The Game of Engagement

This week, as Victoria entered into its fourth COVID lockdown, my mind turned to motivation. My motivation waxed and waned.  Yet I still had a job to do, and while I was still passionate about providing learning experiences for my students, it’s just that bit harder to find the motivation when I’m staring at screens rather than the (usually) smiling faces of five- and six-year-olds.
Fortunately, my intrinsic motivation of wanting my students to succeed is supported by the extrinsic motivation of getting paid to do my job!

So, what’s it like for our students? Surely, their motivation comes and goes in a day at school. For some activities, most students will be intrinsically motivated. Other activities might be a bit of a struggle to keep them engaged.  
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Of course, we would love each child to intrinsically motivated for every moment of every day. But let’s face it, in a group of twenty, not everyone is going to be intrinsically motivated all the time.
We could fall into the trap of trying to make every lesson more exciting than the one before it. But this is a dangerous spiral to enter: one that can ultimately lead to blaming the teacher for not making learning interesting, engaging, or fun enough.

Today I want to share a game that I play with my class. This game helps to increase students’ engagement and motivation. This game helps to ensure all students are focused on learning, and we all want our students to be spending time engaged in learning.

​Welcome to the Students vs Teacher Game

​I was introduced to the Students vs Teacher Game (sometimes called ‘Beat the Teacher’) when I was first trained in Direct Instruction programmes by NIFDI. The Students vs Teacher Game is a vehicle to increase student motivation. It enhances learning because it minimises off-task behaviour and distractions. Students feel successful and positive behaviour is reinforced.

The rules of the game

The rules are quite simple:

1. Students get a point when everybody is doing what is expected.
2. The teacher takes a point when any individual student is not doing what is expected.

See, I told you that the rules are simple…
                … but I do have some caveats.

​When I play the Students vs. Teacher Game I have four expectations:

1. Sit Tall
2. Talk Big
3. Answer on Signal
4. Respect Others

Notice that the acronym is conveniently STAR. I call it STAR behaviour (thanks Naomi).

There are a few things that the teacher needs to do to make sure the Students vs Teacher Game is successful:

• Make the expected behaviour clear. You need to explain what is expected in abundant detail. It is not a guessing game and nobody likes to play a game if they don’t know what the boundaries are. I spend a lot of time at the start of a year introducing students to what STAR behaviour is. My students learn what ‘sitting tall’ looks like. They know what it means to ‘answer on signal’. And If I find myself repeatedly taking points for one expectation, I make sure that I reteach it.
• Set the game up where everyone can see. It’s not a guessing game. All the students involved should be able to see how many points they have and how many you have got. I display mine on my teaching whiteboard.
• Give student points quickly and often. Make sure you tell the students why they are getting a point. We should let our students know exactly when they meet our expectations. Eg. Everybody is sitting tall, you get a point. Take a point because everybody answered right on the signal.
• Feel free to give students bonus points. If my students do something really well, then I want them to know it. Giving them a bonus point is a quick and easy way to affirm them. Wow, you did that without making a single mistake! Have a bonus point!
• Take a teacher point when a student is not meeting your expectations. At the start it might seem like the teacher will always win. Let me assure you that this is not the case. In fact I haven’t won a single game this year. And I make sure to take a teacher point whenever I get the chance (it’s rare).
• Only take teacher points for pre-taught expectations. The teacher can only take a point when a student is not meeting one of your set expectations. Sorry, but you don’t get to take bonus points for yourself. Again we don’t want this to be a guessing game. So, I can’t take a point when a student gives an incorrect because that is not one of my set expectations. (Being able to make a mistake also helps with the learning process and so I don’t think a teacher should discourage this).
• Name the behaviour not the student. Make sure students know why you have taken a teacher point. Again this is not a guessing game. Students need to know what they did that didn’t meet your expectations. BUT don’t name the student! This means that everyone will check whether they are meeting the expectations. It also keeps the students working as a collective and prevents shaming or embarrassment (nobody wants that). E.g. I get a point because some people aren’t talking big.
• Try not to let the giving of points interrupt the flow of instruction. This took me a while to get used to. The giving of points should be a staccato punctuation in your instruction. This game is not the important bit, it’s a vehicle to help students focus on learning.
• Never ever rub out student points in the middle of the game. Just don’t do it. The students have earnt the points. What are you teaching students if you do this? That it’s based on the teacher’s whims? I have seen this happen and it has such a demoralising impact on students and the Students vs Teacher Game loses its effect. You can take teacher points, you don’t need to take away the students’ points.
• Students should win the game most of the time. NIFDI suggest that students should win 95-100% of the time. My students have won every single game this year. Does that mean that the game loses its impact? No. They love the idea that I am trying really hard and yet manage to struggle to score a point. My students celebrate when I get 0 points. I also find it useful to shift the focus to how many points they beat me by.
• Use tally marks to keep score. A happy by-product of using the Students vs Teacher Game is that my students are well-versed in tally marks. They know that every fifth mark should go across. At the end of the game, we count our scores by skip-counting by fives. Not only is this quicker, it also provides students with a lot of practice. Of course, I explicitly taught how tally marks are keeping score at the beginning of the year. The pay-off is a lot of extra maths throughout the year.
• Sell the game. I don’t mean commercially because I’m pretty sure the markets not that lucrative. I mean sell it to your students. Every single time I play I talk up my chances. I’ve had 2 cups of coffee this morning so I’m ready to get a lot of points today! If I happen to be winning the game, I pause and take a moment to get excited that I might win. You don’t stand a chance! I told you I’d win today! This generally makes my students more determined to beat me. Which means that they are even more eager to meet my expectations.
• Celebrate when they win. At the end of the game I usually act a little bit disappointed that I didn’t win. But then I celebrate because my students did! I’ve found a bubble-gun that is an amazingly fun way to celebrate. It has flashing lights and everything.

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I’ve used the Students vs Teacher Game for Literacy and Maths. This year I am using it to support our Phonemic Awareness programme. When I started to use it, it took me a while to get it to flow (maybe a term of using it daily), but now it’s second nature and the amount of instructional time it saves is phenomenal. I’ve used it with students aged 5-14 years. And while the way I ‘sell it’ might change, it is still very effective.

I care about every one of my students too much to leave their motivation up to chance. The Students vs Teacher game helps me ensure that every child in my class is engaged in learning.

Further reading:

You can find out more about NIFDI (the National Institute for Direct Instruction) at https://www.nifdi.org