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I highly recommend the following 16:28 TED video:

Chatfield, Tom (July 2010). Seven ways games reward brains. TED. Retrieved 2/23/2011 from http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html.

Video games are a huge and rapidly growing industry. When gamers play online, the game company and game developers can capture and analyze (down to the keystroke level) what each player is doing.

Of course, that is not a new idea. When Computer-Assisted Learning was in its infancy, Patrick Suppes from Stanford University was one of the leading pioneers. He used keystroke capture to analyze the interactions between learners and the CAL system he was developing.

Quoting from the Chatfield reference:

Tom Chatfield thinks about games—what we want from them, what we get from them, and how we might use our hard-wired desire for a gamer's reward to change the way we learn. Full bio and more links.  

 The video lists and discusses seven “findings” that game developers use to capture and hold the attention of gamers. These same ideas are applicable to education. The ideas he discusses have proven useful in game development. For each idea, I have provided a brief discussion about relevance to education.

1. A continuously updated progress report.  Often this is a thermometer-type bar that provides an overall profile of how well the player is doing. Is the player’s avatar growing stronger, gaining in wealth, developing more co-workers, moving to a higher level, etc.? Ask yourself: Do our students have such an overall measure of their academic progress that shows day to day—or, hour to hour—incremental progress? Our educational system is very weak in this in academic areas. It does better in physical education and health areas.  However, even there , our education system has a very long way to go.
2. Multiple long-term goals. Tasks to be accomplished; individual components that contribute to (1) above. Do you do required homework and remember to turn it in? Do you arrive at class on time with the tools (e.g. writing implements, book)? Do you pay attention during class Are you polite and respectful to the teacher and your fellow students? Are you actively engaged in small group and whole class discussions?  All of the suggestions are areas in which self-assessment is possible.
3. Reward effort. In gaming, players are rewarded for playing whether they are playing poorly or well. Students vary considerable in the knowledge and skills they have developed and in their abilities to learn various disciplines. Our educational system is largely designed to use competitive measures. But we are quite interested in how well an individual student is doing relative to the potentials of that student. For quite awhile, the U.S. Army used an ad that included the statement: “Be all you can be—join the army.” For an individual student, what we want if for the student to make progress on a personal scale related to “Be all you can  be.” We want to reward and encourage effort in that direction.
4. Feedback.  Feedback is essential to learning and engagement. In video games, formative feedback typically occurs very quickly. A player takes an action and can hear/see the results of that action. This might be accompanied by an incremental measure of decreasing or increasing strength and wealth of one’s avatar. Summative assessment is provided at the end of a task, such as at the end of a battle. Contrast this with most feedback students receive. Homework to be done overnight is assigned. It is completed and turned in the next day. Perhaps a day or still later a student receives feedback that might be as little as a mark on the paper indicating it was received on time. Similar delayed feedback occurs for tests and other assignments. You know, of course, that if a student is composing at a computer keyboard, the computer system can provide immediate (formative) feedback on spelling and some grammar. Even the simplest “drill and kill" computer-assisted learning systems provide quick feedback. Gradual progress is occurring in the development of Highly Interactive Intelligent Computer-Assisted Learning Systems that can provide immediate feedback to students engaged in complex learning tasks.
5. Element of uncertainty. Gaming relies heavily of activities with an element of uncertainty. Outcomes from an individual player’s activities and the size of a reward might be determined by the computer generation of random numbers. Game researchers know that this element of uncertainty generates and holds attention—it keeps a player engaged. As Chatfield indicates, known rewards excite, but unknown (variable, perhaps uncertain) reward really excite game players.
6. Predicting windows or times for enhanced learning. Cognitive neuroscience and blood chemistry have provided us with tools that can help measure when a brain is particularly ready to learn. Of course, we knew quite a bit about this before such technology came along. Sleep deprivation messes up one’s ability to think well and to learn well. Starting the day with a good breakfast helps the brain. Physical exercise is good for the brain.
7. Human interaction is very important. The developers of massively multilayer online games have figured out how to allow individual players to do their own tings and how to help players join together to do activities that cannot be done by individual players. In gaming, a key idea is providing rewards to individuals on a team that undertake a task that requires cooperation. Some parts of our educational system do well on this.  Team sports, theatrical performances, choirs, musical groups, a school newspaper and a student-developed school Website all provide all provide good examples. We are not nearly as good at doing this in traditional academic coursework. Project-based learning undertaken by teams—where part of the goal is to produce a product, product, or performance—can be quite successful in this endeavor.

 In brief summary, the gaming industry has learned to make boring, repetitive activates, and sometimes quite challenging learning tasks  incredibly compelling. Our educational system can learn from the gaming industry and can conduct its own research of better ways to help educate students.

What You Can Do

You know that the message sent is not necessarily the message received. You, for example, have “constructed” a personal meaning to my message given above. My overall intent is to provide you with some information and ideas that you will act upon in a manner that leads to improving our informal and formal education system.

So, pause for a few seconds and think about the meaning you have constructed from my message and some possible action that you might take based on the meaning you have constructed. What occurs to you that you, personally, will try out in your quest to improve our education system?

If you are a teacher, perhaps you might want to analyze your teaching in terms of ideas presented in this document. If you are a parent, the article may help you to understand why your children think that school is "boring."

Reference

McGonigal, Jane (1/22/2011). Be a Gamer, Save the World. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2/20 2011 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704590704576092460302990884.html?mod=dist_smartbrief. Quoting from the article:

Videogames make players feel like their best selves. Why not give them real problems to solve?

…

Gamers want to know: Where in the real world is the gamer's sense of being fully alive, focused and engaged in every moment? The real world just doesn't offer up the same sort of carefully designed pleasures, thrilling challenges and powerful social bonding that the gamer finds in virtual environments. Reality doesn't motivate us as effectively. Reality isn't engineered to maximize our potential or to make us happy. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Those who continue to dismiss games as merely escapist entertainment will find themselves at a major disadvantage in the years ahead, as more gamers start to harness this power for real good. My research over the past decade at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Institute for the Future has shown that games consistently provide us with the four ingredients that make for a happy and meaningful life: satisfying work, real hope for success, strong social connections and the chance to become a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Links to Related IAE Documents

Flow in games, education, and other areas.

Home and school environment—and games—in the math education of kids.

Real world and video game reality. IAE Newsletter - Issue # 40 April 2010.

Video Games