Gamification in Teacher Professional Development
My arguments for "gamifying" teacher training programs came from my own initial experiences in the M.Ed program. As a novice ESL teacher and a new student in the field of education, I was overwhelmed with the daunting amount of research, theory, and general information that I was expected to quickly become familiar with. It was disheartening to say the least, but I found solace in the discovery that most other educators were experiencing the same pressures. In fact, research has suggested that teaching practices are becoming increasingly more demanding and complex (Broad & Evans, 2006) as expectation for instructors continues to rise. It is difficult, if not impossible, to stay on top of the constant flow of new information in the 21st Century knowledge society. The problem becomes exacerbated when a lot of research imposes further barriers for practitioners. Vanderlinde and Braack (2010) pointed out that the dissemination of research to practitioners usually follows the linear traditional Research Development Diffusion model (RDD) which does little to motivate practitioners. Further, educational research often can lack applicability, be ambiguous or technical, complex and descriptive.
Gamification was one of those theoretical learning frameworks that I needed to become familiar with when I first started out in the program. McConigal (2011), in her book Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change The World, made a great case for the effectiveness of games for learning and motivation in all aspects of life. She argued that good games are designed to provoke hard work and reward it immediately. Like Dirksen (2016), she emphasized the need for clear, attainable, and sequential goals. Specifically, she stated that satisfying work involves actionable steps to attaining that goal, much like Dirksen's "chunking" of immediate, short-term and long-term goals in learning environments. If the long-term goal is to encourage life-long learning in educators to close the research to practice gap, can gamification help? If so, how do we create a gamified and compelling environment for this kind of learning to occur?
These were the thoughts that I had about gamification and my own professional development experiences as an educator. In our class, Dr. Power has attempted to "gamify" our learning environment by including game elements like digital badges. However, many of us have expressed in class that the digital badges "just don't do it for me" or "they aren't a motivator." I have continued to think about why this might be, and I think it could possibly be an indicator of the amount of community we have developed in our class. This may not entirely explain most of our apathy for the badges system, but it could be a start. To me, the digital badges are social in that they require recognition to from peers to really be meaningful. However, they also need to earned and the rest of the community needs to know why you earned it. What work did you do to merit that award? Why should I recognize it? The badge really needs to be a reflection of a meaningful accomplishment that signals to the community "Hey! This person did something pretty amazing. I wonder what it was?" In sum, I believe that gamification of teacher education goes hand in hand with establishing a community of inquiry.
References:
McConigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games matter and how they can change the world. New York: The Penguin Press.
Vanderlinde, R., Braak, J. (2010). The gap between educational research and practice: views of the teachers, school leaders, intermediaries and researchers. The British Educational Research Journal, 36(2), 299-316. DOI: 10.1080/01411920902919257
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