Danielsaurus

The Gamification of Everything

Gever Tulley considers what sort of implications the ‘Gamification’ experience may or may not have in education:

The notion of a reward, some kind of benefit for having done something measurable, carries with it the idea that someone (be it person or algorithm) has judged your effort and found it worthy. At Brightworks, we deliberately avoid judgement-based evaluation of the children’s work and try to let the work speak for itself – both to the child and to the world. If a team of children builds a sailboat and it sinks on the maiden voyage, nobody has to tell them that the boat didn’t work right – the boat tells them that directly, and in a more nuanced and appropriate manner. We may need to help them see the event as just a momentary setback on the journey to building a great boat, but they understand that their boat didn’t work. Likewise, if they make a great boat and sail it across the bay, we don’t need to give them a gold star or an ‘A’ – the boat does this as well, and again, in a more nuanced and appropriate manner.

NYC Ends Program That Gave Cash to Poor Students

A pilot program that awarded poor NYC high school students cash based on school performance won’t be continued, city officials announced.

In an announcement at BronxWorks, a nonprofit social services agency, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pointed to a few examples of success: High school students who met basic proficiency standards before high school tended to increase their attendance, receive more class credits and perform better on standardized tests; more families went to the dentist for regular checkups.

But the elementary and middle school students who participated made no educational or attendance gains. Neither did high school students who performed below basic proficiency standards before high school.

So it turns out you can’t bribe students to learn if there is nothing in school that is intrinsically motivating for them anyway. Imagine that.

As Alfie Kohn says:

“Duh.”