School Rewards 2.0?
All schools I have been to have a rewards system in place, the yin, to the sanctions system’s yang. I think it’s about time school rewards were dragged into the 21st Century, and I have a few thoughts…
My current school is doing what most schools do every few years and discussing how we deal with behaviour: good and bad. The focus, as usual, has been mainly on the bad and associated sanctions rather than the good and their rewards. We currently use Capita’s SIMS as our information management system, within this is a behaviour module. Through this we can assign good and bad points to students. We call the good points ‘merits’. At present these count for little, a certificate at the end of the year if the pupils are lucky. Although not valued by many pupils, many will still strive to earn these merits, despite the fact they rarely even see the total they have earned. This has always puzzled me, I guess these merits also represent my approval of pupils, and this in itself is enough for some pupils. But still, I felt I was missing something.
I have been reading ‘Everything Bad is Good for You‘ by Steven Johnson. In the book Steven goes about explaining why much of popular culture, so often derided as increasingly vacuous, is in fact good for us, particularly the complex mental challenges it demands.
When discussing computer games, Steven looks at the seemingly dull, repetitive tasks we often complete within them and wonders why we bother at all. Steven puts the case that games tap into the brain’s natural reward circuitry. The small rewards that usually make up each step of a game, stimulating a dopamine response in the brain.
- Image via CrunchBase
This got me thinking about the role of games in education, I’ve had great success with the wonderful TutPup last year. Starting a craze with our younger pupils. TutPup was bought out by the team behind Moshi Monsters earlier this year, I believe it will be integrated into the Moshi Monsters world some time soon. If you’ve not seen Moshi, check it out, filled with games and puzzles it encourages you to complete these in return for points which can be spent on customising your monster and it’s house. Mathletics operates on a similar principle, successful completion of the maths games give you points to spend on ‘pimping’ your avatar.
I consulted my faithful Twitter network about rewards systems and during the discussion Greg (twitter.com/futurebehaviour) pointed me towards the ‘Stanford Marshmallow Experiment‘. This fascinating study put 4 year olds in a room with a marshmallow. They were told if they waited until the person conducting the test returned they would receive an extra marshmallow. Those who ate the single marshmallow straight away, demonstrating a lack of impulse control were found to do considerably worse in their SATs 14 years later! Doug (twitter.com/dajbelshaw) asked whether reward systems on the micro level were pointless and counter-productive. We discussed long and short term rewards. I think that a majority of pupils who I teach would probably have taken the first marshmallow. Many of them are impulsive and do not have the natural patience to wait for delayed gratification. I think this is down to many influences, their background and social situation will have a large effect, as will their media and entretainment. The computer games, instant messaging, reality TV and mobile phones that our pupils live with have, I think, made us more used to instant gratification.
If this is the case, then this is something we should take advantage of in schools. Let us make more of the micro level rewards, in conjunction with longer term ones such as reward trips, and of course, the more intrinsic rewards of succeeding and doing well.
I would like to see a reward system linked to online monsters/avatars as described earlier, or even a system like that found on current consoles: PlayStation Trophies or X-Box Live Achievements. Staff would be able to award ‘points’ to pupils for whatever good behaviour the school decides is appropriate. This could be all electronic or via codes/stickers in a system like this one. The pupil could then see these updating on their electronic system. Imagine either your own, in-school ‘reward monster’ or a trophy list like the one above but with games swapped for good deeds.
This would allow pupils to quickly get gratification and feedback from their rewards, and would hopefully foster competition between pupils. The system should also be able to total points by different pupil groups, e.g. Form Class, Year Group, House System etc., this would allow competition on a larger scale.
Longer term rewards could be rewarded for those with the highest points score, biggest improvement, best Form, etc. etc..
Finally on my wishlist would be the ability for pupils to embed their rewards in other websites. The use of ‘widgets’ is increasingly common across the web. If pupils could display their rewards on their personal VLE page, Facebook or their own blog it would only add to the value in the system.
So what do you think? I am sure our school would pay a modest fee for a professionally done system like this. Should we be focussing on such short term rewards? School Stickers, Mind Candy, do you think something like this is easily doable? If there is anything in the pipeline I’d love to be involved.
I think this would work well at Primary School, and at KS3 in Secondary School (11-14) after that pupils tend to have developed more intrinsic motivation and can work for deferred gratification.
A final thought:
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I like the idea of virtual rewards, but I doubt it would work across the board. Some of our students are reluctant to go any where near the VLE, but would relish the chance to win something concrete. Another thing: would this work better with boys than girls?
I think as far as gender is concerned it would be pretty neutral, depends on the design. I know what you mean about the VLE, if it was on a separate website, with the ability to copy and paste a HTML coded widget, those who use the VLE could display their 'badge' there, others on whichever social network / website they used.
As for working across the board, I guess that is always the problem. Finding something that appeals to a whole school is nigh-on impossible?
Interesting reflections. Should we be careful of league tables of rewards? I'm not “all-competition-is-bad”, but danger that the ones who most need rewards will be further down league and therefore demotivated. Otherwise interesting proposition.
I agree, league tables / other reporting would be useful for staff, if not for pupils.
I absolutely agree with @futurebehaviour's tweet: you shouldn't really *need* a formal rewards system as the feedback loop that you mention in your post should be different yet evident across the curriculum. That being said…
The Tamagotchi-like monsters idea is an excellent one! Coupled with the school VLE it could work really well. It reminds me of a Futurelab project called 'Fizees' where Primary school-age children had to take care of virtual pets. The health of these pets was directly in proportion to the amount of exercise the children did. More about that project here:
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/fizzees
You might want to talk to a VLE provider. I think you're onto a winner. 🙂
The main reason for pupils needing a reward system is that they don't value their own education. I've visited several mainstream and special schools in China over the last 18 months (lucky me!) and the culture is quite different. Chinese pupils generally value their education and understand the need for a good education. Strangely these pupils do not have the need for reward systems, because the reward for hard work is a good education (and better life prospects).
I'm not sure how this translates to our pupils, where we have two generations of parents living on state benefits, where pupils don't see the education they receive as being important to their future prospects.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I teach in a special school where we have managed to build a culture of self worth. Pupils do generally value their education and the effort that staff put into it. Without this, the reward system would be less important.
The reward system in this context seems less important than the ethos and culture of the school. I've been in many of the mainstream secondary school across my LA, some for extended periods of time, and yet to see a reward system that works well across all age ranges and abilities. I do like the idea of an electronic tracking system – I'm lucky I have a TA to help me track number of points and issue tickets for my tutor group – but the admin would be a nightmare in a larger school.
I used Mathletics when I worked in primary and the kids loved it. Not only did they love it but they were incredibly motivated and the motivation was, surprisingly, sustained. The children (both boys and girls throughout KS2) loved the competition and collecting credits to upgrade their avatars. So I certainly think that Mathletics effect could, as you suggest, be applied to other areas.
The methods you suggest could certainly be used as a method to motivate students in their studies although I’d say it would need to separate from behaviour. I think the emphasis should be on peer-wide rewards for behaviour. These encourage students to support each other. For me, when it comes to students making the right behavioural choices, the aim is cooperation not competition.
If we can motivate students in their school-work with your idea of micro-rewards and competition then great. We need every strategy we can get our hands on and I think this would be a very effective one.
Can I have a marshmallow now?
Thanks for all the great comments.
I think there is much to discuss about the motivation of pupils and the ethos of a school. I work in central Manchester in one of the most deprived areas of the country. We have nearly 75% on free school meals and nearly 50% with special educational needs.
I don't think that traditional middle class values are held by lots of our pupils. This is not to do them a disservice, but to say that there is not a ingrained culture of trusting in the educational system and seeing its value.
I think that a reward system is useful, particularly in early years of Secondary school. If it contributes to successful learning, then you are able to build an atmosphere and ethos of value in learning. If your time is spent dealing with low level disruption, which in turn stops children from fulfilling their potential, then it is difficult to get that feeling of success going around a school.
A good reward system should encourage Y7s and Y8s to understand the school's values so that when they progress further through the school they want to succeed for the right reasons.
Virtual rewards sound a great idea! At present we have Merits (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond), with a once a term reward trip (morning/afternoon cinema, swimming, ice skating).
Most staff also send 'postcards home' ~ very much appreciated.
We also have G codes (Green or Good), as well as R codes (Red for bad behaviour).
Headteacher awards are also given out for exceptional good deeds/performance.
Yes, the merits are mostly collected by the Yr 7's and drop off as you progress through the school, but postcards home are certainly prized.
We have just begun to introduce Kaleidos, our VLE, to students since the beginning of the year, and they do like making their own avatar, which is built in.
The idea of collectible widgets would appeal immensely!
How would it work??
Would love to be involved if you find anything!
Good post @mrstucke (+10 experience points!)
I'm a huge believer in the power of games to aid many different types of learning. I think we've barely scratched the surface with what is possible and would love to see more game designers tackling education projects
Kids spend much of their leisure time playing games so it seems sensible to explore the elements that makes these experiences so popular, and attempt to adapt them for the classroom. Many non-gaming websites are applying the secrets of good game design to their sites, and reaping big rewards. Amy Jo Kim has a fantastic presentation on this subject (Putting the Fun into Functional):
http://www.slideshare.net/amyjokim/fun-in-funct…
We had a very simple reward system when I was at school – we got a physical gold star if we were good, and one removed if we were bad. An online reward system could offer much greater granularity to reward many different behaviours, but also wider visibility so parents and other classmates could keep track of progress. There's little point in being awesome if you don't get to show off your awesomeness.
I love the widget idea but one problem might be that older kids (12+) would be less inclined to display their progress at school to their friends on Bebo/MySpace/Facebook, while younger ones aren't generally on the types of social network that host widgets.
It needs a little more thought, but I think the idea of a standardised virtual reward system has a lot of merit. I haven't heard of any projects like this in the pipeline, but we'd be happy to lend our advice and support if anyone is planning something.
Good post @mrstucke (+10 experience points!)
I'm a huge believer in the power of games to aid many different types of learning. I think we've barely scratched the surface with what is possible and would love to see more game designers tackling education projects
Kids spend much of their leisure time playing games so it seems sensible to explore the elements that makes these experiences so popular, and attempt to adapt them for the classroom. Many non-gaming websites are applying the secrets of good game design to their sites, and reaping big rewards. Amy Jo Kim has a fantastic presentation on this subject (Putting the Fun into Functional):
http://www.slideshare.net/amyjokim/fun-in-funct…
We had a very simple reward system when I was at school – we got a physical gold star if we were good, and one removed if we were bad. An online reward system could offer much greater granularity to reward many different behaviours, but also wider visibility so parents and other classmates could keep track of progress. There's little point in being awesome if you don't get to show off your awesomeness.
I love the widget idea but one problem might be that older kids (12+) would be less inclined to display their progress at school to their friends on Bebo/MySpace/Facebook, while younger ones aren't generally on the types of social network that host widgets.
It needs a little more thought, but I think the idea of a standardised virtual reward system has a lot of merit. I haven't heard of any projects like this in the pipeline, but we'd be happy to lend our advice and support if anyone is planning something.
I’ve actually been running an experiment at York University (part of my dissertation) that deals with this idea. I have two groups of students (undergraduate politics class of 110 split into 2) using a relatively simple custom VLE, one group with additional game rules/mechanics (points, trophies, levels, leaderboards).
The experiment still has a couple of weeks to run, but the results have been pretty good for the game stuff; significantly higher logins / page views / time spent, and a lot more participation, although general levels of student contributions are still quite low!
I’m doing some qualitative evaluation, and the students do seem to really like the game like features and rewards. I keep hearing the word fun anyway!
Hi Mr Stucke,
Thanks so much for the shout out on myStickers. At School Stickers we’ve certainly heard the need for a simple merit reward system and we’re been quietly getting on and creating one!
As we were in development before I didn’t want to talk about it before; but the site is now in beta I thought you, as well as your readers, might be interested in checking it out. We’d certainly value any feedback you can give us.
The site is called CarrotRewards (http://www.carrotrewards.co.uk). It works with myStickers.co.uk. For those that are unfamiliar with it – all our stickers and postcards can come with a small 6 digit code. Your pupil logs them on myStickers to create a virtual sticker book.
The new bit is that you – as a teacher – can then see that data on CarrotRewards. From there we’ve developed systems so you can run any competition you want: Whole school, year, subject, form etc for any specified time system. Your pupils then see their position on myStickers and you can get instant updates in CarrotRewards. Allowing you to encourage pupils with daily updates. The great bit is you run all these competitions but you don’t need to spend all your time counting tokens!
Apart from competitions we also built in general behaviour management and reporting tools. You can see how pupils are doing individually, how a class is doing, or how many rewards a certain subject has given out. We’ve also built the functionality to export the data to SIMS for integrated reporting.
Now right now we’re in Beta (so a few bugs!) but I’d really value feedback so I’ve set up a demo account for you:
Username: tryme@carrotrewards.co.uk
Password: carrot
You can get dummy codes to try out here: http://www.carrotrewards.co.uk/codes/
You can try registering as a pupil on mystickers.co.uk and see them appear in the Carrot Demo School. (The codes link the pupil automatically to the demo school).
I look forward to hearing your comments.
Henry Shelford.
Henry (a) schoolstickers.co.uk
0121 333 3600.
I did something on this exact subject you might like: mclear.co.uk/sites/xparena-a-decentralized-learning-reward-platform/
My idea is to keep it as open and free as possible. Not restricting to resources provided by the reward mechanism itself.
sorry my URL didn’t post! http://mclear.co.uk/sites/xparena-a-decentralized-learning-reward-platform/
that should work 🙂 -10xp for me!
At the school where I work we started 2 years ago with an online rewards system called vivo miles https://www.vivomiles.com/ and it’s been very positive for us. I was one of the most affected by lack of motivation and indiscipline and at some point I was feeling the situation getting out of control, the absenteeism in my class was alarming, and that was kind of the general picture at the school as is a public school and most of the kids come from problematic family lives and most of them from parents living from benefits who do not encourage them to learn and take the best of their studies as way to progress. Now things are very different, with this token system the students receive points for every positive action, even for attending class and they can accumulate and redeem those points in rewards they want. Is very engaging and also engage parents which is important as with previous rewards systems we tried before at the school all was limited to the school time and we experienced very poor back up from parents.
Hi,
This sounds great. Our school is currently looking at revamping our reward system. Could you give me more information on how your system works.
Thanks Daniel, a really great article (I know it’s a couple of years old now). Most games that kids (and adults!) play these days include some of these game mechanics such as achievements and ‘levelling up’. I’m a secondary school teacher and I came up with my own online school rewards system a couple of years ago and in the past year I’ve begun to sell it to other schools. The idea of the achievements and badges for ‘levels’ is something I’ve recently built into the system to help with motivating the students and they really love it!
I’ve added a screenshot showing the result below, but if anybody is interested you can read more by visiting http://www.epraise.co.uk.
Hi thanks for you comment. Your site looks good, good work. Our school currently uses Vivomiles (http://www.vivomiles.com) and it’s got it’s good sides. Popular with students although the UI leaves a little to be desired. I’ve been impressed with Class Dojo (http://www.classdojo.com/) too – fantastic UI.
Thanks Daniel, the feedback from schools so far has been great and like you say we’re up against some strong competiton. Let me know if you’re interested in having a proper look about and I’ll send across some login details.