Inquiry Reflections

Competition and Social Relationships

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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

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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.

 

IMG_0153

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

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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

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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.

https://plickers.com/

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.

https://www.raz-kids.com/

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.

A Glimpse Into Competition

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Through observation of my students in the past and present, I find it interesting how students approach different subject areas with differing levels of enjoyment, interest, and enthusiasm. This is to be expected as students, or most people for that matter, gravitate towards their interests. However, in the classroom they are exposed to a wide variety of subjects, topics, and themes, and not all of them may be to a particular student’s taste. Therefore they are exposed to the educational smorgasbord and are expected to take their favourites together with their less preferred subjects. As an educator it is our task, a seemingly daunting one, to make these less desirable topics (whatever they may be) palatable to your entire class, to those who adore the subject and to those who detest it. Therefore, it is a neat experience to see when you get to engage with students in extra curricular activities. This is (or should be) something they enjoy and that enthusiasm is contagious.

I had the privilege to take part in a basketball practice this week and it was wonderful to see a group of kids, who not always are so cohesive in their favourite subject, connect with the sport and as a team. Team building is an obviously a key component of this and when they are literally grouped as a team, they develop a connection that carries them beyond the court and into their personal lives. As the practice was in the morning and I got to see the students that were in my own class interact with each other for the rest of the day. Something I noticed was how the students who were on the basketball team together, and had practiced in the morning, worked well as a team in group activities, communicated effectively, and demonstrated a cohesive attitude. The team had game after school in the gym towards the end of the day something interesting happened. Not only were the students who were on the basketball team demonstrating teamwork, but as the day winded down, the entire class began to come together and were cheering on, giving praise and support to the team, and there was a contagious positive attitude throughout the class.

So what was the catalyst for such a dramatic outpouring of teamwork? Group cohesion and competition. The team was going to compete against another school and together, my students, were a team that represented the whole. If it was simply another practice or intra-school game, I don’t think that level of teamwork through the entire class wouldn’t have been present. A competition, against others, can work towards creating teamwork and a positive presence, and if it wasn’t for that prospect of competition, I doubt this would’ve occurred.

Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity? – A Reflection

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Pre Reading

When I first look at the title “Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity”, my initial reaction is that it sure was a bold statement. With the, what I will call interesting, word choice of “kill” in the title, the author, Ronald A. Beghetto, seemingly pits the noble and chaste notion of creativity against the evil and soul-crushing concept of assessment. However, this is simply a personal opinion and initial reaction from the article’s title. But what do I think? Personally I agree. I do think building in assessment into every aspect of school would kill a student’s creativity. Yet I am not quite ready to storm the fortress of the educational establishment, demanding that assessment be thrown from the highest tower and banished for all eternity. I still have questions about whether there indeed a place for assessment. A place that does not necessarily destroy a student’s creativity and could in fact, be a motivating factor for creativity. However, this is something I do not know so I approach the article with an open mind.

 

During Reading

The following is a list of quote or thoughts I had when reading Ronald A. Beghetto’s 2005 article Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity?.

  • On he opening paragraph Beghetto refers to the marginalization of student creativity by putting an emphasis on assessment for teacher’s instructional time. He credits such a priority to the No Child Left behind Act in the United States in 2001. However, with this being an American example, is there a connection to such a policy in Canada, and an increased focus on assessment?
  • “Which assessment practices diminish creativity?” pg.255
  • “Creativity is the interaction among aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined within a social context.” pg.255
  • The importance of context when looking at creativity
    • Social influences
    • Creativity is dependent on what is novel AND useful for each given student
  • Assessment activities that diminish creativity: best work” displays, performance goals that focus on avoiding mistakes.
  • Could a great emphasis on mastery goal structures lead to a new system of assessment that wouldn’t diminish creativity?
  • Protecting creativity depends on moving away from social comparisons, take away pressure, and take away the importance of such assessment (aka a move towards formative)

 

Post Reading

After finishing this article, some of my previous considerations were confirmed, but I am left thinking of my inquiry proposal and the connection assessment has to competition. When we are competing, is it essentially a system of assessing our skills? Additionally, if we took away all pressure to perform, would the quality of creative work be the same? Does creativity wilt under pressure and does creativity exist on a separate plane of existence from the rest of the educational universe, void of assumptions, pressure, and expectations?

 

With these ideas in minds, and with the recommendations Beghetto has for fostering creativity in our classrooms, I have begun to see parallels between this mindset and current policy. The move towards formative assessment (practical and informational) is already in place in many schools and one that I do think allows for more personal growth by our students. If it can be successfully directed towards build skills such a creativity, then I do hope that our students who are graduating are better suited to face and solve the future’s problems.

 

References

Beghetto, R. (2005). Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity?. The Educational Forum, 69(3), 254-263.