Recently I have started exploring a new resource called paper.li. It allows to publish a weekly newspaper with resources from the previous week on the topics of my choosing. It is amazing to see a such a great collection of article, lesson ideas, tips, and other information that will benefit my current and future classroom all together in one place. Make your own at paper.li and check out Mr. Hiebert’s Education Weekly at http://paper.li/e-1455153821.
All posts by graham hiebert
Competition and Social Relationships
When we think about the role competition plays in social relationships, it is often remarked how competition creates divides and alienates students who don’t fit into the system. Now we have discussed this previously, so that isn’t the point of this reflection, but what is, is that competition also acts in the inverse of this alienation. It can bond, solidify, and bring people together. The connections that competition creates are incredible and are links that can last for decades. That is the power of teamwork. It works to teach people the skills they will need to engage in competition, cooperation, and collaboration. Three essential skills, all different, but all important nonetheless.
If we looks at the nature of our world, the reality is that we live in a society that is overtly competitive. To study to be the best, and to work towards that is an essential skill. I truly believe that this passion can push students to achieve their best and is the reality they will be facing when they enter the real world. Getting a job, being selected for a promotion, or even getting into an university program such as UBC’s Teacher Education program, you will be competing for those spots, so providing some scenarios where students need to reach high is essential.
Additionally, while competition may seem contradictory to cooperation, it’s is actually intrinsically linked. Cooperation is one aspect of teamwork and competition breeds teamwork. As stated above, it, brings people together to complete a task. This can involve competitive spirit, in that it brings people together against another team, and that this “versus” atmosphere pushes people to do their best for their team. Additionally, it can work towards a differentiation of instruction to best complete the task. This specialization draws on the strength of the individuals while still working together. This advanced organizational structure is one that is fostered by competitive spirit and a skill that students can rely on after the exit school. Finally, collaboration is a concept that is seemingly placed on another level aside from both competition and cooperation. It is stated that cooperation, while working together, still is motivated by extrinsic forces. It is still self-serving, similar to competition. Collaboration is said to remove those barriers and work together in an intrinsically motivated, selfless system of free information and skills exchange. This is an ideal scenario and one that is very attractive. I will say that for many activities this system is the goal. But I will conclude here with a question, or a few, for collaboration (yes I am asking a question to a metaphysical concept): Can you not achieve collaboration within a team, while still existing in a competitive environment? Are the two mutually exclusive and by introducing competition, do we remove all chance of collaboration within a team? Is it destined to be self-serving? I don’t have the answer to this and I will leave my musings on this for another post but I will conclude with these two points/questions:
- Is there ever a situation where collaboration, true collaboration, takes place or is it just an unachievable dream?
- In a situation where a sports team that “clicks” down to the point where they instinctively understand each other and can work together, sometimes no verbally and simply reacting on feeling alone, is that not collaboration in a competitive environment?
Ideas inspired by:
Snow, C. C. (2015). Organizing in the age of competition, cooperation, and collaboration. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 22(4), 433. http://jlo.sagepub.com/content/22/4/433.full.pdf
Competition, Cooperation, and Collaboration: A Lesson Debrief
In reflection of my mini-lesson given on the topic of competition cooperation, and collaboration, it was extremely interesting to see how people related to the different terms I presented. It is striking to see that, yes indeed a significant amount of people have extraordinarily negative emotions connected to competition and some pretty idealistic association when it comes to cooperation and collaboration. This can be seen below.
In a debrief of the actual lesson, overall I thought it went extremely well. A lot of new ideas brought up, some of my assumptions confirmed, and a few debunked. Here are a few highlights for my to take forward into more exploration of my inquiry topic.
The fact one group gave up when the other group finished first. The helplessness when they lost was evident and I can see how people could feel this way when they lose. This was unplanned as they were supposed to finish the task but gave up, and provided insight into this phenomena.
- In discussion after the lesson with some colleagues, we talked about the prerequisites that competition requires to be successful. Sports really shows this in that there exists a non written “ethical code of sportsmanship” within each sports and it is really evident when players don’t abide by it. In cases like this, the player didn’t receive (or comprehend) this code in their education of the sport or competition in general.
- Additionally, few of my assumptions were confirmed. The Word Wall on Padlet showed that when people think about competition, their thirst are primarily negative. Words like hopelessness, disheartening, bullying, sabotage all were present and showed that people have had very negative experiences with competition in the past, an issue I think has to do with framing how competition should exists.
- Finally, it took longer to complete the task in a collaborative- competitive environment than in a teamwork-cooperation environment. This confirmed my suspicion that collaboration, while beneficial to an open sharing, trusting exchange of ideas, it is less effective for task completion. I think there are times when collaboration is appropriate and others where cooperation works better to complete the task.
Moving forward, I am excited to explore a few more of these ideas, particularly in relation to the link between competition and collaboration. It should prove interesting to see if we can find a way to connect these two seemingly exclusive concepts.
The Gamification of Education
The Gamification of Education. (2011). Futurist, 45(1), 16-17.
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=739f7619-4924-4509-b26f-286b75ef986b%40sessionmgr111&vid=15&hid=102
When we look at the future of education, we find ourselves constantly drawn back to the idea of integrating technology into the way our students engage with the material. Now this can involve many different types of technology, but in terms of engagement and motivation, game based programs are very significant. Now this isn’t new. Educational game based technology have been around since the dawn of personal computers and when I reflect of my education, I used programs such as Math Blasters or The Oregon Trail from as early as grade 2~3. Something this articles points out is that there are three integral components of using technology to engage our students; curiosity, imagination, and a sense of play. When we look at examples of technology that is used to motivate our students, we can see these three qualities in educational gamification. In my personal experience, eVan in these “ancient” educational games like The Oregon Trail (even though personally I wasn’t studying US History), I was curious. Students wonder what would happen next…well you’re going to learn about United States western homesteading. This is true in modern educational teacher-directed technological resources like KaHoot or Plickers, whigh both foster this curiosity. Additionally, these resources allow for expansion of imagination and encourage critical thinking. Connected to this is the sense of play gamification exhibits and through this, it makes the trial and error system that is associated with these games actually fun. When the students fail in the games, they’re more likely to try again because it is fun, something that may not exist in other aspects of their classrooms. Through this, it also removes the social pressures of collaboration because the students are exploring, collaborating, and exchanging ideas together.
Now how does this relate to competition in the classroom. Well if gamification and these resources encourage teamwork, and teamwork is directly associated with positive competitive spirit, then the gamification of education is linked, intrinsically, to the idea of competition.
Competition and Technology: A Perfect Pair
It has been interesting in my observations of my current classroom, of the role that technology plays in promoting the competitive spirit in my students. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as the technology used is essentially an extension of gameification, but simply extended to a different platform. Technology provides teachers an opportunity to bring their methods to align with the interests and learning styles of many modern learners. It also diversifies competition, as there exists a plethora of resources available to facilitate a broad range of competitive activities. Individual or self competition, peer vs. peer activities, or even activities that face the user against the “system” all exist in multitude through various forms of technology. Let’s explore a few forms of competitions facilitated or advanced by using technology.
Plickers
Plickers is a QR code based scanner app than give educators to give each student an inexpensive way of polling your classroom. Through this, teachers can use the cards to conduct multiple-choice style games with their students. This style of participation still allows for competition to exist in either a peer vs. peer activity or working to better personal bests.
Kahoot
Kaboot is another app that allows for in-class gameification using individual or team participation on a large class scale. With Kahoot, you can create quizzes that your student as can take using the app, with fastest correct answers getting the highest points. This direct peer vs. peer competition is both exciting and provides the kind of motivation that gameification can provide.
Student: https://kahoot.it/#/ Teacher: https://getkahoot.com/how-it-works
RAZ Kids
RAZ Kids is another web-based program where students can read, listen to, and take quizzes on books to work towards improving their English literacy. Additionally, through this reading, listening, and quiz taking, they gain stars or points that they can spend on updating or improving their personalized avatar for their account. By pricing this incentive of reward, the students are competing against the system of the program itself to get high scores on the quizzes to gain more stars. This type of program can also be modified, as I have done in the past, to reflect a style of “reading race” with classes, grades or student competing against each other to read that most books. Using a program like RAZ Kids allows students to participate at school, at home, or wherever they may be as the whole programs library of books is available online.
These example show how technology is a powerful tool to use to assist educators in promoting positive competitive spirit in their classrooms p, as well as making these competitions relative and accessible to today’s learners.
Competition In Human Groups—Impact On Group Cohesion, Perceived Stress and Outcome Satisfaction
Boos, M., Franiel, X., & Belz, M. (2015). Competition in human groups—Impact on group cohesion, perceived stress and outcome satisfaction. Behavioural Processes, 120, 64-68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2015.07.011
When investigating my topic of competition, it is vital to take a look at the counter arguments to my position. Competition is, and rightfully so, am extremely controversial concept. This article discusses how competition influences groups of humans, both in their cohesion and individual mindsets. In research of a group’s personal outcome satisfaction, stress, calmness, and interdependence, and their ability to “flock together”, the study concluded that while competition provides some short terms gains in areas like time necessary to complete a task or motivation, it can have severe long term effects on a broad range of issues. First, in competitive environments, group cohesion decreases as people work more towards self benefit or individual reward situations. Additionally, and probably most striking, is the role competition plays in increased stress in the short terms and even the development of depression in the long term. The very thing that competition strives to do, increase motivation, in fact reduces the participants willingness to participate.
This is often referred to when discussing the downsides of competitiveness and they are not wrong. Competition can, and I will repeat that, can have negative effects on those involved. However, are these possible negative emotions a certainty? No. It is all about how, when, and with whom competition is implemented. So with this in mind, I will return to my original inquiry question: How can implement POSITIVE competition in our classrooms?
Structure, Routine, and Literature
Reflecting on experiences I have had in my educational career, some of the most powerful are connected to literature and the impact these stories have on our lives is noticeable years after the book has been put back on the shelf. I know first hand the influence a book can have, therefore being able to bring in some meaningful literature into my classroom is a goal of mine.
In planning for my practicum, this is a focal point and I have begun to slowly introduce the idea of the significance literature can have to my students. Specifically, this week I engaged my students in a short story and introduced the idea of literature circles, which I will be continuing each week until my long practicum begins. The concept of laying the foundation for the tasks and scaffolding the roles for my students allows them to have the skills and routines in place before they engage in stories individually. Therefore (hopefully) when the students pick the novels they will delve into, they will not have to think about routines and get to get lost in the words on the page. So I suppose the point I am trying to make here is about the significance of routine for information retainment.
As with anything you introduce into your classroom, the students need to be in a place to be able to soak in the concepts, skills, or idea. However, if they’re not in the right mindset, anything you present to them, even if it is presented in the most articulate way possible, will be diminished. The students need to be in the correct mindset and a reliable structure or practiced routine aids the students in getting to that open mindset in your classroom. If they’re comfortable and know what the expectations or procedure is, then they can focus on the content and not the routine. Therefore, I am introducing those structure and routine now so when we apply the context of the novels we will be studying in a few months, then the students can work towards taking in the meaning of the words, the themes of the book, and the enjoyment one can feel in connection to a truly wonderful literary experience.
How Competition and Heterogeneous Collaboration Interact in Prevocational game-based mathematics education
ter Vrugte, J., de Jong, T., Vandercruysse, S., Wouters, P., van Oostendorp, H., & Elen, J. (2015). How competition and heterogeneous collaboration interact in prevocational game-based mathematics education. Computers & Education, 89, 42-52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.08.010
One of the most striking examples of competition in the classroom is when gameification is introduced into lessons. Gameification is prevalent throughout education as it is a powerful motivator, however, how it is integrated is dependent on whether the teacher favours collaboration or competition, but the two are not mutually exclusive. When we visualize or conceptualize the subject matter (in the context of this article; mathematics) through gameification, we see an increase in performance. However, the competition vs. collaboration debate remains. The balance between the excitement, engagement, and challenge that we achieve through competition (either against a system, oneself, or others) and the elongation of frustration through a support network and teamwork that we get with collaboration, can be achieved through a few systems.
Student-Team-Acheivemnt-Division or STAD design is as follows: “Students complete an individual assessment, students receive instructional content, teams work together on a collaborative task and try to maximize each individuals knowledge during this task, students complete an individual assessment. Individual scores (progress in performance on individual assessment) and team score (performance on collaborative task) will be summed up to a total team score. Team scores are compared.”
The Teams-Games-Tournament model or TGT design is comprised of “Teams receive instructional content, work together to maximize each individuals knowledge, and play individually during an instructional tournament. Individual scores will be summed up to a total team score. Team scores are compared.”
Both models have shown the through group competition, there exists an interaction between the high achieving and lower achieving students in the groups. However, it is possible and has been recorded that the above average students can dominate the discourse within groups. Therefore, with both models, it is vital to keep this in mind when introducing competition in the classroom.
Predicting Satisfaction in Physical Education From Motivational Climate and Self-determined Motivation
Baena-Extremera, A., Gómez-López, M., Granero-Gallegos, A., & Ortiz-Camacho, M. (2015). Predicting Satisfaction in Physical Education From Motivational Climate and Self-determined Motivation. JTPE, 34(2), 210-224.http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/jtpe.2013-0165
When discussing student motivation, in connection to competition, something that I find interesting is how students, or everyone for that matter, has a subjective perspective on their own success. Many factors are in play: personal ones, and social or contextual factors, which play a role in comparing ourselves to others. When attempting to foster a sense of teamwork in a class or any group, one must remember that self-determination is a spectrum and a shifting one at that. Where we place ourselves on the spectrum of self determination is reliant on how each new task is presented to us. If we approach it from a task oriented position of trying to solve a problem or complete a task, the self determination is quite high. However, if the task is reliant on ego and through the task, we are trying to better ourselves at the expense of others, the we see a dramatic decrease in self determination and motivation. As educators, we are charged with creating an motivational climate that promotes the positive and promotes a task oriented approach. Now what is curious here is how competition is related to this intrinsic motivational climate. I do think it still can be present inside a positive task oriented atmosphere but still give student that push to complete the task bets or first. This can be intrinsic and inherently positive while still maintaining that competitive drive. However, when ego is involved that is when competition fails and something we as educators need to keep in mind.
How to Achieve Team Cohesion through Competition in Sport: An Organizational Model
Smith, J. (2015). How to Achieve Team Cohesion through Competition in Sport: An Organizational Model. The Sport Journal. http://dx.doi.org/10.17682/sportjournal/2015.023
A point that stands out when looking into the concept of team sports and how a group of athletes bond together as a team, is the role that instruction plays. When the students, or in this case athletes, are provided with specialized instruction for their particular position it improves tea, performance and overall group cohesion. The article discusses this in a football context with task originated positions and competitive scrimmages, however I think that the overall framework can be taken and applied outside of sports. When we are coordinated as a group it spurs on the competitive spirit and works to discourage “social loafing”. This is evident in our classroom and when students don’t feel cohesive as a group, they’re more likely to “piggyback” off their peers. However with a one-tier-down coaching of educational approach, the students are given specialized instruction, personalized positive interactions, and guidance towards coordination as a group. While one-on-one education isn’t quite what we are discussing here, but what is shown is the role that personalized learning plays in relation to teamwork and building a positive competitive spirit.