Gamification In Learning

At the youth shelter where I work, there is a large difference between what we would like

residents to spend their time doing, and what they want to spend their time doing. We have a

structured, as I call it, “Happy Quiet Study Time,” period each day that youth must participate in.

No electronics are permitted, youth must complete homework or study school related material.

If, as 90% report, they have no school work, they must find something to read, write in journals,

or select from activity worksheets or other things to enhance academic cognitive skills. Ensuring

participation requires constant staff supervision and intervention with consequences for non-

participation. Although we make it much easier to participate than not, we usually succeed in

gaining only minimal compliance, and rarely any voluntary participation in these activates after

the allotted time is mercifully over. This contrasts greatly to resident’s use of video games.

Youth are eager to play for hours on end, fight over having access, and have to have limits set

on their playtime. Loss of video game privileges is one of the stronger motivators we have for

gaining compliance with other program rules. There is much learning going on while they are

playing, it is just directed in a direction that is considered relatively unproductive. The residents’

motivation levels are so high, that I thought it would be good to analyze the components of

gaming, compare the components to accepted pedagogy, and how they could be applied to

enhance learning and development.

According to Wikipedia, “ gamification”, is the use of game based principles in non-game

settings. McDonalds monopoly game, Stop and Shop shopper reward points are some examples

of gaming principles employed to increase sales in the retail word. Vygotsky (1978) claimed that

through play a child develops a concept of meaning of the objects in the world, and a way of

integrating with them which is crucial to the development of higher thinking. Bandura (1986)

stated that motivation is the process that enables learning. By the time an American youth

reaches 18 years, they will have spent 10,000 hours playing video games, an amount of time

equal to what they spend in school. With fleets of highly paid engineers designing

commercially lucrative games, educators will never be able to make experiences as appealing

(Lowdermilk, 2012). However, teachers can incorporate the basic principles of game design into

lessons plans. According to video game designers such as Jane McGonigal (2011), there are

specific principles that all games have that keep the players motivated to be engaged and

working hard to get to an ultimate goal. These include: ready accesses to the background

knowledge needed to participate, appropriate skill level, progress measurement, multiple long

and short term goals, reward, feedback, uncertainty, social interaction and value, competition,

a sense of purpose or urgency, belonging, as well as novelty or excitement (Whitton, 2008). In

my work training staff at the shelter and through course work at Marist, I have employed many

of these principles in teaching or designing lessons. These examples show an understanding of

how students learn and develop, how to support their intellectual social and personal

development, and to utilize a variety of strategies that encourage the development of critical

thinking, problem solving and performance skills.

The first principle of a good game is ready access to necessary background information.

Building a background knowledge base can be done quickly through lecture or direct instruction,

independent reading, and or video resources. Although direct instruction/ lecture is rejected by

many educational theorists, it has been shown to have an overall substantial positive effect on

achievement (Adams & Engelmann 1996). When used sparingly it can be invaluable in quickly

creating a background knowledge necessary to build higher learning. I have utilized lecture,

question and answer format, through much of my training of new staff members where I have a

limited time to convey much information. I have planned for it in many of the lesson plans

drawn up for my Marist College course work, as a way to organize and give background to the

upcoming lesson,(exhibit 1- staff orientation outline-),(exhibit 2 lecture notes on chemical

bonding unit).

Good games are designed to be at the appropriate skill level, progressing from easy to

difficult as the player’s skill progresses. This is in accordance with Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of

Zone of Proximal Development. The learner functions with the highest degree of motivation,

and progresses with the most efficiency when the material is at or just beyond their current

level of skill. It is important to build scaffolding to enable reaching the higher levels and

removing the scaffolds as skills progress. The card game I designed for my unit plan on

chemical bonding can be used at multiple levels. It can begin to be used to study basic bonding,

then progress to higher levels of electronegativity and ion formation as the lessons in the unit

moves on. (exhibit 3– ion card game description). I have not employed this game, but would

look for student understanding though observation of the game play, proper calls on the

winner, and end of unit summative testing.

When students are able to work with their peers, it influences their learning abilities (Jones

& Jones, 1990). Vygotsky (1978) felt that learning was influenced by access to the thinking of

others, or as he put it, inter-psychological development. Due to rapid brain development,

adolescents gain the ability to think in increasingly abstract and complicated ways, enhanced by

their exposure to the thinking of others. In his social learning theory, Bandura (1986), stated

that learning is achieved by models, live, verbal or symbolic. There is an emphasis on reciprocal

determinism where behavior, environment and personal qualities all affect each other and are

constantly changing. The modeling process involves the following steps of: attention, retention,

reproduction and motivation, Grusec, J. (1992). Students learn from the teacher and each other,

in a socialized setting that is in accordance with, and in the fulfillment of the developmental

needs of most adolescents. Game learning utilizes the tenants of cooperative learning

purported by Johnson and Johnson, Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R. (1999): Positive

interdependence, where the group must work together to achieve the common goal; Individual

and group accountability; promotive interaction, which is face to face learning, such as

discussions on problem solving or concepts; Interpersonal small group skills of learning tasks

and how to work teams, (Siegel 2005). I have incorporated these tenants into individual games

when training staff at work by developing a cross word puzzle for New York State Regulations of

Youth Shelters training, (exhibit 4 regs cross word). Staff reported this to be more engaging

than the test questions I usually offer. The game lessons I designed bridged the social learning

implications of pedagogy with the motivators in gaming principles. An example is the political

agenda game I developed for my course work at Marist. I had to present on an article outlining

the debate on a national curriculum. The article had about 10 arguments points in favor of,

corresponding to 10 points against instituting a national curriculum. Instead of presenting both

sides of the article in lecture format I made a game out of it. The class was divided into groups.

One side was given a list of the pros for a national curriculum, the other side was given the cons.

I made a manikin of President Obama and placed in the corner of the classroom. He was the

person they were trying to influence for their agenda. Each team met, reviewed their points

and picked the 4 arguments they felt were the strongest. After one team addressed the

president, the other team had a chance to go through their points and find the appropriate,

corresponding rebuttal. They also had the option to add any of their own ideas to rebut that

point. Each team received a point for each time they correctly presented the opposing counter

point. The team with the highest score won the debate and was able to introduce a bill for their

side. The limited time ensured that all had to work as a team to read all points. It made sure

they had to listen carefully to the opposing team to make certain they could find the

corresponding point. They had to discuss the material as a group to vote on which were their

strongest points, and which were the appropriate counter points, (exhibit 5 paper presentation).

I witnessed everyone in both groups engaged in reading, discussing and debating with each

other. If I ruled the counter point presented did not match the original point, they would get

loud and protest if it didn’t go their way. This gave me a segue to explain the finer details of the

point. When they did get the correct point they would cheer. To help process the material, after

the game I did a brief vote on the topic asking for who was for and who was against. Many said

they had never thought about it much and not in that great of detail, some which were initially

supportive of the national curriculum now had doubts and vice versa. This reported change in

their view points indicated learning about the complexities of the subject, and my observations

indicated engagement and cooperative learning.

Proximal goals lead to higher motivation directed toward goal attainment than do long-term

goals (Bandura, 1986). It is difficult for most people to adhere to long term goals, this is

especially true of adolescents as they have not fully developed their capacity to understand

long term consequences. The goal of learning biology vocabulary, so that they can get grades

and pass the course, then eventually graduate high school to eventually go onto college, then

eventually complete grad school to eventually get an entry level job to begin their career 8

years down the road, can somehow get lost on youth as an immediate concern.

Being challenged to do something and creating competition within the framework of a team

relationship creates the desire to attain a goal. If the goal is to win and winning means learning,

the teacher has succeeded in engaging the students in a novel way (Pick, 2000). Games can

introduce the material mandated but lend it an immediate goal of winning, completing, beating

the other team, or in the case of the previous example, setting the national agenda. At the

shelter we need to track how many calls we get so they can be reported to funders and justify

grants. These calls need to be documented on crisis call sheets, and often staff forget to fill

them out. Constant reminding, prodding and explaining the importance of maintain our

numbers so we can stay competitive at the next grant submission did not motive staff to

remember to fill them out. However when I made a game out of who had the most crisis calls

during the month, took the time to count and post the results, I got a huge increase in the

number of filled out crisis contact sheets. The short term goal of being first, got staff in the

habit of filling them out more consistently. When I stopped tracking it due to time constraints,

the numbers fell off again, (exhibit 6- crisis contact sheet tracking).

Levin (2007) stated that creating team challenges in the classroom gives the desired tension

that is needed to improve motivation. The teammates are concerned about what they need to

do to win, which increases engagement and thus, motivation. Novelty can create a break in the

autopilot of attention. During that time, new information introduced can become more

imprinted or better remembered. Berns and Cohen and Mintun (1997), showed that during

novel experiences, it has been shown that there are blood flow changes in the brain effecting

areas responsible for motivation and the maintenance of contextual information. Changing up

tasks and structure, adding movement, novelty and dramatic elements to teaching has been

shown to improve academic performance (Gay 2002). Csikszentmihalyi and Larson (1984) said

that optimal learning takes place when student are engaged and challenged while building skills.

Students most often experienced disengagement at school, and most often during risky

behavior. Gamification can introduce novelty and a degree of risk to help engage students. For

example I had to present a lesson on motivation for a classroom management course. I utilized

gaming principles to teach a lesson on brain anatomy to the class of mostly non biology majors.

I broke the group up into groups of 4 by handing out pictures of brain sections, with labels

removed, and told them to get into groups without instructions. All participants needed to look

at the others’ sections and compare to find those with the similar pieces. The first group that

was fully formed received points, and once in their respective groups they got points if they

could correctly identify their section of brain. Two groups got it correct, (exhibit 7 pieces of

brain). The scenario was set up with an audio news clip of zombies attacking, breaking out in all

sections of the country. In a closed box at the front of the class there were supplies needed that

would greatly increase the chances of the groups’ survival, but there was only one box, and

only enough in the box for one group. I explained that the next exercise was one of a series of

tests to determine the group most fit to survive. The group with the highest score at the end

won the box, and a better chance at surviving the impending attack. This set up a novel mock

scenario, lent a sense of intrigue urgency, motivation, and drama to the subject. Since Zombies

could only be killed by destroying the brain, groups were given packets of anatomy text. They

were asked questions, given a limited time to find the answer in the text and discuss. They were

to bet points on the answer, each gaining 5 slips of paper representing 1-5 points. For the

answers they were sure of they could bet high; for ones they were not sure of, they bet low.

The number of points on the slip that they wrote their answers on was awarded for the correct

answer. No points were given or taken away for incorrect answers. The time limits were kept to

3-5 min per question. This required that students be able to work as a team, divide sections of

the text up, scan, read, retain the information then apply it to the question. Then they had to

discuss the material within the group to determine how much to bet. The scores were kept and

tallied so each group would know their standing. After the first question which allotted time for

people to understand how the game worked, all groups became very involved in scouring the

text, talking and arguing with each other. They would plead for more time as time ran out. In

the end one team won the survival box. I did not do an assessment of learning, as the

experience was to show different ways to motivate and introduce new material. If I were to

assess learning it would be through giving a test made of the same questions without access to

the text, (exhibit 8 zombie brain anatomy). The winning team did utilize the survival box

contents and improvised a quick battle, (exhibit 9 survival box contents-novelty and motivator).

Games can aid in processing and provide relief from the weight of serious topics. I have

utilized a simple game in processing the information in a training on trauma informed care. The

one time I utilized it staff stated that they really had to stretch and think about all the ways

experiencing trauma can effect behavior, (exhibit 10- pick a trauma).

These exhibits show that the principles that go into good game design concur with those of

accepted teaching theorists such as Bandura, Vygotsky, Johnson and Johnson and others. They

are in accord with social and cooperative learning and effective motivational strategies.

Through these examples I have shown that I have addressed Marist’s initial teaching standard 2

and 5.

Standard 5 asserts that the candidate uses a variety of techniques to help build students’

skills in critical thinking, problem solving and performance skills. This includes engaging

students in higher order thinking activities that help develop critical thinking. In each of the

activities I described, students had to employ skills that are higher on Blooms taxonomy.

Presenting new material in the zombie game, forced students to read, research and apply the

information in the text to answer the questions. The political agenda game forced students to

not only learn the content of their own side, but to think critically of the opposing side’s

argument and apply it to their position. Standard 5 implies that the teacher uses alternative

strategies in building skills. Performance skills were enhanced as these things were taking

place in real time and students had limited time to utilize them. Lesson plans show hands-on

labs and activities to reinforce lecture material for each day. Standard 5 also implies that the

teacher uses a variety of strategies to meet students educational needs. The examples above

demonstrates that material was presented in a variety of ways, incorporating the theories of

social learning, direct instruction, reciprocal teaching and constructivist theory, while applying

motivational strategies.

Standard 2 asserts that the candidate understands how youth learn and develop and

provides opportunities to support intellectual, social and personal development of all students.

Each of the examples employed components incorporating the learning and development

theory’s of social learning, direct instruction, reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning

theory, while applying motivational strategies. The examples demonstrate another aspect of

Standard 2 by showing an understanding of adolescent development specific to motivational

and social needs. With students working in teams, they developed social skills, learning how to

accomplish a task while having to work with others. The chemical bonding card game utilized

students’ prior knowledge while connecting it to the new material in the unit plan. A different

aspect of standard 2 was addressed in the zombie game and national agenda game, students

developed intellectually by learning the new material and employing it in real time while

accessing the thinking of others. They personally developed experience on how longer term

goals can be accomplished by breaking them down into smaller more proximal goals.

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