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Turn your class into a game

Presenter: Mary Wilson

OCPS Science Teacher

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My research

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Change?

What can I do different to motivate my students?

I began my research by asking what would happen if I changed the way I rewarded students for their behaviors in class.

Motivation and Engagement seem to be a real problem in my professional environment. Students seem to check out as soon as they walk on to the school campus. I want to find a way to make learning more engaging to the learner and have them develop the self motivation to want to learn.

Motivation is just not important for learning it is essential (Dreher & Dreher, 2010). Motivating students in a traditional classroom setting is a constant struggle for today’s teachers. The students complain of boredom and the teachers become frustrated by their lack of motivation, but most teachers fail to engage them as well as students’ own technological entertainment. So instead of fighting the new technology, educators across the world are attempting to combine the tools and toys students already use for entertainment and communication to improve learning (Dalgarno & Lee, 2010).

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Research

It is not the game itself that is the motivation, it is the mechanics behind it.

Badges

modification

feedback

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Badges and Edmodo

Using badges to motivate students, the new gold star award!

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Results from my research.

Students showed an increase in motivation to come to class and participate in class.
I used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data collection for my cycle 1 research. The quantitative data I collected was a measure of the students motivation to come to class, participate in class and complete homework in the class. This was collected using a pre and post survey where the students ranked their motivation on a 1-5 scale where 1 was no motivation and 5 was high motivation. The qualitative data I collected was collected in three ways. First I collected data on types of games the students played and what motivates them to play those games, this information was also collected on the pre and post surveys they completed. I also collected data during cycle 1 though journaling my own observations, such as how the students acted during the cycle, how invested they became in the research and if it was talked about/mentioned outside of class time. The last way I collected qualitative data was in a reflection the students wrote and turned into me at the end of cycle 1 describing their favorite part, their least favorite part and what they would like to see in the future.

For cycle 1 I picked my smallest and most advanced class to try out my research, I found that although using my badge system helped increase the motivation in the class to come to class, participate and complete homework, most of the students were already highly motivated to do these things on their own. After implementing the badge system in class I did find that it was a motivating factor for participating in class but had little effect on their motivation to come to class or complete their homework. Most students entered on their survey that they were most motivated by the grade they would receive as why they do their homework. This is not much of a revelation since these were honors students that keep up their grades in all their classes. I hope to see a difference in cycle 2 because I will be using it with a class that lacks intrinsic motivation and I am hoping that this will be a jumping off point for them to see the rewards of coming to class, participating and doing their homework. I believe that working towards a small attainable goal and being rewarded for it with an extrinsic motivator will help students see the rewards of education and give them a reason to come to school and participate in their own education.

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Lessons Learned

Keep up on the awarding of badges!
Create badges in several areas, not just academic.
You need help. Appoint a badge master.

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What I would do different.

Add a story element to the game.

What I would do different:

Develop a story. Every good game has one.

The students will be told a story that their teacher has been captured by an evil principal and is being held for ransom, the only way to save her is to earn enough badges to pay her ransom. The first step is to figure out what the badges are and how to earn them, the teacher sent a message with all the badges on them but she had to tear it into pieces to smuggle it out and now your team must relay the information on your piece to the rest of the class so the teacher has the best chance of escape. As the students open their piece it will read :A curse has been layed upon the class, when you explain your badge you may not talk!!

The boss they are competing against in this game is the clock and the other players. The top team will win a badge for winning and then all players will earn a teamwork badge. This will help them reach their ultimate goal of freeing their teacher.

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Where to find badges

You can create your own badges or grab them from another teacher.

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Lets create a badge

login to your edmodo account and create or grab a badge to use in your class.
join our edmodo group code: and share your best ideas!

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Questions?

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Mary Wilson

marywilsonactionresearch.wordpress.com
http://marywilsonshattered.blogspot.com/
edmodo: Mary Wilson
group code

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Credits:

Videos by Mary Wilson
photo of girls: Kathleen Mattox
Dalgarno, B. & Lee, M. (2010). What are the learning affordances of 3-D virtual environments?. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(1), 10-32. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01038.x
Dreher, H. & Dreher, N. (2010). Avant-garde pedagogical practise utilizing virtual environments and machinima in systems development [Supplement]. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning,(S1), 12-18. doi:10.3991/ijet.v5s1.1193