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All posts in Teaching

Four Basic Learning Needs

by Kurt Wright on May 13, 2015 in Teaching with Comments Off on Four Basic Learning Needs

There are four basic learning needs outlined by Ormrod (2011) that serve as the foundation for several different educational theories, including behaviorism and social cognitivism all the way to constructivism and basic cognitive theory. These four needs are Arousal, Competence, Self-Determination, and Relatedness (Ormrod, 2011, p. 365-72). By incorporating gaming as a structure to put around our content, we as teachers can meet several of these needs simultaneously in a way that traditional classrooms may not.

Arousal: The need for arousal is the need to be engaged in an activity. Games have a natural way to engage human beings, because they are actually fun, which some content simply is not for students. Additionally, though, Ormrod (2011) suggests to meet this need that teachers should “plan classroom activities that keep students continually active, either physically or cognitively” (p. 366). I am yet to play a game that asks the player to actively sit still and do absolutely nothing for an extended period of time. By adopting the attribute of activity that games have, you keep your students not only busy but engaged in learning. If they complete the first hurtle, make sure it’s clear that there’s another accomplishment around the corner that they could be working toward.

Competence (or Self-Worth): The need for competence and self-worth is a person’s need to both feel that they can “deal effectively with their environment” and hold the belief that “they are good, capable individuals” (p. 366-8). In a previous blog post, I wrote about the importance of students developing mastery goals for this very reason. In a game, students understand that game over is never really the end of the game, but an opportunity to try again and win the second time around (or third, for gamers with my level of skill). However, in a traditional classroom, students can often feel that they get only one chance at success. By introducing a gaming structure to the classroom, students can understand that one bad grade isn’t really the end, and having the opportunity to work hard to change it improves student self-efficacy, self-worth, and helps to meet the need for competence.

Self-Determination: The need for self-determination is the need for autonomy and self-direction (Ormrod, 2011, p. 368). Many new teachers ask how we can meet this need for self-determination without undermining our own authority and essentially giving power over to the students. Ormrod (2011) suggests a two ways that we can still maintain control while meeting this need: presenting rules and instructions in an informational rather than a controlling manner and provide opportunities for individual work and structured decision making (p. 369-70). Board games teach you how to successfully complete the game. Their rules are there to help the players have fun during the game. In the same way, we should introduce our rules as tools for students to reference to be successful learners. To meet this need, it is just as important that we understand the reasoning behind our rules as it is that our students do.

Relatedness: The need for relatedness is the need to feel “socially connected and to secure the love and respect of others” (Ormrod, 2011, p. 371). Luckily, just by having a gamified classroom, you show even students who don’t enjoy games that you care about whether or not they learn, and build on the students’ social need for relatedness. You show students that you’re willing to show them that you’re willing to geek out with them and reveal those personal interests that you don’t traditionally find in the classroom. In response, many students will feel more comfortable with you as a teacher and be more productive learners as well.

These four needs all have one goal in mind: make the classroom a place where learning is as effective and as efficient as it can possibly be. So, to any teachers reading this blog and having difficulties with a student with whom you have tried everything: I ask you to look back at these four basic needs before you try to introduce a new punishment system to the classroom or making your rules more strict in an unruly room. Is the student interested in any part of the learning process? Does the student feel that he or she can actually meet your standards? Does the student feel like he or she has a voice in your classroom? Finally, does the student feel like he or she is alone in your classroom or a part of the community?

 

Ormrod, J. (2011). Educational psychology: Developing learners 7th edition. Boston: Pearson Education.

Build the Game Your Students Want to Play

by Ben on May 6, 2015 in mentality, Motivation, Teaching, Thoughts with Comments Off on Build the Game Your Students Want to Play

Teaching can be hard. There’s no book out there (that I’ve found) that can tell you exactly how to teach in a way that will apply to every child’s learning style. Some love to read, some love to write, and some love to just get their hands dirty. You can never predict what type of learner you’ll run into at the start of each new year, but chances are there are going to be a bevy of different ones throughout your room.

Teachers who use gamification in their classrooms need to think of each new year of students as a whole new game and not simply a new level. You need to start fresh with the same basic ideals and build off of what works. It’s never going to be the same for two different classes or (most times) even two different students. This is why you need to tweak the code.

After the smash success that was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64, the Zelda team decided to take their next game in a much different (and darker) direction. Not wanting to create all new assets and characters builds for every aspect of this new title Nintendo resorted to building off of Ocarina’s already stellar game mechanics and animations. The game they built over the next year became the cult hit The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, a game that was somehow similar and yet vastly different. This is how gamification should be in the classroom. Changing enough to put it’s own spin on an already established and well thought out base.

A teacher’s greatest strength is their ability to adapt and evolve their lessons to fit the needs of their students and their classroom as a whole. The only way to do this is to pay attention to your students needs. Not just the ones they tell you out loud, but the ones you see in their work and interaction with others. This school year may be Ocarina of Time. It may be Majora’s Mask. It may be something else entirely. It’s your job to discover what game it needs to be and to make it something your students want to play.

High Expectations

by Kurt Wright on April 23, 2015 in Motivation, Teaching with Comments Off on High Expectations

Games can be hard. And that is alright.images

I once ran a simple one-shot (isolated, episodic) session of Dungeons & Dragons with my friends. I established a hook for them to go and investigate the woods and eventually run into a goblin raiding party and a goblin war camp for some experience. When I was designing the war camp, I realized part way through that the difficulty of the area was beyond a simple group of level 1 adventurers, so in the margins of my notes about the quest, I included some places where a non-player character (NPC) could swoop in and help my friends out.

imagesImagine my surprise when the adventurers, through their cunning alone, decided to set fire to the surrounding forested area, smoke the goblins out, and defeat the war camp boss with no problems and several trophies to bring home and sell for gold. I imagine how bored my players would have been if I had placed their “savior” in the main text instead of the margins-the players would have been put in the margins instead and would not have felt the same sense of accomplishment upon completing the quest. What I did by keeping that NPC in the margins where he belonged was hold high expectations for my players.

Many teachers fall into a very simple trap when they are asked about whether or not they have “high expectations” for their students. I am referring to “high expectations” here as opposed to “high standards,” which is an all-too-common misunderstanding among teachers new and old. So, let’s turn to the dictionary for some help with the difference:

1. Standard: The fourth definition, the one which most closely aligns with education, is “the average or normal requirement, quality, quantity, level, grade, etc.”

2. Expectation: Coming from the word “expect.” The first definition listed for “expect” is “to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or coming of.”

While these two definitions may be similar, there’s a very valuable difference in expectation. Expectation is the anticipation that students will meet a standard. Therefore, high expectations implies that the teacher believes that their high standards can be met by their students. Belief is absolutely key, and if a teacher doesn’t believe that his or her students will rise to the challenge and accomplish that standard, those students are being set up to not meet those high standards.

 

Real-Team Strategy

by Ben on April 8, 2015 in Complications, Motivation, Teaching, Thoughts, Tracking with Comments Off on Real-Team Strategy

Did you know that “team” stands for “together everyone achieves more”?

It doesn’t really. I got that from some cheesy motivational poster that I used to have in my classroom. Though it’s honestly not a terrible way to portray the advantages of teamwork in a school setting.

For anyone who has tried the ClassRealm paper version you know how difficult it can be to keep up with all of the moving parts. XP, levels, achievements, attendance, homework and more all add to the load. It can certainly be overwhelming, especially to a new teacher.

So here’s a little secret, a real life cheat code (put down that Game Genie): ENLIST YOUR STUDENTS. It sounds like a  no brainer, sure, but many teacher don’t even think to put their students in charge of tasks they normally handle themselves.

I’m not asking you to have students submit grades or assign detentions. Just give them easy jobs that make your workload a little lighter.

“Billy, you’re in charge of attendance. Please mark those absent on this sheet.”

“Ashley, you’re in charge of XP. Whenever I tell you to add some points to a students please do so.”

And so on. Students love this. I promise you they do. The key here is not to assign duties, but to offer them up. Who wants to do this potentially mind numbing task? You’d be surprised at the number of hands that will go up.

Students (unbelievably) love responsibility, just not the kind that is thrust upon them. Homework and schoolwork is a chore because you tell them it must be done. A volunteer job in the classroom is shot at something new, something they may (and usually do) enjoy. Most students know the joys of helping others and will go out of their way to make sure their job is done well.

So the next time you feel like the amount of work you have to do is insurmountable don’t forget that you have an army of small helpful creatures at your disposure. Treat them with respect and kindness and they will crawl over each other to lend you a hand.

Learning Strategies: It’s Super Effective!

by Kurt Wright on March 25, 2015 in Teaching, Uncategorized with Comments Off on Learning Strategies: It’s Super Effective!

Another thing that games teach us is to use the right technique, element, tool, weapon, or strategy for the job. In Pokemon, why do we use water-type techniques against fire-type pokemon and avoid using them on grass-type pokemon? Because it’s super effective! This same kind of mentality can and should be applied inside of the classroom.hqdefault

Students are encouraged almost every day by their teachers to study right or to study harder; however, many students may still lack the correct study skills to succeed in a specific classroom where a specific teacher is trying to teach to a specific standard or objective. Often enough, these learning skills can be more practical and transferrable than the actual content.

Learning skills can be divided into different categories. Ormrod (2011) divides them into overt and covert learning strategies. She defines overt learning strategies as strategies that are “readily apparent” and observable by the teacher and covert learning strategies as “only mental activity” and thus not directly observable like overt learning strategies. Many times, these strategies overlap to assist one another in teaching students. For example, a strategy that Dr. Ormrod suggests to improve writing is creating summaries while one of her covert strategies is to regularly monitor one’s own learning.

I recently did an experiment for a project in one of my classrooms, dividing my classmates into three separate groups while an expert performed a simple kata (a set of specific, chronological motions in a martial arts style). I instructed each group to use a different learning strategy-taking notes on what they saw, summarizing what they saw, or actively shadowing what they saw. The groups were immediately given time to practice for two minutes before demonstrating what they learned to the classroom, and the vast majority practiced by moving their physical bodies in an attempt to reproduce our expert’s maneuvers. These college students were practiced in adopting the most appropriate or effective learning strategy and using it to accomplish their goal (reproducing the martial arts motions).

Imagine the difficulty that they would have had if their practice time had been limited to only reviewing their notes or summaries while the physically practicing group could continue to use the strategy found to be most effective.

Students have developed varying strategies through their academic careers before stepping into each teacher’s classroom, and they are limited by the strategies that they currently have and their ability to distinguish between effective versus ineffective strategies. As teachers, it’s important to recognize that our students don’t walk around with strategy guides in their back pockets with the best way to tackle every new concept, assignment, project, or test that we throw at them. Therefore, it’s important to understand what they do bring to the table and what techniques we bring to the table to help them be super effective in our classroom and classrooms that follow.

Game Over: Do You Wish To Continue?

by Kurt Wright on March 5, 2015 in Motivation, Teaching with Comments Off on Game Over: Do You Wish To Continue?

mario-game-overIn a previous post, Ben discussed the role that motivation plays in both video games and in the classroom. I was hoping to investigate that more now, through the lens of classroom climate and setting your students up to still succeed even after failure.

Many factors can feed a child’s potential to fail to participate in the learning process, one of which is a fear of failure. I refer to the fear of failing students experience under the pressures to meet the expectations placed on them by their parents, their teachers, their peers, and themselves. Often enough, this fear creates something called a performance-avoidance goal in a student. Performance-avoidance goals motivate children to do exactly what it sounds like-to avoid performing due to a fear that they will embarrass themselves by answering a question incorrectly or will appear inferior in front of their peers for attempting.

This is just one type of student achievement goal in educational psychology. Two other types of goals for students that contrast include performance-approach goals and mastery goals. Performance-approach goals act the opposite of performance-avoidance goals. These students know that they know the answer, they raise their hands with it prepared, and deliver it to receive a reward, often times in the form of praise from the teacher or self-satisfaction. The other, mastery goals, motivate students to not only provide the correct answers, but to actually grow from the challenge of addressing difficult problems, including those problems challenging enough to leave the student with a very real possibility of failure.

While students driven by performance-approach goals and even performance-avoidance goals can still have healthy academic experiences and learn well in the classroom, our students should always be encouraged to adopt the mindset of mastery. This is one beautiful effect of the ClassRealm experience system. In video games, experience is awarded to indicate improvement, not just performance in the game. And by using experience, our characters can become stronger, faster, smarter, and more successful later in the game. Sure, I could import my level 100 Charizard from my Fire Red to my Leaf Green, breeze through collecting badges, and defeat the Elite Four, but it wouldn’t give me nearly the same satisfaction as working hard to level up a whole new team to fight tooth and nail down Victory Road, getting even better after every battle.

gameover_continueVideo games don’t just give us opportunities to fail, but encourage us to with an extremely simple concept: the checkpoint. When you face the final boss and lose your last hit point, does the video game explode, taking every last bit of time and effort you’ve poured into it with it? Some may delete your save file, but nine out of ten video games ask you a simple question, sometimes displayed in a single word: “Continue?” Then, suddenly you’re back at your last checkpoint ready to grind, get better, and retry until you can return the favor for every time that boss has knocked you down into the dirt. The goal of every class, ClassRealm or traditional, is to instill an orientation toward mastery goals in our students—to improve for them, not to perform for us.

I thought that this would be a prudent subject to tackle as the first post on the ClassRealm blog that I make and the first one published here in almost a year. I’ve read through Ben’s blog posts after I read an article on Gamification and found my way to ClassRealm. I think that it’s time to hit the switch and retry from the last checkpoint. If we expect our kids in the class to do it, we should make the effort to model it ourselves.

 

Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Educational psychology: Developing learners. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Guest Post: The Advantages of a Gamer Teacher

by Ben on March 20, 2014 in Guest Post, Motivation, Teaching with Comments Off on Guest Post: The Advantages of a Gamer Teacher

The following post is by Will Peacock, a history teacher and gamer from southern England who instructs students from ages 11 to 18. He is a friend from the Kotaku TAY Blog. You can find more of his observations on gaming and teaching on his Tumblr, and if you’d like to get in touch with him you can find/follow him on Twitter.

The Advantages of a Gamer Teacher

Teaching is a profession which can blend into your personal time. In my life, video gaming has become something that is scheduled; pencilled in amongst lesson plans and marking. I’ve not given up on gaming though. Not only because I enjoy it, but because gaming has actually been a benefit to my career. This is why I think being a gamer can have a very positive impact on any teacher:

The Advantages of a Gamer-Teacher

1) You get to be the Cool Teacher

I am not a cool person. I’m okay with that. In fact, I wear my lack of coolness like a badge of honour, which in itself is a decidedly un-cool thing to do. From the beginning of school to the end of university I was content in the knowledge that the cool kids were not inviting me to their place to… do whatever the cool kids do…

The Advantages of a Gamer-Teacher

That’s not what my students think. To the vast number of students that play video games, I am one of the ‘Cool Teachers’ (I realise that doesn’t sound very cool in itself). The very fact that I can even talk about games like Modern Warfare and Minecraft gives a major boost to my reputation. The most often asked gaming question I am asked is “do you have a PS3 or an Xbox?” and when I respond with “both” the amazed reaction is priceless.

Now, of course, I’m nowhere near vanity to suggest that being liked by students is necessary. Some of the best teachers are good at what they do because they are strict and unlikeable. For someone like myself that lacks the experience, conviction and – to some extent – the age that can pull off a serious but respectable approach, the coolness gaming imbues any teacher with is certainly beneficial. Behaviour within class can be greatly improved when the students are on your side, and the resulting friendliness and approachable nature of students around school can have a wonderful impact on your day.

Then again, to the non-gaming students, I am still massively un-cool. That probably goes without saying.

2) You find new ways to teach

In a previous post I described how I have used a reference to a video game in lessons. In future posts I imagine I will explain a few more of these in-lesson tangents. Not every student will have played the game in question, or understand the reference; the aim is to get the students to explain their understanding to each other. I’ll use the most recent way video games have hopped into my teaching, mainly because it wasn’t even my idea. It happened by chance, and was suggested by a quick-thinking student:

During a lesson on World War Two (the outcome of Pearl Harbour, to be specific) the word ‘morale’ appeared. This is one of those words that students don’t understand at first glance, or confuse the definition with the word ‘moral’. In the past when students have asked what morale means, I’ve explained it to them with various different examples. When the word pops up again, some of the students can recall the definition. One or two will still struggle.

This year though, a student raised their hand and instead of the usual “what does morale mean?” I was presented with a very different question: “Is ‘morale’ of soldiers like the ‘morale’ in FIFA 13?”

The Advantages of a Gamer-Teacher

A dozen curious eyes flicked up from workbooks. Intrigued, I answered their question with more questions. I asked them what morale was in FIFA 13, what affected a player’s morale, and what difference it made to the team. Students who had played the game leapt to contribute, explaining what the term meant in terms that every student could appreciate. Not only did they begin to understand the concept in depth, but it lead into a great little discussion relevant to the topic. We discussed how morale would have been affected by the incident at Pearl Harbour, what impact the following declaration of war would have had on Americans, and how the morale of Allied soldiers in Europe would have been affected by America’s increased support.

The best thing about using references to video games is that the students can speak on subjects they already understand, and use what they already know to help them and those around them learn more.

3) You boost their confidence

The way in which someone responds to school life, their lessons and to their teachers is a big part of education. Many students lack confidence for various reasons. Reluctance to speak in front of the class; aversion to challenging tasks for fear of making mistakes; asking the teacher for more help… these are all issues that can hamper a student’s enjoyment of school. Many students who argue that ‘school is boooooring’ do so because they don’t feel that they can engage with the work, or they are afraid that they will make silly mistakes.

As a teacher, part of your responsibility is to foster a good atmosphere in the classroom, and a positive rapport with each class, that promotes a desire to learn and succeed. This is a big challenge for all teachers. Gamer-teachers have a real advantage here. Your love of games helps build that confidence.

The Advantages of a Gamer-Teacher

I remember the moment I first hint to any class that I am a gamer. The thought process is almost visible across their faces. Our teacher plays video games? A grown-up plays games like we do? Suddenly you are no longer the Autonomous Teacher-Bot 2000 that is stored in the cupboard overnight, but an actual human. Not only that, but a human that shares their interests. If students feel that they can talk to you outside of lessons about things that matter to them, it’s so much easier for them to talk to you in the classroom about the work they are doing. Even the shy, reserved, most insular characters will contribute in lessons, because there’s trust there. Even the non-gaming students will grow in confidence, because you’re now someone that clearly everyone else in the class can talk to, so why can’t they.

4) You can catch them out when they are off-topic or absent

You will at some point have been in public when a group of people next to you begin talking about a topic you know well. You know what they are talking about instantly because of key words and phrases. This happens when teaching. When students are working in groups, it’s sometimes difficult to know that all students are talking about the task in hand. It’s very easy for cheeky members of the class to proclaim that they “were talking about the work, honest we were!” without being able to catch them out. As a gamer you can pick out which conversations in a large group are about the work and which are about Pokemon or Titanfall.

The Advantages of a Gamer-Teacher

Your awareness of gaming culture can also benefit you when it comes to new game releases. All students (and teachers) feel ill sometimes, we all have sick days eventually. However, sometimes student sick days seem to happen on the same specific day, and those students seem all better the next day. It’s sometimes hard to say for definite whether student sickness is genuine, but as a gamer you can be aware of reasons why students might be off.

Teacher: where is Little Timmy today?

Little Timmy’s Friends: He’s sick sir. He’s got a migraine.

Teacher: Is that because he was up all night queuing for Black Ops 3?

[Little Timmy’s friends fail to look puzzled by the question.]

5) You get to know who you are teaching

Sometimes simply having the conversation about games with students can tell you a lot about them. How many hours they spend gaming reveals whether their excuse for not handing in homework is genuine. The types of games that students enjoy can reveal whether that student will prefer visual lessons or something more active. As a history teacher myself, I like to know who has played video games that are relevant to a topic we are studying.

On one particular occasion, a conversation with one of my sixth form classes (17-18 year old students) revealed something quite surprising about the group I was teaching. After the end of a lesson the conversation turned to video games, and it became apparent that every female student in the class was a big fan of action games (particularly zombie games like Left 4 Dead), whilst the male students were either non-gamers or preferred more puzzle/platformer games.

The Advantages of a Gamer-Teacher

Because of this conversation, I subsequently began to notice that this mentality was reflected in what interested each half of the group in lessons: the female students were more interested in the gorier, conflict-based (and stereotypically ‘male’) parts of the topics we were studying, whilst the male students preferred the more subtle political goings-on within history, and had no preference for the violent features. Understanding the student’s gaming interests led me to tailor several lessons differently because of the demographic, as well as leading me to reflect on what ‘boys and girls’ typically find interesting in History lessons.

Your Thoughts?

Can you think of other ways that being a gamer is an advantage for a teacher? Does your chosen career get a boost in some way from your gaming hobby? If you’re thinking of becoming a teacher, did this post give you confidence that you’ll still be able to continue gaming?

ClassRealm Complications: Multiplayer Madness

by Ben on February 28, 2014 in Complications, Teaching, Thoughts with 1 Comment

Complication – Too Many Students or Classes

There’s nothing quite like playing a wonderful multiplayer title with your best buddies. More players usually means more fun, but sometimes there’s just not enough controllers to go around. I mean you’re already using that one with the wonky control stick, you know the one.

This year my everyday teaching schedule has changed quite a bit, and it has wreaked havoc on my students’ traditional ClassRealm experience. Unlike previous years, my first two math classes have students coming in from different homerooms, which means I really only see all my homeroom students for two periods a day (sometimes only one). It’s exceptionally hard to dole out experience points and achievements when you have so many kids coming in and out of your room all day long, especially when most of them aren’t even part of your ClassRealm crew.

Now I would love to give every student who walks through my door the full ClassRealm treatment, but it’s out of the question when it comes to the paper system I have in place. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of my 30 homeroom students, let alone the 40+ other kids I’m working with on a daily basis. This just goes to show how hard it might be to run multiple ClassRealm paper systems at once, say in a high school setting where you have different students almost every period. What’s a teacher to do?

Solution

The best answer is a simple-to-use online system that can be managed via tablet, phone or computer desktop. It seems while this multi-student and multi-class complication may be an issue on paper it would most certainly be more feasible if it was managed using the power of the internets and modern technology. It’s too bad no one is planning on building one for ClassRealm. What? We are? Well then. This could very well become a complication of the past. Here’s hoping.

 

“Cool” Factor

by Ben on September 25, 2013 in Teaching, Thoughts with Comments Off on “Cool” Factor

Ice to see you again, ClassRealm fans.

That’s right, I said it. But terrible Mr. Freeze puns aside, welcome back to the official ClassRealm Blog.

Today I’d like to discus a teacher topic that is near and dear to my heart – being “cool”. Now the reason “cool” is in quotes is because I’m speaking from a student’s perspective. If you run around telling people you’re cool, chances are you’re not. Or you’re the Fonz. But can being “cool” ruin a students view of you as an authority figure?

Recently I mentioned that my students thought I was “cool” to another teacher (on the web) and they retorted that being cool in a students eyes isn’t the way to go. In the other teachers opinion students can’t respect an adult who they think is a radical dude. Their yearning to goof around and get off topic around these types of adults is too strong.

I completely disagree. Many teachers find it strange that I talk to my students often about subjects like gaming and cartoons, but in my mind this connection is one of the best relationships a mentor can have with their pupil. The teacher who yells a lot and doesn’t get your jokes or the teacher who can talk in depth with you about what he built in Minecraft last night – which one are you more likely to really listen to? If students are invested in you as  teacher than everything you tell them is gold. They hang on your every word. They remember concepts because you made them fun and relatable. It’s ok to be a friend to a student. Not all the time, and not in the same way you would with a normal adult, but enough to show them that you understand their world and want to be a part of it.

So go forth teachers. Help those students who don’t think learning can relate to their life. Being “cool” may just be the key.