1:20We need to re-contextualize grading.
1:22In games, we've learnt that progress encourages progress
1:25and the human desire for efficiency is a far stronger motivator
1:27than the fear of falling further from one's goal.
1:30To this end, if you simply make all assignments worth points
1:32(let's call them "EXP" for a lark)
1:34have all students start at zero EXP
1:36and always gain points as they go continuously progressing towards
1:39clear and tangible 'levels' with their own benefits)
1:42each assignment and each test feels
1:43rewarding rather than disheartening...
1:45it's more fun to gain stuff than to lose it.
1:47Additionally, this methodology never leaves a student
1:49at a point where they feel like they should just give up.
1:51The best part is that you don't even have to change anything
1:53about the way you already grade the class to do this
1:55You'd still have the same total number of possible points the class was worth
1:58and divide them in the same manner that we normally divvy up letter grades.
2:01All you're doing is counting upwards instead of down
2:03and corresponding the letter grades to "levels" as you go.
2:06Lee Sheldon did a basic version of this for his class at Indiana University
2:09and found it to be highly effective.
2:11The only thing I felt that he could have done more was to give the kids "skills" as they leveled.
2:31"If one student gets to 25,000 EXP
2:33the whole class gets a free bonus 100 EXP"
2:36or "If five students get to 15,000 EXP the whole class get a bonus 150 points
2:39(or maybe a field trip or something, whatever you prefer)."
2:42With this sort of reward system, you encourage the whole class
2:44to be rooting for one another
2:45and you encourage the best students to help out their classmates.
2:48You encourage your students to function with camaraderie and as a team.
2:51The best kids can't get the maximum possible score unless they can help their peers pull up their grades.
2:55And at the same time, the kids who are struggling,
2:57rather than resenting their classmates who are doing well,
2:59are cheering them on, because other kids succeeding
3:01is going to help their own grade.
3:02Next let's talk about Agency.
3:04One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in education
3:07is dealing with kids who have no sense of agency
3:09over their lives.
3:10What do we mean by students having a sense agency?
3:12It's simply the idea that they feel like they control their own destiny
3:15that their choices matter.
3:16A lack of agency can manifest itself in numerous ways...
3:19students feeling like they "don't have an option to go to college",
3:22the perception that "pregnancy is something that just happens"
3:24or students feeling like they simply have no power over the life path
3:27and choices that their parents make for them.
3:29Without agency, it's almost impossible
3:31to be motivated.
3:32Rather than making decisions for the future,
3:33people without a sense of agency simply stumble through life day to day without any long term goals.
3:38But a sense of agency isn't a binary thing,
3:40it's a scale; the more agency you feel over your life,
3:42the better you tend to do and the more ambitious goals you tend
3:44to be willing to set for yourself
3:46(surprisingly I once read a study saying that people who had
3:48a high sense of agency
3:49were actually more resilient when external forces
3:51beyond their control messed up their plans too.
3:53Rather than having the expected ego shattering realization
3:56that they didn't have any control,
3:57people with a high sense of agency just started off towards their goals again,
4:00undeterred,
4:01because that was the way to control their destinies).
4:03So how do we impart agency?
4:05Games.
4:06Almost any game can help hammer home the idea that you control the future.
4:10In a game the cycle between choice and result
4:12is generally much shorter than that in life and much more clearly indicated.
4:15In a game the player tries something, fails,
4:17tries something new
4:18and keeps making new decisions until they succeed.
4:21Games teach us that different choices have different outcomes,
4:23and we control the choices we make.
4:25James has spent some time working with inner city kids as well as
4:27some high schoolers in suburban Pittsburgh
4:29testing this idea,
4:30attempting to draw a connection between the control the kids
4:32had in the game they played
4:34and the control they had in their own lives.
4:36I don't want to claim expertise here, because this was only a brief experiment
4:39in an area that needs to be thoroughly tested,
4:41but this early test did show a clear impact on a least a portion of the student body,
4:45and I whole heartedly believe further research will prove this connection.
4:49James conducted his tests using Mario,
4:51but games could easily be created for any subject that helped reinforce t