Reward Learning with Badges

Spark Student Achievement

Brad Flicklinger

• Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781564846082
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Standards

This accessible guide shares how and why badges work and the secrets to designing great challenges that motivate students to build skills and take control of their learning. As an elementary technology teacher, author Brad Flickinger observed that his students had little motivation to use the devices surrounding them for anything other than gameplay and entertainment. His solution was to rethink his teaching, adding elements of gamification, challenge-based learning, design thinking and other approaches to learning.With this, the badge system was born. By incorporating badges, students are motivated by using the familiar challenges of gameplay as they earn visual indicators of progress and complete challenges. At the same time, they are mastering skills and progressing academically. Reward Learning with Badges shows how to implement a successful badging system in your classes. You'll learn to think differently about motivation and achievement and prepare to embark on your own badging initiative.The book includes:

• Step-by-step planning advice
• Tips on implementation and technology
• Support from examples and success stories

With this book, you'll learn everything you need to know to start badging, including how to introduce badging to students, faculty and parents; how to design physical and digital badges; how to relate badges to standards and curricular goals and more. Audience: K-8 classroom teachers

CHAPTER ONE

Inspiration for the Badge System

OF COURSE, I AM well aware that I am not the first educator to have the epiphany that things need to change. Educators are innovators, and the past decade has seen many promising ideas for rethinking education. My system stands on the shoulders of several different theories, methods, and movements, and as you read about my badge system, you may recognize some elements and practices. Just in case you aren’t familiar with any of these terms (and also so you know that I didn’t just pull my crazy ideas out of thin air), I’ll give a very brief summary of some of my sources of inspiration. My badge system arose amidst this “perfect storm” of ideas.

Influential Books

Literacy Is Not Enough:
21st Century Fluencies for the Digital Age

When Andrew Churches, Ian Jukes, and Lee Crockett published this book in 2011, I had already embarked on the creation of my badge program. Nonetheless, their work had a major impact on my teaching. First, we seemed to be on the same page about the way education needed to go. Second, they did an excellent job of articulating the exact ways and reasons that education needs to change. While technology is mentioned often, the authors focus heavily on the ways students need to think to be successful in the digital age. The ideas of flexibility, creativity, problem solving, and collaboration are touched on repeatedly, which gave me encouragement that I was on the right track. It also frequently put into words frustrations and the goals that I was grappling with that were sometimes difficult to articulate.

Flip Your Classroom:
Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day

Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams certainly appealed to teachers with the promising subtitle to their 2012 book. What teacher doesn’t wish to reach every student in every class every day? With the recognition that information is easily accessible outside of the classroom, they proposed that the classroom should no longer be the place where knowledge is acquired. Instead, students could be introduced to concepts, lessons, and facts on their own, through video tutorials. Students could watch the videos at home—as quickly or slowly as they wanted, with as many pauses and replays as necessary. They realized that the part of the learning process that the teacher was most needed for was when students began trying to use the knowledge in practice problems or experiments.

The classroom, then, could become the place where students analyzed, used, tested, played with, and reacted to the information they had learned. Instead of giving information in the classroom and asking students to practice it outside of class, students could come to class with the basic facts in place and delve into higher-order thinking and processing with their teachers and peers. So, instead of functioning as fact dispensers, teachers and students get to share in the more dynamic aspects of learning, which is a win on both of their parts. Practitioners of this system report enjoying far more interaction with their students, fewer classroom management issues, more engaged students, and more success in individualizing education. The original authors later implemented a mastery approach to their flipped classroom model, in which students can navigate the flipped classroom model at their own pace. With the flipped model of instruction being so very untraditional, it is sometimes hard to then try and assign traditional letter grades to the learning that is occurring, which is why some have called my badges the perfect assessment tool for the flipped classroom model.

Learning Models and Approaches

What if, instead of working toward a test or a report, students were working on something authentic and meaningful? In project-based learning, students are challenged to solve real-world problems with projects that have authentic audiences. This type of learning, when well executed, helps students see the relevance of their studies and connects them to their communities and worlds. No longer is education a result of secretive transactions of manufactured assignments between teachers and students. Instead, students are challenged to gain knowledge for the purpose of solving a meaningful problem. In addition, instead of passively responding to the questions that a teacher poses, students in project-based learning are helping to formulate the questions. I love the independence, meaning, and authenticity of the project-based approach, and I strove to incorporate all of these elements into my badge system.

Challenge-Based Learning

Even the tech company Apple has weighed in with a fresh approach to education with a strategy called Challenge-Based Learning. This approach shares a great deal with the general concept of problem-based learning, but, unsurprisingly, it is much more tied to technology. In their classroom guide to Challenge-Based Learning, they reiterate the problem at hand like this: “Today’s students are presented with content-centric assignments that meet standards but lack a real-world context and opportunities for education” (Apple Inc., 2010). In response, they propose that students’ learning mirror the modern workplace, as they work collaboratively to address real-world problems using technology. After being exposed to a real and current issue facing their community, such as an environmental threat or a social problem, students are challenged to formulate a meaningful response with guidance from their teacher. It was important when designing my badges system that I include a challenge for each badge, something that the students will find interesting enough for them to be motivated to pursue.

Gamification

If you’ve ever watched the focus and dedication of a young person playing a video game that they are invested in, you’ve probably wished you could capture just a fraction of that focus and attention. As the Education Lab at MIT observed, “Game players regularly exhibit persistence, risk taking, attention to detail, and problem solving, all behaviors that would ideally be regularly demonstrated in school” (Klopfer, Osterweil, & Salen, 2009). Out of desire to connect these traits to education, it has been proposed that education itself be “gamified.” Gamification has been around as a concept for a long time, but the word was not largely used until in 2002, when Nick Pelling, a computer game developer, started giving it some traction.

When I first heard this term, I panicked, thinking that people wanted to turn my classroom into a video game, but I soon found out that this was not the case. Gamification, as applied to education, applies video-game design concepts to educational concepts. Some of the most commonly applied concepts include the idea of charting progress via levels, points, and achievements, as video games commonly do. Instead of completing a unit, students can “level up” and unlock new achievements. A course takes on the feeling of a unified quest, and each new skill they learn is both earning them points and moving them toward completion of their larger mission.

It is important to note that in my system the badge should only be part of the motivation. As in game play, a badge is just a marker—a way to keep track of where you’ve been and to show others your skill level. You don’t play a video game just to get a badge—you play because you enjoy the game, and the badges and points are rewards along a journey. With each badge earned, your body gets a shot of dopamine (the reward hormone), which keeps you coming back for more. Badges are a way to literally keep score. For a badge to have true value, it needs to be hard to earn. There is a fine balance between not hard enough and too hard, something that took a little testing with my students. While it is true that my level 1 badges are relatively easy—students get a taste of early success—the higher-level badges get harder as they progress. This gives my badges “street-cred” among students. When my students see that a peer has the filmmaking badge (level 4), they know how hard that badge is to get, so there is some respect given to the badge earner.

Figure 1.1 Students display badges they have earned on their backpacks

The Hacker Mindset

While not its own educational philosophy, the “hacker mindset” is important for teachers to understand, and it too has its origins in video games. Students who think like a hacker are the ones who look for shortcuts, ways to improve, and solutions that no one has tried before. Hackers also give back—they love to share and teach what they’ve just learned to other in their community, which is why videos that show game-hacks are so popular. As a technology teacher I love it when my students figure out a better way and then teach me, because when the student becomes the teacher, you know that deeper learning has just occurred.

As part of my research into gamification, I started to play a few video games, and the first one I tried was called Cut the Rope. I was impressed with how the game taught me as I progressed through the levels—what is referred to as “just in time” learning. The game taught me only what I needed to know for the next task I was to accomplish, and over time my skills built one on another until I became quite good at the game. I was in a cycle of learning and immediately using skills, and I was becoming a Cut the Rope champ. The game wouldn’t have been much fun if I had been forced to sit around and learn all of the skills and theory before I could start on the game’s objective, and the game creators recognized this. Instead, they spread the skill lessons throughout the quest, strategically placed ahead of the challenges that required them.

This is the approach that many of our students bring (or would like to bring) to learning. This means that if I tell a kid to play a song on the guitar, they go online and looks up which chords are used for that song. Then, they will go to YouTube and search “How to play a C-chord on a guitar,” watch a 3-minute video, and within minutes, they are playing a C-chord. Soon, they’re playing the song. They don’t want to sit down and learn every chord and note before they play their first song—they want to gain the knowledge as they need it. Furthermore, students with this mindset may be loath to learn skills in isolation without an immediate application.

Some have even adopted the term “hackschooling” to describe an alternative approach to education outside of the classroom. In his TEDx Talk, “Hackschooling Makes Me Happy,” (youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY), 13-year-old Logan LaPlante describes the hacker mindset in education as “opportunistic.” It doesn’t commit to a single curriculum, but instead remains flexible enough to take advantage of any learning opportunities or questions that arise. Using the metaphor of a snow-covered mountain, he explains, “If everyone skied this mountain like most people think of education, everyone would be skiing the same line—probably the safest—and the rest of the powder would go untouched. I look at this and see a thousand possibilities … skiing, to me, is freedom, and so is my education (TEDx, 2013).” As a teacher, I don’t necessarily advocate ditching the school system, but I do believe that the elements of the hacking mindset, such as choice, flexibility, and “just in time” learning, can be applied in the traditional classroom.

The Growth Mindset

Stanford researcher Carol Dweck spent years exploring what makes people successful, and her findings have significant implications for education. She explains that most people’s mindsets about success fall into one of two categories: fixed mindset or growth mindset.

Those who have a fixed mindset assume that each individual possesses a certain fixed degree of intelligence and ability. In the same way that some people are tall and some are short, one’s intelligence is a set quantity that won’t really change throughout life. Education, then, is simply the process of documenting or demonstrating how much intelligence and talent one has. Few people might immediately admit to this mindset, but we hear it often in education. Parents may say their child just “isn’t a reader,” as if the skill is a have or have-not proposition. Students often decide they are bad at certain subjects and lose motivation to try because they feel they’ve gotten to the end of their fixed ability and can go no further. Grading is often a one-shot transaction, where a student makes an attempt, a teacher assigns a grade, and that’s the end of it.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, sees intelligence and ability as dynamic traits that can be developed through education and experience. Natural gifts or talents are only the starting point from which an individual begins the journey of growth and learning. Education, then, is a series of opportunities to stretch and strengthen one’s intelligence and skills. Not surprisingly, this mindset is far more likely to lead to success in education and in life. In fact, Dweck identified the difference in mindset as one of the key predictors of success.

Why does the mindset make such a difference? Think about how each mindset would lead a student to view challenges and obstacles. Someone with a growth mindset would see them as opportunities to learn something new as they face new circumstances and experiment with different solutions. Sure, they might not figure it out right away, and they may experience some frustration, but ultimately, they believe success is attainable by embracing challenges. Those with a fixed mindset, in comparison will avoid challenges and give up quickly. Each challenge threatens to expose their shortcomings, and an unsuccessful first attempt is interpreted as failure.

Similarly, effort is always worthwhile for those who believe they have the potential to grow, but seems pointless for those who feel that that each task only tests their innate ability. If a teacher corrects or criticizes a student with a growth mindset, it can be interpreted as a contribution to their constant growing process. To a student with a fixed mindset, though, criticism tells them their fixed ability isn’t good enough. To a student with a growth mindset, another student’s success can demonstrate what is possible. In a fixed mindset, though, the success of others is a threat. If someone else is succeeding, they are demonstrating their superior fixed abilities, which can o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About ISTE
• About the Author
• Contents
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE: Inspiration for the Badge System
• CHAPTER TWO: Overview of the Badge System
• CHAPTER THREE: How Does the Badge System Work?
• CHAPTER FOUR: Creating Your Own Badge System
• CHAPTER FIVE: Creating Individual Badge Challenges
• CHAPTER SIX: Implementation Tips
• CHAPTER SEVEN: A Word About Technology
• CHAPTER EIGHT: Success Stories
• CHAPTER NINE: Frequently Asked Questions
• References