This phase has been a challenge for me and after long consideration following a number of starts, I have come to the conclusion that the main difficulty is that I’m working with a project that is different than most. That it’s been supported along the way but doesn’t alter the reality that the most common ImagineIT project is addressing STEM content using technology, i.e. teaching some form of lesson. My ImagineIT project deals with creating a game structure used to allow students to access the content (of course, using technology to support it); the distinction is important. Rather than continue to fall behind and face growing frustration with trying to complete tasks that don’t seem to fit, I decided to re-evaluate things. At it’s core, this phase is about doing what we reviewed this summer – put ideas out there to get feedback and cement learning, and applying the ideas of a design project where we come up with ideas, test them, make revisions and adjustments based on what we learn. Then implement the plan and continue the cycle. It is along those lines that I am writing phase 5.
Peer Review
The peer review requirement appears to be designed to begin our collaboration with colleagues by discussing our plans to gather feedback on them. My plans for gamification were not fully solidified when I discussed them with the two colleagues, mostly because I am not a gamer and so the risk is that I would create something that would have major flaws when presented to gamers. The colleagues I chose were both young – a woman on our team who I have worked with before that had incorporated a game-like element into her class two years ago when she last taught 7th-grade, and my student teacher who will graduate college in December. My colleague does play video games but had not really considered what she’s done in class to be gamifying it; the student teacher is much closer in age to the students, has played games, and has a fresh perspective on our craft.
The takeaways of my peer review phase were two – first, team competition can produce very active engagement and, second, the general requirements and/or expectations need to be clearly stated. That competition be an element was not a surprise given what I have read about gamification. The level of response that can be produced was a bit of a surprise. It does fit with the examples presented in the book my Deep Play group read, The Game Believes In You, though that includes the rather surprising idea (given our current culture) that the prototypical trophy-for-participation model for kids does not produce dedicated effort.
That the expectations need to be clear idea came from the difficulty I had explaining what I would be doing to my student teacher. For a couple of reasons, I had not divulged much of my plans prior to this discussion. One reason was that I had not figured out how to both allow her to take over teaching AND be able to implement my ImagineIT project and partly to get a fresh look at it. I consider the impression and confusion to be some of what I will get from the students and the discussion helped my scale back and better focus my plan.
Focus Group
Focus groups provide feedback from a small group that is presumably representative of what would be received from the larger group, allowing refinement of an idea or message. Doing a focus group for creating a game structure for my class might have made sense if I had more confidence in my knowledge of games and we had more time. Given the less-than-ideal quantities of both I had to work with, I chose a different path. I created an online survey that I had all 7th-graders completed. Based on those results, I explored the topic of moving between levels in a game system with the boys of my Advisory class.
The survey asked some general questions relating to video games. I learned that 43% of the students played video games at least once a day and 72% played at least every few days. Only 4% never play. Games where you shoot things and games where you play sports were most commonly listed as the kind of games most enjoyed but games where you build things or that involve a fantasy world were also mentioned by many. The favorite game question elicited such a variety of responses as to be unhelpful – no title got more than fifteen percent of responses.
The open text responses were surprising if for no other reason than students spent a great deal of time on them. I expected the survey to last about 15 minutes at most. I had to begin urging students to finish at half an hour and some spent 40 minutes. I was particularly interested in the levels involved in different games and how you moved between them. Some insights I gained were that the fact that levels get harder as you go one is a good thing (confirming what I’ve read as research) and that games-within-games were good. Completing missions, gaining experience points or achieving a goal, and searching for clues were tasks they enjoyed (exactly what I want them to do in class!).
To further refine the ideas of levels and get a sense of how to implement a game structure in my class, I presented the idea to my Advisory group of 18 seventh-grade boys. After a bit of discussion about the idea in general, I got them to form groups based on the games they liked most and then asked them what science class would look like if it were done as part of that game. We did not have a great deal of time and the results were not particularly helpful but the key takeaway for me was that they did actually focus on it and try to come up with something. That the ideas weren’t helpful wasn’t a surprise because they don’t know the content that’s coming or the portion that will be gamified. But it also became clear that what I have in mind does not match sports-themed games (at least as I understand them) and a significant number were working in that context. The useful information did not add to but rather confirmed the information I gathered from the survey about missions/challenges and increasing difficulty of things you had to figure out.
Moving Forward
At our school, Wednesdays have a schedule that is different than the other days of the week. This allows us to meet in content area teams but ensuring that bilingual students and those with IEPs receive the service they need does mess with our class rosters for Wednesdays. Because I have different students in class on Wednesdays than other days, it is difficult to continue class as if it was just another day. To avoid the problems that would arise and increase the experience students gain with experimentation, Wednesday is Experiment Day in my class. Experiment Day was the first ‘class’ that my student teacher took over and now that she will be taking over the rest of the week, I am taking back Experiment Day for my ImagineIT project. Our next experiment unit starts next week and will give students experience creating graphs of their own data from probability experiments as well as practice interpreting graphs from other sources. I will implement a gaming structure to the unit and allow them to work at their own pace and following their own paths. Eventually, it will lead them to work with others who are not in their groups but who can help them complete a task. The mission will be a probability project they have to complete. The exact levels have to be determined and will likely need to be adjusted on an ongoing basis, but students will receive hearts/lives for completing tasks, needing a certain number to begin and losing some should the task not be completed satisfactorily. Different activities will also give the student shield points, used to ward off difficulties, ask questions, or get out of requirements. And demonstrated learning will result in sword points or arrows in a quiver, needed to face the final problem/challenge.
mrlaytonscience 