Using Gamification in Your Instrumental Teaching

GAME OF SKILLS (learning self discipline for deliberate practice)

Gamification is an activity, which one engages in for amusement.

Many students are competitive, making them a good target for a game, which motivates them to upgrade their skills. I developed a "game" that took one month at the beginning of the school year 2016. The following is an explanation mail I sent to all students and parents:

I’ll give each student a "board game" with 30 "squares" (for about one month).  I will email these or I’ll provide them in the lesson. The students write in their practice minutes in each square.  If the student doesn’t practice on a certain day (shame!), the square should be crossed off anyway. That way, all of the students are finished with the game after 30 days.

(You can find board game templates on the Internet.)

Day-Off-Pass -- No practice on that day but the day counts as practice. (Each player gets a certain amount of these at the beginning.  Use these up and the days off don't count anymore.) These are necessary for travel days, etc. A Day-Off-Pass counts as 5 free minutes on the square. Circle the 5, so I know that was a travel day.  (There are only 4 such passes printed at the top of the board (page), which are crossed off when used.)

Rewards:

Badge of Honor: Student(-s) practicing the most consistently

Along the JOURNEY, the player wins rewards like the golden box or the magical fairy chest. Or choose an Activity Card in the lesson.

Challenges 

·  Practice Skill Master Minds: Each level consists of special practice skills from Apprentice to Master.

·      Note Mastery (badges and signature)

·      Note Knowledge Checkup (do you still know?)

·      Scale Proficiency 

·      Rhythm Expertise

·      Activity Cards (“Play your favorite minor scale, HA and HT”; Play your favorite piece, by memory if possible”;  “Play a C major chord and the inversions”.)

Points, badges, and leaderboards would surely make training awesome. However, gamification is about a lot more than just those surface level benefits. Games drive strong behavioral change especially when combined with the scientific principles of repeated retrieval and spaced repetition.

Teams (learning accountability)

I want to team up students to master the practice-minutes-challenge.

Think of a Team name. (Lancelot, King Arthur, Merlin, Lady Evelin...)

The Team Captain collects the total minutes practiced for the week from the other team members by asking for the results by email. The Team Captain then sends the team’s total practice time to me.

The Team Captain changes each week and should try to motivate the other team members to do their very best. I’ll display the latest achievements and overall evolution on a poster in the lesson room.

The first practice week starts on a Monday so the kids have a chance to begin at the same time, independent of lesson days.

Some of the Team Captains sent everybody’s results, some only the total of all their practice for the week. I was really surprised that so many of the students were so gung-ho with this game. Many practiced even more than usual. It was just rough at first getting everybody used to writing in their times and giving the practice totals to the Team Captain.  I did send reminder emails concerning Team Captain rotation, in case they lost track.

The Teams

I tried to put all students in teams of three. It was important to put weak practicers together with strong practicers so that each group had a chance.

(One question I asked myself: Should the goal be reachable by the team achieving the most minutes (X) or by improving the minute-count each week?  I went for the first option yet the second would be interesting also.  I teach at an International School and the families love to travel on weekends, so the practice weeks reflected that.)

If all the teams reach a certain amount of minutes in total, I’ll invite all the teams for pizza!  I just have to figure out a realistic yet challenging amount.

Teams compete against each other (winning team gets an award) and also all together to ‘beat’ me!

Actually, I did invite all the participants to a pizza dinner, giving prizes to the best teams and small gifts to the others.  The kids had a riot! Sure, it cost me something to buy the pizza and bring the drinks but the fun was worth it.