Beware the poison butterflies

[caption id="attachment_199" align="alignleft" width="215"] The high point of my gaming life[/caption]

Last week, teaching my Middle School students some basic coding (in the land of the blind... etc), I programmed a game, at least I think that's what it is. If you get all the way through this post, you can play when you get to the end.

For their official IB internal assessment, every ToK student must make a presentation according to stringent IB requirements. The descriptor for the top grade requires students to be sophisticated and insightful while using convincing arguments, different perspectives and an analysis with significant outcomes. A tall order.

Furthermore, the basis of the presentation is a real-life situation (RLS) which suggests to the student a knowledge question (KQ). The KQ has particular qualities: open-ended; about knowledge; in ToK vocabulary.

The stakes are high because there will be no second chance and a student's final IB score and therefore her higher education could depend on it.

why all the long faces? Let's at least make it fun!

On a whim last year, I made a set of 40 vocabulary cards for each student containing IB's prescribed 8 Ways of Knowing (green cards); 8 Areas of Knowledge (red) and 24 useful words which I selected (blue). The students have become quite used to consulting these cards during lessons and we have speculated how we could use them to make ...

...A game.

Matt Baier gamified PD at his school by:

'creating a list of skills in which our faculty should be proficient. Our challenge was determining how faculty would demonstrate their knowledge.'

This is my challenge also. Here are some elements of ToK in which students should be proficient.

1. 
   

   Real-life situation

   
   


2. 
   

   Knowledge Question

   
   


3. 
   

   ToK vocabulary

   
   


4. 
   

   Other RLSs

   
   


5. 
   

   Other KQs

   
   


6. 
   

   Arguments

   
   


7. 
   

   Perspectives

   
   


8. 
   

   Analysis

   
   

- But wait, you can't gamify unless it's electronic.

- Excuse me?

- Oh yes, it's well known that only computer games count when we are talking about gamification.

- It's true that the majority of books on this topic such as Gamify your classroom by Matthew Farber devote most of their pages to the digital realm, but the writers do not specify this medium in their discussions about game theory and the importance of play.

 - Oh, OK then.

All games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation (Reality is Broken, McGonigal, p21)

So we will use the vocabulary cards as a tool to help each student to construct an initial plan for her presentation. The goal is to brainstorm a structure for their assessment. The game models I am using are the card-game Patience or the digital sandbox The Sims. I have devised simple rules and a playing surface so that they can construct a network of ideas based around the vocabulary. When this stage is completed, each student will provide suggestions on a small number of the others' plans and then return to their own plan to process the feedback they have received.

It resembles in many ways a normal brainstorm, but I am trying to harness some of the elements which make games so motivating.

Everyone is a participant... A 'need to know' challenges students to solve a problem... embrace a process of testing and iteration... share their work, skill and knowledge. (Quest to Learn School website)

I hope the activity will benefit from a feeling of community in the class as they all begin the daunting quest to deliver a sophisticated and insightful presentation. Whilst every presentation must be unique (though group members will share identical grades in the end), in the preparation stage a collective effort may contribute extra dimensions to everyone's thinking (if they are prepared to see it). The ToK presentation is a non-zero-sum game, which means that no-one gains marks at the expense of anyone else - there is no strategic benefit in being competitive.

In the 1990s, a puzzle video game called Chip's Challenge was bundled with Windows. After many late nights, I completed all 149 levels. Since you can't progress to a subsequent level unless you have finished the previous one, it gave me great respect for the motivating power of mastery. Over the years, when I have considered gamifying my lessons, it is this feature of computer games that I have focused on: a testing, rather than a teaching environment.

There is an important difference between games that teach a learner how to do something and games that test what a learner already knows (The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook, Kapp et al, p49)

Interestingly, then, the game element, which I am now implementing, is not a test but a teaching game...

... unlike 'Beware the Poison Butterflies'