lots of dangling heavy equipment that can knock you dead).
Instead of forcing this available work force on textbooks or manuals with dry tech writing and boring illustration they're exposed to vital info in a medium they're more willing to process.
The software serves as a weeding tool too. You "level up" or access advance lessons after passing a series of quizzes. If the applicant has difficulties achieving the learning goals of the software they won't get the necessary certification they need to get the job.
There was a substantial amount of research that went into it before we developed it. I wasn't super involved with the process, but from what I have heard it has been working.
No one told the guys behind the project to actually make it into a game ; rather, they worked on that problem for a while, realized that a 3D unfolding approach was appropriate and indeed, probably the best ; then they managed to turn it into an appealing piece of entertainment by making it available and easy to use.
The consequence of it is, indeed, a game ; but one cannot force that as a starting point. If you ask a researcher to do something "like the Foldit guys did", you can be sure it will fail. I think we are mixing up causes and consequences here.
For some reason I can't help but draw a parallel to Will Wrights next "game" Hivemind. If you ask me it could be his spruce goose and he's just a few short years away from being fitted for tissue box shoes...
But you're ignoring the resulting effect. It doesn't matter that it wasn't intended to be a game, that's what they ended up with and that made it into a success because it was done in a way that fits with how humans behave. Post-it notes adhesive wasn't intended to be a reusable adhesive note. It was in the process of creating a new, stronger adhesive that they discovered this one. It was quite by accident and the resulting effect was something useful. It's faulty logic to dismiss an innovation just because it wasn't intended to work that way.
Just as players of many traditional games like MMO's develop a meta game within the game (gold farming, speed runs, etc.), there are some game elements that come out of a system that was never intended to be there. I don't advocate that we just toss in game systems and expect them to work, but I do think through experimentation and study, good systems can be found that will apply well to they way we learn. What is needed is a game system that does cater to how the human mind learns.