The first readings I wanted to touch on for this week is "Why Gamification" and "Students Respect the Badge" from the metawriting blog of Deanna Mascle.
After reading "Why Gamification" I was still a little puzzled as to what gamification was exactly. In her blog Mascle states that gamification is "the use of game-design elements for a non-game purpose". Hmmm after reading this I was still a little lost. Emily mentioned in her blog a great article by top hat entitled "4 Ways to Bring Gamification of Education To Your Classroom" this article helped to get me to fully grasp this whole gamification concept. The top hat blog provided a really awesome example of gamification being used that stuck with me, "completing our Subway punch card to win a free sandwich". This is a real life example of game design and mechanics being used in a non game context. Ok now I'm starting to get it!
I like the idea of gamification in the classroom. I believe students respond well to games and friendly competition; they seem to engage with the material more. But I would like to physically see it used in a classroom before attempting to do it on my own. I am still not totally confident with my knowledge on the topic so I would need some example to reference back to. Some modeling would really help me.
Reading these articles got me thinking about a class I am in this semester. Some of you may have taken it before, "Composition Theory and Pedagogy" with Dr. Adams. He uses contract grading in his class. Basically we as a class develop a contract for a grade A, B or a C. As a class we determine what needs to be done in order to achieve that grade in the class. Does this sound familiar?
"Actually, I don’t do anything with the badges. I hand that responsibility off to the class." We generated a list of badges and criteria as a class"
Then once we have the contracts written up each student decides which grade they would like to contract for and then signs that contract. Agreeing to complete all of the following to get that grade. It is something I knew nothing about before having this class. I am not sure if it is something I would use in my future classroom. Kind of like this badge idea. Both the contract grading and badges seem to be trying to break away from traditional grading perimeters but I don't know if I am completely sold on this whole idea of badges. Are these badges an alternative to grading? An addition to grading? I'm a little confused. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
I do like that badges give some positive reinforcement to students especially to those students who may be introverted and not very confident in whatever skill that a lesson may be on.. Badges become a way for them to get some of that confidence back. Which I think is fabulous. As an educator you need to do whatever you can to build your students up and if badges is a way to do that for some teachers all the more power to them. I was shocked to hear that all of Mascle's students embraced the idea of badges," What surprised me is how much consensus I saw. There were almost no outliers when it came to badge awards" Usually you have at least a couple of students who may for lack of a better word "poo poo" on certain ideas you have.
One thing Mascle touched on in her piece that I whole heartedly agree with is her stance on peer response.
"student writing should have an audience, but it is important to remember that the audience does not have to be you"
I am a strong proponent for peer response. Peer response is a way to get you students comfortable with giving and receiving criticism; something young writers often struggle with. It also builds a community within the classroom making your students feel safe and welcome to share with their peers. Getting and giving feedback in a small group allows student writers to enlarge their readership and fine tune their revision process as well as develop relationships in the classroom. Prior to using peer response a student may write thinking that their only reader is their teacher. Peer response allows them to hear the comments from a variety of readers with diverse backgrounds and varying opinions. As a whole the process heightens a student’s engagement not only with the materials of the course but also with their peers.
Lastly I wanted to end my blog post with a question for all of you. Do you agree or disagree with Mascel's statement about the use of blogs in her classroom. "blog posts are not busy work – they are real writing for a real audience". How do you guys feel about this statement now that we have all completed our own blog posts for this class?
Thanks for this post and the questions that you posed within. You made me go back to what I read about gamification and rethink a few things. In answer to the question you posed about badges and grading - I believe (if I read it correctly) that she used the badges as an alternative to grading. I feel the same way you do though: I would need much more explanation and would really like to see how it looks in action before I would attempt this in my classroom. It sounds intriguing, but it also sounds very intimidating. I was wondering if there was a way to grade traditionally on some items and use badges on certain formative writing assignments - maybe this could be a way to gear up for a typically graded writing assignment.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of having students create the expectations, as you pointed out from the reading and from your experience with your professor. I have done that for assignments in my class as well. I ask students what they should include in their papers after a unit. I make a list on the board and make sure we can all agree. There is so much more ownership there. I would like to do this more often because it works so well.
Thanks for your post!