Motivation is a key part of keeping students consistent with their work. Yet, designing for children needs to be done with thought and great.
While designing a system to keep your students engaged in their studies, we kept three principles in mind:
1. Reward both Effort AND Outcome
2. Create a positive environment for students
3. Encourage the free flow of information between stakeholders
1. Reward both Effort and Outcome
Most students are rewarded on outcomes. Yet, it takes a lot of effort for students to study and labour in private to deliver great outcomes. We wanted to recognize the efforts that students made to progress in their studies.
So, we implemented an Experience Points system that rewards students every time they review their notes or answer a question.
We also recognize that students should be recognized for making progress on their studies. So, we implemented a Proficiency System that tracks how students are performing and assigns them a Skill Rating that indicates how much they have progressed on a particular chapter.
We believe that the XP and Proficiency System will keep interested in working on their academics through the school year.
2. Create a Positive Environment for Students
Our vision is for students to work together with integrity and advance in their studies as a group. We utilized the House System to create an academic community where students could channel their competitive nature through the House System. By including student's houses in their profiles, we gave Houses to compete against one another for collective XP. That way students had yet another opportunity to work together!
3. Encourage the free flow of information between stakeholders
In the education sector, it is vital that there is 100% transparency between students, teachers and parents. To this effect, all student efforts and proficiencies are visible to parents and teachers. Also, we share weekly update emails with parents so they stay up to date with their ward's progress. This closes the communication loop, and keeps students motivated to finish assignments and practice often.
If this sounds like something you'd like to see in your school, we're selecting 10 schools as Design Partners, and will design to match our needs. If you would like to partner with us for the same, respond to this email with the word 'design'.
We're looking forward to hearing from you soon.
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