[game_edu] curious

[Lee Sheldon]

Steve Rabin:

 

"I think you need to make a distinction between "theming" your class like a
game and using "gamification" to motivate students. There is overlap, but I
think the brilliance of gamification is to use the tricks learned from games
to motivate while staying true to the original framework (like a college
class). Theming a class like a game, with power ups, lives, or whatever,
seems rather gimmicky and feels to me like it just cheapens the class.
However, if you can somehow use the concepts developed in games (or
psychology for that matter) without being so silly or overtly patronizing,
then I think you might have something powerful."

 

Of course you can use concepts of game design. I have yet to find one you
can't use. And yes, it is powerful. I just hate the word "gamification"
since most gamification entirely misses the point of what makes games
attractive.



Re: the Fibonacci Attendence (sic) Policy of Doom (TM)

 

Actually most attendance policies work like that, don't they? Penalize
students for not coming to class? Current game design practice has been
trending in recent years, particularly thanks to social network games,
toward no sticks, only carrots. And we know the sticks can't really do the
player personal harm. So in the multiplayer classroom, where we grade
entirely by attrition anyway using experience points instead of letter
grades, I simply award XP for showing up. Creating unbearable pain in
students is not something I want to do. They have enough of that already.
This quote caught my eye in the Wikipedia article you cited as well:

 

"Recently, studies have questioned the existence of loss aversion. In
several studies examining the effect of losses in decision making under risk
and uncertainty no loss aversion was found (Erev, Ert & Yechiam, 2008; Ert &
Erev, 2008; Harinck, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Mersmann, 2007; Kermer,
Driver-Linn, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2006; Yechiam & Ert, 2007). There are
several explanations for these findings: one, is that loss aversion does not
exist in small payoff magnitudes; the other, is that the generality of the
loss aversion pattern is lower than that thought previously. Alternatively,
Gal (2006) argues that the phenomena previously attributed to loss aversion
are more parsimoniously explained by inertia than by a loss/gain asymmetry.
However, loss aversion may be more salient when people compete. Gill and
Prowse (2012) provide experimental evidence that people are loss averse
around reference points given by their expectations in a competitive
environment with real effort. [3]"

 

I want them to come to class because they want to, not because they are
scared not to. This is what we do so successfully in games that people try
to slap the word "addiction" on them. I'm glad its working for your
students, and there's no reason to change, but I kind of feel sorry for
them! For the record the results are about equal. In some cases though my
students' guilds also meet outside of regular class hours on their own,
again because they want to, much as guilds plan raids for long hours in MMOs
before the actual action begins. So I suppose you could say we occasionally
see attendance rates of 115% or so. ;-)

 

Lee

 

Lee Sheldon

Associate Professor

Department of Communication and Media

Co-Director Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

 

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