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At one time in my early teaching days I blamed the students for not wanting to learn. I would roll my eyes and throw up my hands as I exclaimed to other teachers, “This class is not that hard. It’s so easy. I practically give them the answers and yet, these kids are so lazy that they don’t do the work.” During later years I had a slightly different complaint, “This work is so difficult that students do not want to try.” At that time I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t the students or the content, it was the way I was teaching it.
Kids do not want the answers unless they have asked the questions and they certainly don’t put forth effort into something that doesn’t have any meaning to them. This is normal and applies to any human being on the planet! So, why do some kids show up and learn no matter the content or the conditions? They could show up to a class taught by someone who has never even heard of brain based learning and maybe that teacher hasn’t even planned a decent lesson, and yet some kids will continue to be eager and anxious to learn. They are determined and fierce, and don’t ever give up. I like to explain this phenomena using the dynamics of game players as developed by Richard Bartle in 1996.
Bartle identified four main video game player types and I think his definitions can be extrapolated to explain most players who play any type of game, video or not. The four types are Killers, Socializers, Explorers and Achievers. The Killers love action and love to conquer others. They are the type who loves to win or finish first and throw it in everyone’s faces! It really isn’t about the win, it’s more about the bragging rights. The Socializers love to communicate while playing the game. Their main motive for playing a game is to talk to others. The Explorers love a good challenge, enjoy puzzles and are always on the lookout for errors or secrets in the game. They love finding clever strategies to win. The Achievers love to earn points and feel a great sense of accomplishment when they are able to complete a game. They aren’t that interested in competing with others and are more focused on simply completing the game to the best of their ability. Can you guess that the Achievers are the students who always do their HW and the Explorers are the ones who are motivated to learn but forget to turn in work?
The issue is that we have spent a lot of effort trying to turn the Killers and Socializers into Explorers and Achievers, and it doesn’t work so we label those students are lazy! The truth is that we need new ways to motivate students to play our school game. Sure, we need engaging and relevant lessons and we need brain based strategies, but we also need to motivate students with exciting and meaningful reasons to do the work!
To meet the needs of Killers you need to give powers or visual rewards to those who complete work or units. They can choose where they sit or to wear a hat or they can partake in food and drink during class time. Students could also earn badges that are digitally displayed, but the bottom line is that they need a way to show others how awesome they are. Socializers need to be allowed to talk while learning. This is the most difficult gamer to teach because they easily get off track with their conversations. You will need to set guidelines ahead of time and follow up with any Socializers that aren’t meeting the learning goals due to off task conversations. Explorers love hidden clues and secrets so anytime you can bring some sort of suspense or puzzle to your lesson you will intrigue these learners however, they are generally motivated to learn any new fact. And the Achievers are easy peazy since you are already meeting their needs with the grade point system of achievement.
Although it is not necessary to classify your students as a gamer type, you might find this quiz entertaining if you have a few extra minutes of class time.
Some content taken from:
Topec, Jordan. “Richard Bartle Player Types.” Repignite. Web.
Video:
Hebert, Scott. "The Power of Gamification in Education." Youtube. 2017.
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