Gamification - Getting Students Excited About Doing Homework

by Mind Erasure on Jul 25, 2012 at 02:06 PM

While I was studying the extensive vocabulary list of game mechanics, I came across this fun graph meme that shows how gamification can "infect" our students with gamers' stubborn, "never quit" spirit:

Just imagine: Your students refuse to quit a difficult assignment, continue to wrestle with it, until they finally "get" how to solve it. Now, the question remains on exactly how we can gamify an entire curriculum to turn students into stubborn learners, i.e. those who obsess over learning all the course content that we want them to "get."

Just imagine the possibilities. Onward to the employment of game mechanics!

Sherry Jones

3 Comments

akoutropoulos Posted 11 months ago

LOL, when I read the chart (but not what you posted) the first thing that came to mind was a saying that said "insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome". You can't really do the same exact thing for 2 hours and actually get it to work (unless the game designers have programmed a "dunce clause" that just moves you along ;-) )

When things don't work in my video games (this is usually after already playing for a few hours and fatigue setting in) I just stop playing and take a break. Going to water the plants, going for a walk, run or grocery shopping is what gets the creative juices flowing. Sometimes you need to step away from the problem so you can work on it "off screen" a bit. The the "aha!" moment comes.

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Mind Erasure Posted 11 months ago

Hah! Yes, that would be insanity. I'm thinking of getting students "hooked" on the gamified classroom, and then slowly introduce ideas that will help them figure the "game" out.

I'm totally an adventure game addict, and I often had to take time outs before I lost my mind on fixing illogical puzzles.

In any case, for higher-ed, stubborn learners are better than apathetic learners, I say. ;D

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Beth Posted 11 months ago

I love the stubborn learner! I don't know if we could ever turn all our students into stubborn learners, but what would be a satisfying percentage? 30%? 60%? 90%?

Does it depend on the subject being taught? I can see being a stubborn learner over algebra or chemistry, but I have trouble imagining being a stubborn learner over the meaning of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Maybe for a Shakespeare course, it's enough that 15% of the students are stubborn learners (unless the class puts on the actual play, in which case I think you could easily achieve 95%). For math or chemistry, I'd want at least 80% stubborn, and no more than 20% apathetic.

Just thinking out loud here! I'd love to see some data.

:-)

Beth

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Gamification - Getting Students Excited About Doing Homework