Classcraft: Role-Playing Games in Schools vs. Gamification
I have a bone to pick, and there is a lot at stake, so let me just pick it! Gamification is dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing.
Let me clarify the difference between Role-Playing Games in Schools and Gamification. In the former, teacher-gamers use tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) in the classroom for off-screen learning or on-screen with a Virtual Table Top (VTT). In the latter, teachers apply game mechanics, tropes and motifs to mitigate classroom management and make boring curricula fun- oftentimes on the computer (see “teacher-gaming”).
Is RPGs in Schools like gamifying your classroom? No, because role-playing games in schools means you are playing full-scale RPGs as they were intended to be played but facilitating it with pedagogical skills, while gamifying is dressing your education experience up to be like a game.
For a refresher on the three main kinds of role-playing games check out the last article: What do fiancés and the RPG Skillset have in common?
Gamification as it was intended
Gamifying means scaffolding student coursework into a game so that under the guise of a game mechanic or series of them, a teacher guides and entices their students to advance through content until they complete the course. Instead of having your usual dry and explicit syllabi, curricula or lesson objectives, you turn them into a game-mechanic scheme.
For example, science students are ‘spies’ infiltrating a top-secret intelligence depot to learn all they can about chemical compounds and experiments done there. They can attempt early investigative assignments on the first tier of inquiries in whatever order they want and as many times as they want. However, they must achieve at least one star (out of three stars possible) in each assignment to ‘crack the code’ that gains access to the first quiz. If the quiz is passed — they earn a ‘badge of security clearance’ that allows them access to the second tier. If the quiz is failed, they may not attempt it again until they have at least two stars in each assignment. Students come to realize that achieving two or three stars represents a certain quality of work and practice that ensures a better chance of passing the quiz. Completing the three tiers, and earning the three badges grants them entrance to face a ‘big boss’ (aka test one). Badges with honors (ie, all activities achieved three stars on all three tiers) may allow students special opportunities like one free answer, the ability to consult a friend, or some other advantage found in games. The younger the students, the more likely they are to go along with the gamified scheme.
Disambiguation: Neither RPGs in Schools, Nor Gamification…
Before we get into RPGs in schools, there is a third thing people (especially uncertified substitute teachers) have tried with games over the years: to play them with students to teach a subject which is neither “gamifying” nor using RPGs in Schools as a proper life-skillset development program. Although engaging, you cannot expect to bring Dungeons and Dragons in to teach your history class, just like educators have failed to make Monopoly teach economics classes. In these cases, implemented with no sense of classcraft, the students primarily fulfill the needs of the game. If done properly, both gamifying and RPGs in Schools aim to fulfill the needs of the students — even though I would argue that ultimately gamification on the computer seeks to primarily benefit the software company.
Role-Playing Games in Schools, the missed opportunity of authentic learning looking us in the face
You have to look at role-playing games as a new experiential opportunity to approach life-hacks and apply literacy skills where learners are engaged authentically through full immersion into a seamless narrative. Although set in a fantasy world, an RPG is a life simulator that works implicitly on collaboration, design, communication, negotiation, creativity, risk assessment and empathy. When you are simulating realistic-narrative events, it is difficult to avoid practical uses of academic skills, like mathematics, critical thinking, grammar, punctuation, geography, biology, physics, theatre, arts, comparative literature, literary form and identifying literary devices and tropes. As learners seek to make the experience of the simulation more authentic and real, the gaming becomes a springboard for many other skills and crafts. What does that look like?
Role-Playing Games in Schools programs:
Teacher-Gamer Handbook — how to embed any role-playing game into your curriculum.
The New States of Atlantis—A land management multi-player role-playing game for learners 9–15 years old.
Gamification unbridled leads to computer gaming
The good part about gamification is that it has ushered “games” into school and put some value in the use of game theory. The bad part is that not only can common games not replace subject class activities, without any specialization in games, regular teachers instructed to gamify their classrooms, have resorted to gamify on the computer. So, it has promoted that learning is fun on a computer — which it can be, like fast food can be fun because you get a toy in the box your food came in.
This jump to use tech, puts slow learning, patience, taking your time as a learner to process things deeply, and interacting socially on a second-tier attitude towards learning and the human teacher. Think about it: is not the result that learners will ‘behave’ so they can get through the human guardian to the computer? Is human-interaction and the chance to be mentored being replaced by screen time and an attitude that children learn better or easier online?
As teacher-gamers pioneer their territory in the curriculum field they walk a precarious line of being accepted by the education establishment that wants to see its corporate testing and institutionalized methodologies maintained. Gamifying is not threatening EdTech and AI; if anything, it is making it more appealing and it entices children to want to ask for it on-line.
After-taste difference: With RPGs, there is no ending to the game and everything they have learned has been authentic in its own experience. With gamification, passed a certain age, kids catch on and they will call it for what it is: coercion.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a teacher and sure there are places to apply some game tropes; like telling students by completing a certain challenge, they will “unlock” a bonus or next level area of study. But, please, let’s call gamification for what it is: a way to get children to be behave.
I do not mean to imply that there is a conspiracy against teacher-gamers, rather I want to draw attention to the hump it will take to get over ideologically for people and societies (that still put an emphasis on humans as machines, versus humans as creative beings each with something distinct to share) to realize that role-playing games are in a completely different realm from gamification.
Teacher-Gamers are world builders
Let’s be clear about what we mean by “teacher-gamers”. These are legit certified teachers who are also tabletop gamers bringing the most robust games into the classroom. Sure, teacher-gamers may be into other kinds of gaming — but they are primarily tabletop gamers.
Another reverential signification would be of those teacher-gamers who have been gaming since the 70s-80s: They could be referred to as OGs (Original Gamers)!
So, to conclude on the magnitudinous difference between RPGs in Schools and mere gamification, let me draw an analogy to science-fiction and fantasy writer craft to regular fiction.
Not only must a sci-fi or fantasy writer deliver an awesome story with awesome characters, but to really pull it off, the writer must also create an awesome world with an awesome future tech or magic system. AND they have to do it ever so smoothly without the reader being aware of it.
So it goes for the teacher-gamer that must not only have incredible classcraft skill, but must deliver the learning experience with implicit grace to the point that the students are so immersed that they don’t even realize how much they are learning.
What are your thoughts? Do I have it wrong? Is gamification benign or should we really worry about how much of education is sliding not only onto the computer, but right into the CPUs of AI droids that maybe easier to program, update and repair than train teachers?
#teachergamer #wildmindtraining #rpgsinschools #teachergamerhandbook
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Zachary Reznichek is a life-skills trainer and teacher-gamer running courses between North America, Europe and South East Asia. But globally online for now. Jump into a World Building class or Teacher Training Webinar and join the Teacher-Gamer Revolution.
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