From time immemorial great ways of learning have been – experience, sharing
stories of these experiences, introspection, playing, tinkering, observing,
experimenting and trial and error. This is why human species has also been
described as Homo fabers – those who love to create and Homo ludens – those who
love to play.
Imparting learning as disciplined,
formal education is a fairly modern invention, only a few centuries old. While
it may be efficient, it is often boring, or stressful, or irrelevant, or all of
the above. This is because formal education has degenerated into passive
consumption of knowledge and its later regurgitation in tests of recall.
Whereas, research shows that deep learning happens when a learner is
self-motivated to learn and constructs own understanding of knowledge.
This is what happens when we are
playing a game. We are intrinsically motivated and overcome difficult
challenges of our own volition. Games are high on effectiveness and engagement
and they cultivate self-awareness, self-control,
attention, effort, persistence, rule following, boundary negotiation, bonding,
trust, empathy, respect, fairness and making right choices. But talk about
using games in education and you have parents complaining how games are addictive
and colossal time-wasters and educationists lamenting that games foster adverse
social behaviour, at times resulting in outright violence.
Is there a way we can
make the most from games to enhance a learning experience, while minimizing
their downside? Gamification may hold the answer.
Gamification is use of
game-elements in non-gaming contexts. Nike creating an online community where
customers share their exercise data with friends and use friendly
competitiveness to improve fitness; or, citizen science projects like
GalaxyZoo.org involving amateurs to help identify new planets and galaxies by
analyzing massive amount of data; or, Volkswagen changing driver behaviour by rewarding
drivers who drive within the speed limit through a lottery created by pooling
fines imposed on drivers who violate the speed limit – are all examples of
gamification.
Gamification of learning
is not simply adding points, badges and leader boards as a layer on top of a
learning activity. It involves deconstructing good games to find elements that
can be used to enhance learning. According to designer Sebastian Deterding, a
good game connects with the personal goals and passions of the players and a
great game lets the players customize the goals. Exactly what advocates of
personalization of education are looking for?
Game designer Raph Koster
observes in his book, ‘A Theory of Fun’, “With games, learning is the drug”. If
this is indeed the case then why do students find learning taxing in a school
environment? Deterding postulates that this is because in a school environment
the conditions are not optimal because unlike a game the challenges provided
are not novel or interesting (interesting challenges are contextual and
learners identify with them because they are based on learners’ aspirations, or
life situation), there is no varying of pace in learning, scaffolding that
allows gradual learning may not be present and learners at school do not get
‘excessive positive feedback’ which is informational in nature and not
controlling or judgmental.
Game designer Amy Jo Kim
explains that in a game a ‘newbie’ needs to be ‘onboarded’, a ‘regular’ needs
fresh challenges so that new learned behaviours become a habit and an
‘enthusiast’ plays the game for achieving ‘mastery’. One size does not fit all
– an important lesson for formal education. Kim further propounds that good
games embody the same five elements that are imperative for wellbeing and
happiness, as suggested by father of positive psychology Martin Seligman – the
PERMA elements: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and
Accomplishment. Elements that would surely go a long way in enriching a
learning experience.
In his book ‘Social Intelligence’
author Daniel Goleman explains the impact of emotions on learning and
performance. He explains that our cognitive performance is highest at the right
level of stress, and inspired moments of learning
combine – full attention, enthusiastic interest and positive emotional
intensity. Hans
Selye too observed that an optimal amount of stress is important for improved
performance. He described it as ‘eustress’ or euphoric stress, which is the
opposite of distress. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes a similar mental state, which he
calls ‘flow’, where one strikes optimal balance between skill possessed and
challenge faced.
Game designers understand
this optimal skill-challenge balance very well. That is why they build ‘levels’
in a game. If experience or knowledge is low and challenge is high it leads to
anxiety, so games provide scaffolding like hints; if knowledge is high and
challenge is low it leads to boredom, and to beat boredom games allow the
players to quickly get to the next level of challenge. Great lessons here for
differentiating learning to suit individual learner needs. Such personalization
of learning is becoming more and more doable, as described in detail in Clayton
Christensen’s book, ‘Disrupting Class’.
In his
book, ‘The
Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game’, game designer turned teacher, Lee Sheldon illustrates many
examples of how he has used ARG (Alternate Reality Games) in his classroom. He
also incorporates other game mechanics. For example, one of the first things he
did was to tell the students that in his class they all start at Grade-F (or
Score = 0, as in a game) and that they have to work their way to higher grades.
They earn Experience Points for what they do in the class, including one point
for simply showing up and work their way to better score/grades, akin to moving
to higher levels in a game. ‘World Without Oil’ is an example of an ARG to
solve real-world problem by chronicling alternate future scenarios.
In summary, by
deconstructing good games we can identify elements that can be used to augment
learning. A good game constitutes a challenge that players have an intrinsic
motivation to undertake and master, it has innovative and constantly changing
stimulus that ensures intense engagement, it allows autonomous choices while
incorporating a rule system that ensures fair play and clear winning conditions,
it has instant, juicy and informative, non-judgmental feedback that improves
performance, it provides a safe but not sterile place where consequences are
not dire, frustration is taken in stride, failure is less shameful and in
collaboration there is mutual respect, trust, benevolence and empathy.
Surely these are
ingredients that can be borrowed for enhancing any learning experience – be it
formal education or an app.
For Learners
The key take-away from
gamification for learners is the understanding that something becomes fun and
intrinsically motivating when it is relevant to own context. So learn to restructure
learning activities such that they are better aligned with your own aspirations.
For example, you may think that there is no point studying quadratic equations
or Calculus because you will never apply them in your daily life. Change this
mindset and instead think of them as a learning experience that helps you
figure out how to learn difficult and complex concepts, which is a very useful
life skill.
For Teachers
Think how you can
dovetail gaming elements to make your teaching more situated, contextualized
and personalized for your learners? What lessons gamification has for adding an
emotional impact to a learning experience? How gamification is especially
suited to impart 21st century skills like innovative problem solving and empathetic
collaboration? How games have a mechanics where assessment is embedded and what
lessons this has for finding alternates to weekly tests, which cause
unnecessary anxiety and fear of failure and ridicule. Can you embed assessment
into learning itself? Project-based work is one example.
Watch a short animated
introduction on Gamifying Education: http://extra-credits.net/episodes/gamifying-education/
For Parents
Why do games hold the
rapt attention of players? Don’t you wish your children could have similar
concentration while studying! In her book ‘The Power of Mindful Learning’,
Ellen Langer explains that the natural state of the mind is to seek variety.
Thus, for us to pay attention to something for any amount of time, the image
must be varied. For example, we usually have no difficulty in paying attention
to play because in play novelty is inherent – every minute of a tennis match is
different. The trick to improving attention lies in our ability to vary the
target of our attention. We need to figure out ways of looking for novelty in a
stimulus that otherwise seems static, say a teacher talking in the class or
when we are reading a long research paper. By creating novelty in a stimulus we
make it more interesting and hence do not get distracted. Teach your kids how
they can make learning an adventure or a game, for example, by reading a story
from the perspective of different characters in the story, or making up
different endings to the story. Such mental interaction makes the stimulus
(learning content) novel and hence more interesting and diminishes distractions.
Short videos on this
website explore how fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the
better - http://www.thefuntheory.com
For Knowledge Workers
Analysing the design of great games provides an insight into
self-motivation – how games can make players toil and persevere. In his book ‘Drive
– Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’, author Daniel Pink explains that
motivation 1.0 was based on our biological drive of survival and growth,
motivation 2.0 is based on ‘carrot and stick’ approach, but we are now moving
towards motivation 3.0, that Pink describes as AMP – Autonomy, Mastery and
Purpose. Autonomy:
the urge to direct our own lives, Mastery: the desire to get better and
better on something that matters, and Purpose: a yearning to do something
larger than our self-interest. Knowledge workers can learn from games that beyond material rewards, a key motivator we have is
our innate desire to excel, and use this understanding to become excellent
lifelong learners, who yearn to learn.
Dan Pink’s TED talk – The Puzzle of Motivation http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Good Book:
‘The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing
Coursework as a Game’ – Lee Sheldon
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MultiplayerClassroom
Good Video:
‘Paideia as Paidia – From Game-based
Learning to a Life Well-Played’ – Sebastian Deterding
Good Website:
John Seely Brown: Chief of Confusion
Free Course:
‘Gamification’ – by Professor Kevin
Werbach, Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania
https://www.coursera.org/course/gamification
Quotes:
“Work consists of whatever a body is
obliged to do, and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” – Mark Twain (in Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
Prof Henry Jenkins,
former MIT Education Arcade program faculty member, quips that he has seen
students playing Sid Mier’s famous game ‘Civilization’ and to win they
enthusiastically cheat by reading their history textbooks!
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