Explore Like A Pirate

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Dustin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Michael Matera. Michael is a pioneer in our field, particularly in using gamification and technology to improve student engagement. He is a nationally known presenter and consultant on game-based learning and one of ASCD's emerging leaders in 2015. And we're here today to talk about Michael's new book, Explore Like a Pirate.

[00:42] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:45] SPEAKER_02:

Michael, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thanks for having me, Justin. So the full title of Explore Like a Pirate is Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners. What is gamification and how does it work in your classroom, Michael?

[01:01] SPEAKER_01:

So gamification at its most basic sense is figuring out what's most motivational about games. Could be card games, board games, video games, doesn't matter. and applying those to non-game settings. So you can see it in the business world. And in our case, we're trying to figure out what's the most motivational about games and applying those mechanics, those elements of games in a non-game setting like our classroom.

[01:28] SPEAKER_02:

So if we think about the mechanics of games, things that make them fun, and as well as things that make games work that we might not think of as inherently fun, one thing that comes to mind immediately for me is the element of skill versus the element of chance. In a lot of good games, you're trying your best, you're trying to accomplish something, but there's also a little bit of maybe randomness. And I wonder if you have an example of applying some of those game mechanics, either those ones or different ones, in kind of a classroom setting. Because I think we've all seen that attempted and not really had it work out where maybe we were supposed to play a game and it turned out to not really be any fun. And what you're talking about, if I understand correctly, is not turning every lesson into a game, but extracting those game mechanics and figuring out how to design learning experiences that are more engaging because they feature those mechanics.

[02:20]

Am I getting that right? Or help us out with that.

[02:23] SPEAKER_01:

Yes, that's exactly correct. So a common misconception about game-inspired course design or gamification is that you're just playing games. And there is an element to that, that that would be game-based learning. So that would be playing Monopoly to better understand statistical chance, right? Yeah. And then kind of analyzing that.

[02:44]

Maybe a teacher might do that, a math teacher. That would be game based learning. Gamification, like you said, is can we find that element, that mechanic, and then apply it to our normal course setting, which I always try to sell to teachers and administration that We're not changing the course. We're laying a game layer over it, right? Which I think is kind of this nice thing about gamification that it's one of the only like movements in education I can think of that's not asking you to throw out everything you've done. In fact, I'm asking you like to take this and I think you're going to be able to squeeze a little more juice out of your students and out of your content and out of your course by applying this game layer.

[03:24]

Does that make sense?

[03:25] SPEAKER_02:

And I think we probably tend to think first of things like review Jeopardy rather than just review the content of the unit that we're wrapping up in kind of a straightforward and maybe boring way. We might try to turn that into a game. But yeah, take us in a little bit deeper to that idea of the mechanics and how we can apply them at a design level.

[03:49] SPEAKER_01:

To dive a little deeper into the mechanics, my book lays out all sorts of mechanics that games use. Some of the more simple or better known ones would be experience points. So a lot of video games, your character sort of starts with zero experience points. and when you think about how schools are set up that the traditional grading scale the you know 92 93 is an a minus kind of thing i mean the great joke in gamification circles is that school is a game it's just really poorly designed one and that uh we have levels and we have points right um it's just no one really cares about earning them or about really leveling up and so in a The gamer term, experience points, are the points you would accrue throughout the game. And that mechanic of accruing and starting at zero is kind of the opposite of our grading scale, right?

[04:46]

Because our grading scale typically is about averages. And that teacher beginning of the year does that assignment that's like, hey, write me what you did this summer. They all turn it in. They all get an A. And then it's kind of like you have this A. Now you just have to maintain it.

[05:00]

But like the psychology behind humans, we're not built to maintain. We're built to achieve. We're built to earn. So turning it on its head like saying you have zero experience points and throughout this year or throughout this unit if you wanted to do it for a small unit or a two-day lesson – your goal is to accumulate these experience points, to level up, to gain some powers, and then you're starting to get into other mechanics that you could build in, right? So as you gain more experience points, you start to level up. By leveling up, you're able to use greater items or power-ups within the game.

[05:33]

And those items and power-ups could be content-related. They could be class-related. I mean, really, it's kind of fun to really sit down and start to lay this all out and sort of map your own game.

[05:45] SPEAKER_02:

I love the reversal there of starting with the beginning of a learning journey. You know, you don't have a hundred, you don't have a million points, you have zero and you have to take action. You have to expend effort to acquire those experience points. And this will probably be lost in the formatting of our podcast visually, but on the cover of your book, I noticed that it's explore like a pirate and the X and the P and explore are in red and slightly larger letters. I assume to signify experience points. Is that right?

[06:14] SPEAKER_01:

You got it. So I think at first, you know, first blush when you read the book, you know, you're kind of like, cool, let's explore like a pirate. You might not understand why that is that way, but it's kind of an inside joke to everybody. Like once you've read it, you get it. You get that that's experience points and I want you to kind of level up and do well. And then our hashtag we use is XPLAP.

[06:35]

So really reinforcing again, we're talking about gamification and experience points and

[06:41] SPEAKER_02:

Well, let's let's talk about that for a little bit, because I remember the summer after my junior year in high school, I played video games for I mean, I would work all evening and night at a terrible summer job, like pretty much all teenagers do this summer. And then I would come home and, you know, it'd be midnight or something. And of course I can never go straight to sleep. So I would play video game. I had this one video game that I would play. And sometimes my brother would play it during the day and I get these experience points and you get more powerful items.

[07:11]

As you said, you get bigger weapons, you get, uh, these new capabilities that, that kind of up the ante for you as a player that, that provide that kind of, uh, reinforcement as you go along. And it really is the opposite of that, you know, don't die, don't die, you know, don't lose your 100, don't lose your A, because you're actually becoming more capable. And what just occurred to me as we were talking about this is that directly maps on to the idea of content knowledge that If you think especially about something that's very conceptually interlinked like mathematics, where the more concepts you know, the more you're capable of learning the next concepts. And it's not a matter of a chapter in a book. It's really about building a foundation for the next level of learning. And it seems like that maps on really closely to what's happening in students' minds as they learn.

[08:01] SPEAKER_01:

No, you... You hit the nail right on the head. That's one of my favorite parts too that I kind of constantly reinforce with my students that experience points, at least the way I've structured my game, I never take them away. It is not a management system for me.

[08:17]

I'm not handing out points and taking away points to penalize them. And it perfectly maps on with what we want kids to realize about education. Like once you get it, No one can take that away from you. And experience points, you earned those because you went on some quests. You did some great research. You did something.

[08:36]

You explored my content and came back with some knowledge. And I gave you some experience points for that. And I can never take that away. You locked that in. And I just think that that is a wonderful message to get to kids that, you know, Games are about taking risks, you know, learning, exploring, being creative, trying over and over again, kind of this growth mindset. So should be true of our classroom.

[08:59] SPEAKER_02:

You know, we're hearing more and more about micro-credentials and digital badges and things like that. And I think those are still in the early stages of gaining widespread understanding and recognition. But I'm seeing this even in industry. As I look at hiring people to help me behind the scenes here at the Principal Center, I'm seeing there are these certifications now. There are these micro-credentials that were just basically invented by the industry itself, whether that's with proficiency with editing, as with our podcast or videos, people are developing specific skills that enable them to do work at the next level. And those have a very real and tangible influence on their ability to you know, to move up to advance in, you know, in their professional work.

[09:47]

And we can certainly see the same thing as we already have been talking about in some of the content areas like mathematics or like, uh, perhaps organic chemistry where, you know, you really have to master one level of content to move on to the next. But I wonder if we could talk a little bit about how this can be applied in a classroom setting where maybe students need a little bit more scaffolding to that quest so that it's not, you know, not maybe directly allowing them to learn one skill that allows them to learn another skill and so on. But we're actually creating more of a learning experience for students that does feel like an exploration, like they're going on a journey, even if there's not an immediate skill payoff. What does that look like in some of the lessons that you've developed for your students or that you've seen with people that you've worked with?

[10:32] SPEAKER_01:

I teach sixth grade world history. So I would argue most of what I teach would fall into the category you're saying. There isn't this direct skill that they now have a week later that they didn't have last week. It's a perfect fit. It's a natural fit because it's all about exploration, right? So teaching world history, some of the ways that I've structured the units using game mechanics are allowing that exploration to happen, right?

[10:59]

We've all heard about wanting students to have more voice and choice skills. But I always struggle with like what does that mean? Like give me a tangible way that it's voice and choice. Like besides saying you can do project A or project B. And when I started to do more and more things with gamification, that answer became more and more apparent because games constantly give its players real choices, meaningful choices, actionable choices that affect the storyline or affect their character. Yeah.

[11:29]

And when I started to tease those out and I put a lot in the book, it really helped me see how better to differentiate. One example of how I've done that in a class like mine, I do a review where it's just a simple sort of reading check, but instead of having it be a standard quiz or something like that or like a written paragraph, what I did was I did a Lego build challenge. So each group, which I call guilds, has their little bag of Legos. And I give them 30 minutes for this Lego challenge. And what they have to do is they have to design three scenes from whatever I assign them, either last night's reading or maybe it's an end of the chapter sort of summary and I could be like, pick what you think were three important scenes from the entire unit. And they have to design those scenes together with the Legos, take photos of them,

[12:20]

And then put them all into an iMovie or an app like that. And then do a voiceover and send me the file in 30 minutes. And this has lots of game mechanics going on. You have team collaboration. You have...

[12:35]

time challenge and you have in in this case built-in failure so what I mean by that is the first time students do this every group fails like it is designed to fail it sounds like a lot to do in 30 minutes yeah yeah like it's designed that they're not going to be able to do it because you give sixth graders a bag of Legos they're going to spend 29 minutes playing with the Legos

[12:56] SPEAKER_02:

And it sounds like making a movie itself could take two hours. But if I'm understanding where this is headed with that idea of built-in failure, it's like you don't beat the video game the first time you play it.

[13:06] SPEAKER_01:

Sometimes I think we, as teachers, and I don't want to put anybody down, like we're trained to remove problems, right? We're trained to try to like make the path for the students as easy as possible so that they're successful. But again, if you start to research, you know, brain-based research and we start to talk about like motivations behind people, if you read Daniel Pink, like you start to realize like, Making things easy is not really how people learn, though.

[13:29] SPEAKER_02:

Right. That gets boring real fast. And if you look at the engagement statistics about students, students are surveyed at different ages. And as they progress, as they get into middle school and high school, their engagement goes down and down and down and down. And Yeah, I think you're on to something there that failure or at least not succeeding the first time and actually having to try plays a big role in at least not being bored. I don't know.

[13:54]

I think there's more to it, but maybe you can tell us what that is.

[13:57] SPEAKER_01:

In game psychology, the magic number they've sort of locked in on for failure rate to keep engagement but yet keep you all so excited to move along and proud of what you've achieved. is 80% failure rate. So at any given level, like whatever you're doing in the game, you're failing 80% of the time is what they see as the magic engagement number. And then compare that to school, right? Like we're nowhere near that, right?

[14:22] SPEAKER_02:

Right. And we designed school, it seems to me, for the most part, so that maybe 80% of our students will succeed the first time. And then we have some students who will need extra help, some students who will need special education services, and some students who will you know, will never, ever experience failure. And I think many of us who ended up as educators never, ever experienced failure in K-12. I mean, I can't recall a single instance when I was put in a situation where, you know, the teacher designed it in such a way that I would fail. I mean, there might have been a situation where I forgot to do my homework or, you know, couldn't solve one of the problems.

[14:58]

But in terms of an engineered failure experience where I really had to apply myself, I definitely did not experience that until... you know, well into college. And I think that's probably, you know, pretty common for those of us who become educators.

[15:12] SPEAKER_01:

I agree. And then these students, what we end up having happen is we have this just rich discussion of ways we could have strategized that. Like if we're put in that situation again, how could we maximize time? How could we effectively work as a group? And the discussion is just phenomenal that you get out of these 11 and 12 year olds, believe it or not. And then the, Later in the year, another unit rolls by and I'll do one of these again.

[15:39]

And I have four groups in my class. And probably the next time, three of the four are successful, maybe two of the four. But then by the third time we do it, we really have everyone cooking. And what I've done again is – shown kids truly effective ways to work in in groups too right so like you've not only have i hit content but i've also hit soft skills and it being somewhat a simulation if you will i think that students leave my classroom with that like burned in their memory right this wasn't like a lecture about how you should work together this wasn't an advising activity this was like boom you did it and you saw the results when you did it one way and you saw the results when you did another

[16:22] SPEAKER_02:

Well, there's a sense of mission there that it's not just, like you said, a lecture about how to get along with your group members and pull your weight. You're giving them the solution to a problem that they have already experienced through that initial failure.

[16:34] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And actually, more to the point, they're giving themselves the solution, right, as we just sort of – As we just sort of debrief, it's them coming up with, well, we probably could have got together at the first three minutes and decided the three scenes and then broke us up or various things. We could have somebody already writing the research for our voiceover right from the get-go if we did it that way. Those kind of things.

[16:57] SPEAKER_02:

Well, tell me about this idea of characters a little bit more, because I'm intrigued by that. And as I think back to playing video games as a kid, it always was very clear to me that it was the character who was dying, and then I would try again. I wouldn't die. It was the character in the game who would die. So I'm interested in applying that idea to learning, that idea of having a character that you're developing. How does that work in your class?

[17:21] SPEAKER_01:

For my class, the students start the year off, they're in this... realm of nobles is the what i call my game and the idea is that the king has died and they're they're vying as a whole group as a class period that they're hoping their house that's their class period ends up sort of controlling the realm at the end and what i love about that structure is another fear people have is the like increase in competition i'm not going to say that i have zero competition in my class i definitely do i don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing but the sort of exciting thing I can also say in true, you know, honesty is that my students experience far more team centered things than I did pre gamification. Like they actually care about their classroom. They care about who's in it.

[18:09]

They care about getting everyone up to a certain level. You know, there, there is this true sense of team.

[18:14] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and that's what feels gross to us about competition. I think in a normal structure, if I'm competing with you and I win, then, you know, you're not necessarily better off for having a you know, for having been in that competition. But the collective responsibility seems like it makes a big difference.

[18:28] SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I mean, I love it, right? Like we, you talk to coaches and they so almost eloquently put the bonds on those fields, right? Like that their team experiences they'll have for a lifetime. Yet our students spend more hours, like tons more hours in our classroom. Yet we don't have those same bonds being formed. Like I think we're missing out on something, right?

[18:49]

And we have that ability. We have the time. And I guess on that point about time, I swear you do this and you gain time. Like your students will be on fire. They're going to do – it almost defies all logic. They're going to do things that aren't for credit.

[19:08]

Like I have kids working on side quests all the time. And for me, side quests by definition are extra. They're not for grades. They're for these game points. But what are all side quests? They're all enrichment opportunities for my students.

[19:22] SPEAKER_02:

it's both reassuring and surprising to hear you say that about gaining time because, you know, my first reaction when you were talking about having students spend 30 minutes to build, you know, a series of three Lego scenes and make a video about it, you know, that sounds like it kills a ton of class time, right? You know, where I could have had you write a sentence and turn it in on a sheet of paper or through Google classroom and we could be done with it. But you're saying the, the time is made up in energy in, in the motivation and the effort that students bring to it.

[19:50] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like it is one of those things. It's a long game, right? You have to realize that like by the end of my 180 days or whatever our school goes, the amount of independent research work that they will have done, the amount of collaborative experiences that they will have. I guarantee you like you have a stronger student coming out of my class with gamification than you would without gamification.

[20:14] SPEAKER_02:

So, Michael, I'm thinking about how we can get started with this type of redesign in our courses. And I'm also mindful of the fact that when something is challenging, we should expect failure. But at the same time, we've got real students in front of us. We've got real kids who are there to learn. And we don't want our lessons themselves to fail, even if we're trying to construct experiences where students have to bring their ingenuity in order to succeed. What are some ways that we can set ourselves up for success as we get started with gamification?

[20:42] SPEAKER_01:

The thing that in my book and if I go present that I always try to make sure people realize is you're going to start small. Like I didn't weave all this tapestry together before. It's not like your typical lesson plan where you figure it all out. You planned it. You mapped it. You have it all.

[20:58]

You have your learning targets and you go. this is going to be something that you probably develop as you go, right? You're going to start by reading the book and saying, I'm going to choose these two mechanics and layer those in the experience. And as you see what happens, you may be fine and just leave those two mechanics in place. And that's all you ever do. Or you may say, hey, this is really awesome.

[21:21]

Let's dive back in that book and find another mechanic to add, you know, or in the back, I have plenty of one day activities like review activities. I have assessment activities. So if all you wanted to do was just change how you do some of your tests, that's in there. So really, I think there's something at all levels. If you want to gamify your entire course from day one to the last day, this is a great resource for you. If you just want some strategies that might both engage students and potentially increase the outcome of what the student does for you,

[21:53] SPEAKER_02:

So, Michael, I wonder if you could help us understand how you've organized this learning experience for educators who read the book. What do they encounter as they go through Explore Like a Pirate? How have you set that up for us in the book?

[22:04] SPEAKER_01:

So I tried to have it really be laid out that there's something for everyone. So the beginning is it's broken up into three parts. And part one is plotting the course. And this is all about getting you started with gamification. This is all about dispelling some of the myths of gamification, what's out there. And kind of taking a look at the old world of education and what I hope to move you through in this book to the new world of education.

[22:30]

Then we move into part two, and it's where we talk about the new language of learning. And I break down purpose-driven learning, which is a passion of mine. This is like powerful language you can use with your students to sort of not talk about grades, but talk about action-oriented words. We talk about getting to know your crew in like...

[22:50]

What type of student they are and what type of gamer they are and how that might have influenced the game you create. And then the last part is set in sale and this is just chocked full of usable takeaways, right? When I set out to write this book, I promised myself I wanted usable takeaways, not the kind of book that sells you on a theory and then says now go make it yourself. There's plenty of things in here from game mechanics to items you could use to even a full-on workshop where at the end of each of these chapters in the setting sale part, have a workshop that will walk you through different questions that will get you thinking about how to structure your game and how to make your game.

[23:29] SPEAKER_02:

So the book is Explore Like a Pirate by Michael Matera, gamification and game-inspired course designed to engage, enrich, and elevate your learners. Michael, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. If people want to find out more about your work, where can they find you online?

[23:44] SPEAKER_01:

My Twitter handle is at MrMatera, and the website is explorelikeapirate.com, and the hashtag is XPLAP.

[23:55] SPEAKER_00:

And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[23:59] SPEAKER_02:

So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Michael Matera about gamification and getting students to explore in our courses? First, I have to say, I think this is something that we're only scratching the surface on at the moment, and it's something that's going to be hugely in the coming years, especially as the idea of micro-credentials takes hold. And we're starting to see this even in professional development. I was speaking earlier today with a major company that I'm sure you've heard of that is working micro-credentials into their professional learning platform, into the aspects of professional development that we're dealing with every day in terms of teacher evaluation, in terms of goal setting. So I think these concepts are here to stay. And what I wanna encourage you to do is, first of all, check this out for yourself, check out Michael's book, Explore Like a Pirate, but also encourage your staff who may be the early adopters, the explorers in your school to get going with this, to take some risks, to be willing to try things out, be willing to fail a few times, and who are willing to find out what works for designing curriculum, for designing learning experiences for students that are motivating, that are engaging, and that help them develop new skills and develop a stronger interest

[25:13]

in their learning. So again, the book is Explore Like a Pirate. You can find this and other interviews on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio, as well as in our mobile app at principalcenter.com slash app. And if you're interested in learning more through our webinar series, through our courses, through all of the different resources that we offer to our members, you can find out more about becoming a member at principalcenter.com slash leadership.

[25:40] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.