Love this idea, especially as I look forward to tightening up elements of my grading system over the summer. A question: how do you figure out (at the beginning of the term) how many total credits are "available" or necessary to hit an A, B, etc.? Do you plan out all the different ways students can earn engagement credits, or do new opportunities for earning credits sort of pop up on the fly?
Thanks Kim. I just play it by ear. I make sure 100 points is realistic and build the syllabus around that as a max. If we end up with more than 100, then that's all the better for students. If it's less, the syllabus says we'll refactor the grade levels appropriately. I have a few preset credit bearing options (class prep, attendance, startup assignment) but a lot of them were one-offs where I just thought "This would be a cool way to get engagement" and just put it out there.
I do something very similar - I call them "participation and preparation points", but I don't set different items to be worth different amounts. Reading (credited via perusall), attendance, in-class stuff, misc small homeworks, all are one point. (I might add "attend a relevant research talk in-person or online.") The threshold for an A is set at about 3/4 of the total available points (60 out of 80), for a B it's 50/80, and they're not required for any of the lower letter grades. (My institution doesn't have +- on undergrad grades, just whole letters.)
I think this is genius! I'm going to try some form of this in my classroom of unmotivated junior high kids who have emotional and behavioral disorders and learning disabilities.
I've always been intrigued with the notion of quest-based learning in the classroom, using Google Sheets to build a live leaderboard, and trying to gamify certain elements of my classroom. I even went so far as to try and use the Institute of Play's Quest Model with students. https://clalliance.org/institute-of-play/
I struggle with the daily management of it. I love the idea of being a 5th Grade Dungeon Master (DM) every day, but it feels like too much work to handle. Do you find that this is easier with your older students? Have you heard of Classcraft? https://www.classcraft.com/blog/how-use-dungeons-dragons-classroom/
All of these paid options seem great, but I could never afford a management system to help keep track of everyone's XP, along with their academic growth.
I don't really want to pay for stuff. I just use Google Sheets and our LMS to track things. It's not hard, just boils down to spending 10-20 minutes a day on bookkeeping. Which is a weakness for me so I'm glad for the chance to work on it.
Super helpful. I had one student complain this semester that my use of tokens was “gamifying” the class, and I explained that wasn’t my aim at all. Instead, I wanted them to have the agency to make choices (e.g. when do I need a 48 hour extension) and didn’t want it to be about me being nice or not nice. I wonder what their response would be to earning engagement credits.
Interesting that gamification would be a *complaint* -- there are a lot of professional development people out there saying that gamification is something we profs should be striving for! I think I'm of the same mind as your student TBH (though I also agree that this isn't your intent).
In my experience students don't see engagement credits as gamifying anything. But, an unfortunate effect is that many focus laser-like on engagement credits while not giving enough attention to the core learning objectives in the course -- because engagement credits have point values and the other stuff doesn't.
Well, I’m mindful that it was just one student and most of the people who filled out my “midterm check-in” seemed happy with the situation. I work with music students at a conservatory and they tend to be laser-focused on things like practicing, and I sometimes wish they’d find space for gaming (broadly interpreted) in general! I hear you on the focusing on things with points. Their weekly lab quizzes are conventionally graded and on the whole they seem to do much better with it than the weekly homework which is graded S/Not Yet (revisable with a token)—-when they do it, it is great, but a larger number of students than I would like don’t turn it in, even though their course grade is dependent upon having at least 60% of the hw completed “satisfactory” (for a D bundle grade).
Love this idea, especially as I look forward to tightening up elements of my grading system over the summer. A question: how do you figure out (at the beginning of the term) how many total credits are "available" or necessary to hit an A, B, etc.? Do you plan out all the different ways students can earn engagement credits, or do new opportunities for earning credits sort of pop up on the fly?
Thanks Kim. I just play it by ear. I make sure 100 points is realistic and build the syllabus around that as a max. If we end up with more than 100, then that's all the better for students. If it's less, the syllabus says we'll refactor the grade levels appropriately. I have a few preset credit bearing options (class prep, attendance, startup assignment) but a lot of them were one-offs where I just thought "This would be a cool way to get engagement" and just put it out there.
I do something very similar - I call them "participation and preparation points", but I don't set different items to be worth different amounts. Reading (credited via perusall), attendance, in-class stuff, misc small homeworks, all are one point. (I might add "attend a relevant research talk in-person or online.") The threshold for an A is set at about 3/4 of the total available points (60 out of 80), for a B it's 50/80, and they're not required for any of the lower letter grades. (My institution doesn't have +- on undergrad grades, just whole letters.)
I think this is genius! I'm going to try some form of this in my classroom of unmotivated junior high kids who have emotional and behavioral disorders and learning disabilities.
I've always been intrigued with the notion of quest-based learning in the classroom, using Google Sheets to build a live leaderboard, and trying to gamify certain elements of my classroom. I even went so far as to try and use the Institute of Play's Quest Model with students. https://clalliance.org/institute-of-play/
I struggle with the daily management of it. I love the idea of being a 5th Grade Dungeon Master (DM) every day, but it feels like too much work to handle. Do you find that this is easier with your older students? Have you heard of Classcraft? https://www.classcraft.com/blog/how-use-dungeons-dragons-classroom/
All of these paid options seem great, but I could never afford a management system to help keep track of everyone's XP, along with their academic growth.
I don't really want to pay for stuff. I just use Google Sheets and our LMS to track things. It's not hard, just boils down to spending 10-20 minutes a day on bookkeeping. Which is a weakness for me so I'm glad for the chance to work on it.
I was thinking I would make like a quick survey form that I would fill out so it will populate data reports.
Super helpful. I had one student complain this semester that my use of tokens was “gamifying” the class, and I explained that wasn’t my aim at all. Instead, I wanted them to have the agency to make choices (e.g. when do I need a 48 hour extension) and didn’t want it to be about me being nice or not nice. I wonder what their response would be to earning engagement credits.
Interesting that gamification would be a *complaint* -- there are a lot of professional development people out there saying that gamification is something we profs should be striving for! I think I'm of the same mind as your student TBH (though I also agree that this isn't your intent).
In my experience students don't see engagement credits as gamifying anything. But, an unfortunate effect is that many focus laser-like on engagement credits while not giving enough attention to the core learning objectives in the course -- because engagement credits have point values and the other stuff doesn't.
Well, I’m mindful that it was just one student and most of the people who filled out my “midterm check-in” seemed happy with the situation. I work with music students at a conservatory and they tend to be laser-focused on things like practicing, and I sometimes wish they’d find space for gaming (broadly interpreted) in general! I hear you on the focusing on things with points. Their weekly lab quizzes are conventionally graded and on the whole they seem to do much better with it than the weekly homework which is graded S/Not Yet (revisable with a token)—-when they do it, it is great, but a larger number of students than I would like don’t turn it in, even though their course grade is dependent upon having at least 60% of the hw completed “satisfactory” (for a D bundle grade).