Bytedu

This post is inspired by Discover Magazine’s article, “This is Your Brain on Video Games”. I am seeing more and more articles on how video games affect the brain in a positive way. This definitely won’t be the last post on it.

One of my interests is how we can use immersive virtual worlds to help make the learning process much more effective. There is a reason why some games are so addictive. How can we harness this drug like addictive power of these popular video games?

The article brought up one interesting point about reward systems in our mind. They studied dopamine in people’s minds while playing video games and found plenty being released when achieving certain goals in the game. I like the way they put it here:

“If you create a system in which rewards are both clearly defined and achieved by exploring an environment, you’ll find human brains drawn to those systems, even if they’re made up of virtual characters and simulated sidewalks. It’s likely those Tactical Ops players in an fMRI machine were able to tolerate the physical discomfort of the machine because the game environment so powerfully stimulated the brain’s dopamine system.”

Ah hah! This is such a simple concept yet so fundamental and powerful. Let’s take it back to the traditional school system.

My experiences has been that there are actually very little rewards built into the school system. The predominate system I can think of is the grading system. Achieving a good grade should activate the release of dopamine. For many students, this is a true statement, and they are successful in our current school system. Many gifted students do well because school is easy for them, so they are motivated to continue despite an uninteresting subject. They are working hard for the drug like dopamine release when they see their A. I can definitely relate to this. I became obsessed with those 5 letters of the alphabet.

What about the students who find the school system or “game” difficult? They seem to have a hard time achieving good grades, as they look at their peers who are making good grades with the same effort. These kids slowly start to dislike the school system game and decide to play another (video games, gangs, etc).

Is this fair? No, of course not. So, where is the problem?

I think we have to look back at a child’s experiences outside of the classroom. Children differ by their genes, how they were raised, and other environmental factors. Some children just have it easier than others in the school system “game”. We end up judging kids against their peers and rewarding the kids who were predisposed to winning. The system is rewarding good parenting and genes it seems.

Sure, some kids break through the barrier and become great students, but only after they see their own potential with a positive mark. Most kids stop playing the game because they don’t feel anything from playing it. They start to view grades as a joke. They quickly realize there are better and much more stimulating games to be played.

My intuition says that the current grading system is just a way to label kids. It doesn’t effectively take the individual in account. Different reward systems need to be set up for each individual, or there needs to be a reward system, which has flexibility in accommodating a diverse group of players.

Now… how in the world would we do this? One idea would be to throw away the grading system and apply individual mentorship. Well… this won’t work either because there are already a shortage of teachers as it is.

The best solution I can think of is along the lines of an interactive learning computer game that goes at the pace of the individual. The individual can start to be rewarded early on by setting the game to start at their current level. They no longer have to initially compete at the high bar set by their much more developed peer. They will learn subjects and be consistently rewarded for their own individual improvement. They will slowly become addicted to doing well in school.

Keep in mind that video games face the same problems. There is a reason why a game isn’t popular with everyone. Some puzzle games overwhelm a majority of users because the initial difficulty is set too high. Some games are just plain difficult to get hooked on due to barriers such as complicated controls. However, some games are just plain intuitive. These games are usually immersive role playing environments that we can relate to in our own world.

These role playing environments have incremental rewards. You start as a weak character and slowly have to improve yourself. This gradual progression is addictive. This is why you see games like World of Warcraft with such a loyal fan base. Did I say loyal? They are diagnosing people psychological disorders due to their addiction! I have definitely been there.

To wrap this up, let’s look at the key point. The reward system inherit in the school system is ineffective because the barrier to play the game is high. This is the equivalent to me trying to play many puzzle games. I get bored very quickly and leave because I’m not getting anywhere. The potential solution is to look at environments with reward systems that increase in difficulty based on individual success. Each player (student) starts at their own level and progress from there. In this situation, everyone will have the opportunity to become addicted to doing well in school.

I intentionally left out many factors that may also have a role, but I think the potential value in looking at reward systems is huge. I disliked school, but I still graduated top of my class at college because I was addicted to the reward system. Unfortunately, many kids are left behind.

I’ll discuss more potential solutions in another post. If anything, I hope I made you think twice about our traditional grading system.

Thanks for reading,

Carl Zetterlund

P.S. Improving reward systems in school is definitely not the fix-all solution, but it gives us insights on why some students succeed while others fail. However, the subjects still have to be interesting and relevant to students. I will go more into this in later posts.

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