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."

Comments

Now I just need to create a bot

[Anonymous Coward]

If only I could create some sort of bot to do the work for me so I could then sell those rewards for money...

He should have stuck with the 2000 system

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:He should have stuck with the 2000 system

[Anonymous Coward]

While there are definite benefits to the XP system, it's a very large departure from the stable and useful 2000 system.

And what is "2000 system"?

Don't worry, you can just keep using Millenium edition.

Re:He should have stuck with the 2000 system

[ircmaxell]

I don't care that Newton went through 20 pages of integrals to discover that KE == 1/2mv^2.

Actually, I disagree with you there... I think it's VERY important to understand WHERE those equations come from and how to derive them (Especially for an engineer). If you don't know the roots of it, how can you ever know its limitations? I'll give you an example... You know that F=ma. But why should you need to know how it's derived? Well, it's derived from F= d(mv)/dt... So F=ma is only true if mass is constant with respect to time (So it doesn't work in cases of a rocket, airplane, top fuel dragster, etc)... That's easily seen from the derivation, but not trivial to see from dimensional analysis or the F=ma question itself. Without understanding the derivation, how can you ever hope to UNDERSTAND the equation? Sure, you can use it, but then how can you possibly KNOW if you pick the right one? And especially in the case of engineering, where people's lives can literally be at stake when choosing an equation, I sure as hell hope you understand the equation and not just know how to use it...

Re:He should have stuck with the 2000 system

[StuartHankins]

My gods, man, what are you doing? Stop it! Stop it!

We cannot have intelligent discussion occurring here and I'm afraid your post is way too insightful for this place. Just think of the children! Before long they will get these funny ideas in their heads and then it's off to school or heaven forbid it, a career! Of all the shameful things! Then look what you've done!

Remember this is a silly place for silly comments, such as "In Soviet Russia, equations calculate you", or "it's equations, all the way down". If you have a pro- or anti- Linux stance now is the time to make it known. Kindly do us a favor and think before you post, but not too much.

All right, now get on with it!

Re:He should have stuck with the 2000 system

[thrawn_aj]

And that artificial distinction between types of physics courses is exactly why people struggle with physics. What you're doing is simply downgrading the meaning of the word "understanding" when you remove essential things like Calculus from it.

A previous poster complained about derivations. (The rest of this post is directed at him/her, not to the immediate parent before me with whom I agree - for the most part). Well, without understanding where equations come from, haven't you just walked away with a cargo cult understanding of physics? Plug this into that equation and voila, you have a bridge that is probably as shaky as your concepts. A course like Physics for Poets is nothing but a compromise course, because there will always exist a class of people who will refuse to be bothered with "useless" things like mathematics and will demand that the workings of the universe be made comprehensible to them in simple terms that require only a modicum of thought. The very idea that the math and the physical concepts exist separately from each other in meaningful ways is ludicrous. In fact, without the math to derive the real world consequences of a physical idea in a logical way, a book on physics would have no more authority than a religious text. It is the math that makes it different. And the fact that students don't get this is responsible for the scientific illiteracy that plagues our nation today. A scientific explanation of a complex question (such as say, why the sky is blue) without recourse to mathematical analysis (like simply blubbering something about Rayleigh scattering) is only MARGINALLY superior to an answer such as "because God made it so". Because in the end, without the math, you're relying on your faith (in god or the scientist) to pacify (rather than satisfy) your curiosity about the world. The long road from a simple concept like light being an electromagnetic wave (as a first approximation) to the scattering of different colors of light that goes as the fourth power of the frequency can be traveled only in the vehicle that is mathematics. No amount of hand-waving arguments will let you bridge that gap in an intellectually honest way. Sure, you can resign yourself to the fact that some people cannot or will not (or do not wish to) travel that road and simply show them a picture of the final destination. Is that understanding? Or is it a low level faith masquerading as understanding?

The worst delusion is the one where people who "learn" through pop-sci books feel they "understand" something. To name something is not to understand. It's a delusion borrowed from the humanities and it has no place in the physical sciences. It's a start, but 99% of the work still remains to be done on your part.

Without deriving an equation yourself (or at the very least seeing it derived), you will NEVER understand (1) the assumptions that went into it and (2) consequently, the domain of its validity. So, the next time you try to use it in a practical situation to say, build something, I can only hope that the thing you build is safer than your general attitude.

Besides, we're talking about an introductory course on physics. 20 pages of derivations is something you'll see in an advanced course on quantum field theory (if that). If every equation in an intro physics course were rigorously derived, it wouldn't add more than 2 weeks to the course (and perhaps 20 pages TOTAL to your notebook if you scrupulously wrote it all down). But what it would do, in exchange for that minor inconvenience, is give you a level of understanding of the subject that (given the consolidation and refinement of the intervening years) would rival that of Newton himself. Ditto for relativity and Einstein, or quantum theory and Schroedinger.

Re:He should have stuck with the 2000 system

[Sally Forth]

The problem that I have with core classes is that it seems to be geared towards making up for what was once covered in highschool.

In elementary school, we should be learning our tools. In highschool, we should be learning how everything fits together. A highschool graduate should know how to write a research paper, how to give a simple speech, how to do basic algebra, and how a bill becomes a law. A highschool graduate should be able to tell you Newton's Laws, balance a chemical equation, and name the primary organs in the body.

People keep insisting that college is the point at which you specialize, but the typical four-year degree has less than half of its courses actually in your major. My university actually had a mandatory requirement in the first two years for gym class! C'mon, people, we're adults! We should be able to choose whether or not we want to get slammed around the basketball court One More Time!

Basically, I am not arguing against the idea of core classes. I am arguing against the notion that we must continue to emphasize them through college. A classic core education shouldn't take 14-16 years and you should be able to spend more than 6 months learning how to do what you plan to spend the rest of your life doing.

Re:This is still no remedy...

[sopssa]

Can I pay for a Chinese man to power-level me through school?

Re:This is still no remedy...

[Sockatume]

XP grinding their degree will thoroughly prepare them for the tedium of working on software design, though.

Re:sheer leveling?

[sopssa]

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.

Balance? Yeah, right...

[danaris]

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

First job internew

[gad_zuki!]

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."

Re:First job internew

[SharpFang]

Well, we don't need employees who have bad luck...

Change is motivational

[cerberusss]

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.

Re:Change is motivational

[Ozan]

I think the more important aspect of this is the quick gratification this system provides. With todays attention span you need to reward people quicker and more often, but smaller.

Anyway I can't wait for the first guy who goes "LEEROY JENKINS!" on his group assignment.

Re:Change is motivational

[Karellen]

change brings about a temporary boost in motivation.

That's the Hawthorne effect.

College Character Classes

[happy_place]

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.

Re:This is still no remedy...

[asliarun]

Can I pay for a Chinese man to power-level me through school?

Dude, he's already doing it.

Re:Just make courses more fun.

[Abstrackt]

Anatomy class, for example. Play doctor and get credit.

Oh, I was thinking "bring me three frog livers for a reward".

Obligatory bash.org reference

[jonaskoelker]

As long as nobody puts on their robe and wizard hat during the interview, I'm happy :)

Re:So you have to work to level up?

[JustOK]

42

They'll love World of Workforce

[Rogerborg]

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.

Re:Least possible *cost*, not *reward*

[rhsanborn]

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.

Re:sheer leveling?

[LoverOfJoy]

I don't think those are really girls. They are just guys hoping to get gifts.

Is that so bad?

[twoallbeefpatties]

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.

Re:Is that so bad?

[SirGarlon]

I did this, kind of, as a TA for a remedial (er, the PC term was "developmental") math pre-college summer program. The kids were older (17-18) than elementary school but here's how it worked in a nutshell.

Math is divided into topic categories or "units." There are about 20 of them from intermediate arithmetic (fractions, negative numbers, that sort of thing) through algebra up to integral calculus. Everyone takes a placement test right off the bat. Student's curriculum starts on the first unit he/she flunked on the placement test. You have to pass each unit with 90%.

The term was six weeks. If you pass six units you get an A. Five units gets a B, four gets a C, and if I remember right a D only required two. The point is that students got graded on how far they came, not where they started. Oh, and if you managed to pass the calculus unit then we (the instructors) had to make up new units for you to try next.

This worked great. The students who came in struggling with arithmetic and made it up to basic algebra walked out with A's and B's in math -- for the first time in their lives, in many cases. The students who came in knowing trigonometry walked out with a working knowledge of calculus. That was the goal: get everyone as far ahead as possible in six weeks.

For the instructors, it was hard work. Every student needed lots of help to get through a unit every week. What I found in fact was that the best students started teaching their classmates just to help their friends get an A. Grading took forever because practically every student was working on something different. And, of course, the instructors had to be ready to teach anything from adding and subtracting negative integers, through multivariable calculus, off the top of their heads. But man, was it worth the effort. :)