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Professor Ditches Grades For XP System
schliz writes "Like in World of Warcraft, students of Indiana University's game design classes start as Level 1 avatars with 0 XP, and progress by completing quests solo, as guilds, or in 'pick up groups.' Course coordinator Lee Sheldon says students are responding with 'far greater enthusiasm,' and many specifics of game design could also be directly applied to the workforce. These included: clearly defining goals for workers; providing incremental rewards; and balancing effort and reward."
If only I could create some sort of bot to do the work for me so I could then sell those rewards for money...
While there are definite benefits to the XP system, it's a very large departure from the stable and useful 2000 system.
I predict the next step will be a major overhaul of the evaluation system which will be widely hailed as a vast improvement on paper but turn out to be a huge mess and pleasing to no one.
...against boredom of grinding.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
This approach would be great in other courses.
Anatomy class, for example.
Play doctor and get credit.
As they're getting near level 80 all the girls will get interested and want to have sex with the top-of-the-class guys, just like with World of Warcraft.
Balancing effort and reward doesn't interest most employers. They're interested in getting the most effort out of their employees for the least possible reward.
If they were to balance effort and reward, they might actually have to (for instance) pay overtime to the programmers who put in 80-hour weeks to meet the deadline...
(Score: -1, Overly Cynical) ;-)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Kid: "Well, I'm a level 8 Human designer. I'm mostly int and charisma."
Interviewer: "Err, okay... here, roll this 20 sided die. 10 or higher gets you a second interview"
*rolls*
"Sorry, I hope you are able to find better opportunities elsewhere."
*long pause*
"Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!"
"Please leave my office."
...in people causing them to be positive about the build-up; the hoarding of score (read: resources). No, really, it is so.
Course coordinator Lee Sheldon says students are responding with 'far greater enthusiasm,'
It's a documented fact that any change brings about a temporary boost in motivation. One should be careful with making generic assumptions based on this change.
Let me make an analogy we all understand. When you meet a girl and she wears these big unsexy undies, you don't really care because she'll look great to you anyway. When she becomes your wife, you'll suggest sexy, minimalistic underwear. And sooner or later, even that won't help.
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Sorry I didn't come to class today, I imbibed some sort of malware last night at the tavern searching for "quests" and it slowed down my body and took over root processes and I was unable to login.
Orwell was an optimist.
Going through college, I was like a level 50 Suck-up. I was so good at it, that once I got partial credit on a True/False question... I wonder what other sorts of character classes one could obtain at a University Dungeon.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
http://www.xkcd.com/189//
cuz we're all just sims in some grander game.
As long as nobody puts on their robe and wizard hat during the interview, I'm happy :)
42
rewriting history since 2109
A 50 year grind to max out, random nerfs and level wipes, and the end game reward is a 2-person Winnebago instance in the Florida server.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is almost identical to management by objective, where every quarter you're given some tasks to complete, and your quarterly bonus depends upon how many you get done. Where I work, the tasks include getting certified in something new, writing white papers, or performing "health checks" for our customers' data centers.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
On paper, what you just said is true. Unfortunately, that's, generally, not how it works. They may understand that replacing employees is expensive and reduces the overall quality of the product. But, generally, they don't actually follow through with steps to avoid burning people out or compensate them appropriately. They see all employees as little cost centers and look to whittle down expenses without considering the implications of lower staff morale. So yes, it is beneficial to businesses in the long term to keep employees happy. Unfortunately, long-term goals don't come over as well as saying you cut costs by X dollars on the next quarterly report or board meeting.
I don't think those are really girls. They are just guys hoping to get gifts.
I remember reading an article in the Economist about how young people coming through the education system (in the UK) are becoming increasingly difficult to integrate into the workforce.
That article pointed out that the problems with such integration are precisely the "benefits" espoused by the summary above. Namely that new graduates expect ridiculously elaborate and well-defined goals, don't work very hard without specific incentives, have poor social skills and in general lack initiative.
The article (which as a former manager I agree with) made the point that that these individuals are increasingly difficult to manage and motivate. As a manager, I shouldn't have to define an intricate XP based points system to keep my staff interested. I think it is a consequence of TV-led, internet-supercharged instant gratification culture that the notion of short or medium term effort for long term gains is drifting into obscurity.
You don't work hard on assignment X because I'll give you some XP, or even a cash voucher or something. You work hard because you take some pride in both yourself and your work and at the prospect of getting promoted.
Don't want to get promoted, don't want to work hard, don't really want to be at work anyway? Then fuck off out of my team and let me employ someone who does!
If I've got a fourth grader, I give him a math test on memorization of the multiplication tables. He turns it in with a quarter of the problems wrong, he gets a D. Then a month later, I give him a test on multiplying double-digit numbers. He gets a quarter of the problems wrong, he gets a D. Then I give him a test on division, three-digit numbers divided by one digit. He gets a D.
This kid leaves the fourth grade, and he pretty much forgets the little that he did learn in my class. He spends most of the next year playing catch-up.
Let me suggest the curriculum for a fourth grader's math assignments. I'm going to give this kid a test on the multiplication tables, but I'm going to give it a week earlier than the other teacher did. If this kid gets a quarter of the problems wrong, then he has to respawn and go fight the boss aga-- er, he has to take another multiplication tables test a week later. He keeps taking one of those tests once a week until he gets at least a 90% on it, even if the other kids have moved on to start taking other tests.
If this kid can't get ever get a 90% on these tables, he gets an F in math for the semester. If he passes the tables test, his grade levels up to a D.
Then I give this kid a test on double-digit multiplication. He has to take it again and again until he gets a 90% on the test. When he does, he levels up to a C in math for the semester. This might take him so long that he doesn't ever really get to the long division test, although I'll still give him some assignments to pick up on the basics of it.
The kid in the first example never really got a strong handle on any of the subjects I taught. The second kid knows his expletive'ing multiplication tables and has a good handle on multiplying numbers, even if he never got a good shot at the later stuff. The first kid got a D in math, the second kid got a C. Which kid do you think knows more about math?
Alternatively, I give one student that tables test, and he gets an A on the first try, a week earlier than the others. I tell this kid, okay, you can beta test the new dungeon that the devs are working on-- er, you can start looking ahead at some of the new material. Or maybe you can actually only get to a B in this class by doing the three main quests, so if you want to get to an A, you'll have to do at least a few side quests. Here, why don't you solve the puzzles in this beginner's programming book, since it's tangentially related to math? Or you could grind the goblins in this basic accounting sheet, teaching you to balance a checkbook?
I'm sure the actual logistics of this method would require a bit of work, but I'd like to see it tried out in practice once.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I don't think those are really girls. They are just guys hoping to get gifts.
So do you think this will lead to failing CS students showing up in drag?
Level 3 Elfen Hottie WTJ Linked List Group
Only schools fucked that one up. Because as they are today, they were originally invented by Bismarck, because he wanted something like military drill, but for kids. (Yeah, how fucked up is that?)
Could you please provide a citation? I would very much like to have one to use, and it will help me find more, too. I have a bunch of friends with kids of almost-school age, and I need ammunition. No, verbal ammunition, I'm not shooting them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Business took a page from science and said, "If I can't measure it, it doesn't exist."
I think of science saying something much closer to "If I can't measure it yet, I defer judgment until I can, and try to enable that. If it's inherently unmeasurable, I defer judgment forever."
Business people tend to not measure, and also not try harder at measuring, because they don't know the payoff of measuring harder, because they never measured that either, because [...].
I knew for a long time that education and gaming were going to mesh to not only help people learn better quicker but also because the degree of intense amusement when you achieve something, such as rewards. I play WoW, and the reason is I enjoy the gratification you get from being able to turn in quests and see yourself advance in the game.
You can link this type of mentality through any other field in life, such as business, marketing, even math and construction.
I think making school a little more like real life not only helps push that mentality in our young ones, but also uses a medium they are quite familiar with to transfer the required knowledge. Go to youtube, and see the do it yourself videos on how to change an alternator on a car, or install some floor tiles for your bathroom.....it's all there, why not education as well.
I guess the only thing would be to set up school centers made purely to challenge the tests and be able to say you passed x grade.
When someone wants to pass the bar (lawyers), they do not need to prove all the courses they have taken, merely pass the exam based on knowledge. I think this is more of the model we should push, and so be it,add a reward schema in the middle to help during the learning process.
I hope this guy pushes this very far, and hopefully gets a revolution going within the schooling system, we desperately need it!
Enough with dropping the passing grade, for chr*sts sake, just make it so cool to do, that all students will WANT to learn that sh*t and then be able to pass with 90%, just like a raid in WoW!
You obviously don't use base 13.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
What a conincidence. I just heard a talk with him today. He's visiting our company to help with the development of a star trek game and he also introduced the very same concept. Neat idea and - as he says - it works with those who play games and then is a better alternative to grades. His explainations seemed plausible to me.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
That's how accountants are. They are strictly process based, difficult to deal with, and stick with numbers. The reason why they seem to be good as managers is because they can play number games with metrics easily.
I am sure they all understand long term forecast keep employees happy is cost efficient. However it doesn't concern them as it doesn't affect their budgeting in any way shape or form. They are in a medium to large size company taking salaries, saving the company money that is difficult to quantify, can't be plotted into charts, and has no direct correlation with their performance get tugged down the bottom of their priority list.
Although keep an employee for a period is cost efficient, keep them forever is not. In management, it is best to keep people for around 4 years. The reason behind it is because keep employees for more than 5 years has its own cost. Employees demand raises as well as contribution to 401k retirement. On average a new employee will cost the company about 10 grand to bring on board. But, the same employee stays for more than 5 years will cost the company around 30 grand to keep. So at that point it is all about if the employee is worth it or not. So don't be surprised if your work environment suddenly become bad after couple years.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
I think the problem with universities is that education has already become a grind, and this takes the mind-numbing up a notch. The reason why our students are demanding "clear, well-defined goals" in courses is exactly because they want everything in college to have handrails, explicit structure and a transparent input-output conditionals. And it's true that it's easier to get good grades in such a system. But I think it's completely irresponsible to take someone who has made it through such a system as "college-educated". An educated person has learned to operate flexibly in a system where the input-output structures are opaque, and the quality of their product is what matters. (The real world doesn't care if you took "all the right steps" in the process of making something shoddy, so I don't see why college courses should reward it either.)
While my background is in physics, I now teach courses in philosophy. Now try to imagine applying this XP system to my field! It's not useless; I mean, I do stuff like this already (though I feel dirty about it). I occasionally give quick multiple-choice reading quizzes which make up a tiny portion of the course grade. Students can see "collecting" reading quiz points as XP's. But what really matters to me is that my students reveal an understanding of the issues and are able to have coherent and insightful reactions to these. Maybe a more straightforward way of looking it is this: My students need to be able to horribly embarrass anyone who defends certain dumb ideas, in a wide range of contexts. For example, if my ethics students aren't able to embarrass a smart moral relativist in a conversation, they don't deserve a passing grade for that (small) unit of the course. This objective cannot be divided up into sub-objectives to which you could assign XP's, because there are incredibly many paths for getting to that goal, and for the purpose of grading, I don't care which path they take. It depends on their temperament and talent. I'm not about to impose a structure on how to achieve this goal, and anyone who does is being a terrible educator. Their students will learn to grind out good grades, but... what else? Is it hoped that "incidentally" they will also acquire an understanding of the subject along the way? It seems to me much better to just test their understanding directly, and let them learn how to best match their skills to the available resources so that they achieve that understanding. That's exactly what students should learn in college, and it's also exactly what this XP system circumvents.