Gamification Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback

My elementary-age daughter loves the arts. Drawing, dancing, creating clay objects, and designing rooms in Canva. She loves doing it all, and I hope that spirit never goes away. Children have such creative minds, but when they get to me in high school, it feels like so much of their creativity has been “taught” out of them.

Creativity is such a powerful thing, and it can really solidify learning in all of us. but it seems like in the hustle and bustle of assessments, standards, and state testing, we push creativity aside. Fortunately, there are techniques we can use to add that into class. This is Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback.

Unleash the Beast

This Core Drive is a big part of where the “play” of gamification comes from. These are techniques that allow students a lot of freedom in what they do in class. The beauty of opening up students’ creativity is that it can enable a wide variety of usage for the same kind of activity. As Chou asserts, “When a use can continuously tap into their creativity and derive an almost limitless number of possibilities, the game designer no longer needs to constantly create new content to make things engaging.”¹ This is why games like chess have such longevity, because they are seemingly endless combinations of play.

While this Core Drive resides in the “golden quarter” of the Octalysis structure because of its high level of intrinsic motivation, it can be the toughest to implement correctly. A key way to design Creativity & Feedback into class activities is to design multiple ways for students to achieve the learning. When you do find those, you can really unleash the creative beast.

When you design a great gamified system, you want to make sure there isn’t one standard way to win. Instead, provide users with enough meaningful choices that they can utilize drastically ways to better express their creativity, while still achieving the Win-State [learning objective].”¹

Yukai Chou

Game Design Techniques

When designing elements of Core Drive 3, think of how you can open up options for your students to express their creativity, not just in their product but in their thinking.

Technique	Description	Technique	Description
Blank Fills	A technique where users fill in blanks within sentences or stories, promoting active engagement and recall. It leverages the completion drive, motivating users to finish the task.	Sudden Tips	A sudden pointer helps users achieve more progress.
Step-by-Step Overlay Tutorial	Overlays on top of the screen that walk you through the process of the game.	Real-time Control	Allowing users to make decisions and see the outcomes immediately. This technique enhances engagement by giving users a sense of agency and immediate feedback.
Narrative	Adding narrative to the context	Anchored Juxtaposition	Place two options side by side: one that costs money, the other requiring a great amount of effort in accomplishing the Desired Action. The most effective rewards are often Boosters that allow users to play more effectively.
Plant Picker/Meaningful Choices	Offering choices that are truly meaningful and demonstrates preferences that are not obviously superior over others. One of the most exciting and interesting ways to add meaningful choice is to allow players to choose between playing it safe and receiving a small reward, or take a big risk and go for a big reward	Oracle Effect	A prediction about the future causes the user to become fully engaged to see whether the “prophecy” will become true or not.
Dynamic Feedback	Real-time responses to user actions, providing immediate guidance, encouragement, or correction. This helps users adjust their behavior quickly and stay motivated.	Visual Storytelling	Using visuals to tell a story, making information more engaging and easier to understand. This technique leverages the power of imagery to capture attention and convey messages effectively.
Glowing Choice	The game highlights a possible solution that is often not the optimal way of moving forward.	Poison Picker/Choice Perception	Offering multiple choices that aren’t particularly appealing. The choice itself is not necessarily meaningful, but the person feels empowered to choose between different paths and options. Typically used to try and get a user to move in a certain direction.
Boosters	User obtains something to help them achieve a win-state effectively	Creative Counters	Unique and engaging ways of tracking progress or achievements, beyond simple numeric counters, to add interest and motivation.
Evolved UI	At the beginning, only provide a few options, buttons, and icons. As users reach more Win-States, you unlock more options, skills, and capabilities.	Grown Up Lock	Something that you own but can’t use until you reach a certain level
Chain Combos	Rewarding users for performing a series of actions in a specific sequence. This technique encourages strategic thinking and skillful execution.

What can look like in the classroom?

Creativity & Feedback can be tough to implement, but when you can find those designs, you’ve got some evergreen tools that you can pull out all throughout the year. Here are a some ideas I’ve got for class.

• Blank Fills are pretty easy to implement with fill-in-the-blank activities or guided notes. Tony Vincent also has a fun way of doing this with his Blackout activity.
• You can use Step-by-Step Overlay Tutorials by creating visual walkthroughs of a new process for students.
• The Plant Picker/Meaningful Choice techniques can be used with a lot of assignments. Give students options for how they show their learning or let them choose the topic when applicable. It’s opposite, Poison Picker/Choice Perception, can be used for less desirable activities. For assessments, give them two or three options: multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, or written response. Even if you’re pushing them toward one of the options, the key is the sense of empowerment of choice.
• I try to implement Dynamic Feedback every day in class by utilizing a more student-centered approach. I try to focus most of class time with students actively working while I move around the room and discuss their work with them. This allows immediate, real-time feedback for students while they work rather than waiting until after they’ve turned something in to give feedback.
• I use Narrative and Visual Storytelling by theming out weeks with a new challenge. For example, our first week’s theme is ascending a frozen mountain, related to warming back up to the demands of school. John Meehan’s Edrenaline Rush has some great information about theming out units in class.

These are some ideas I’ve been able to come up with. What about you? What ideas sparked to life? Please share in the comments section.

1. _{Chou, Yu-Kai. Actionable Gamification – Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Yu-Kai Chou, 2017.} ↩︎
2. _{Chou, Yu-Kai. Actionable Gamification – Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Yu-Kai Chou, 2017.} ↩︎