Media Algorithms Keep You in a Bubble

Engagement algorithms are simple. If you, the user, have engaged with a certain topic in the past, you are likely to engage in the future. So when a new piece of content is created on the platform that belongs to that topic, why not show it to you? You might even give it a thumbs up (or like, or heart). This selection for engagement places you, the user, in an engagement maxima. You are maximally engaged given the topics you have expressed interest in in the past. But what happens after a f...

 Teacher Approval Ends Discussion

After years of classroom research, Dillon (1988) concluded that teacher interventions during student discussions tend to shut down student thinking and student talk. He found this to be particularly true of positive feedback or praise. The rationale, of course, is that when a teacher communicates agreement with one student’s thinking, both the speaker and other classmates conclude that there is no need for further thought because the teacher has gotten the answer he or she was after.

 Games Use Constant Feedback

Moreover, games use systems of points, scores, leaderboards, achievement walls, and other clever mechanisms to reinforce how well you are playing (or not playing). Feedback should force us to face reality and redirect our efforts where they are needed. Regular, systemic feedback is a rarity in the traditional school; it is, however, de rigueur in even the most poorly designed game. It is this regular, rapid feedback that not only stimulates persistence and self-direction but also gets people ...

 Delay Method of Errorless Math Practice

Prepare a list of the calculations from the flash cards on a sheet of paper. These can be on a template, with multiplication facts at the appropriate level pulled and copied for the student. On these forms, include three columns next to each multiplication question, labeled “correct repeat,” “correct wait,” and “correct response.” Start with review and confi dence building. For example, show the question 3 × 4 = __ on the card and without any delay say the answer. Th e student re...

 How Brains Respond to Positive/Negative Feedback in Child...

In children up to eight or nine years old, the dopamine-modulating reward center in the nucleus accumbens reacts strongly to positive feedback (activating the prefrontal cortex) and minimally to negative feedback. In older children, increased activation still occurs in the PFC when dopamine is released in response to positive feedback (particularly in response to correct answers/ predictions). However, the greatest age-related change is the higher reactivity of the NAc to negative feedback an...

 Characteristics of a Game

When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. The goal is the specific outcome that players will work to achieve. It focuses their attention and continually orients their participation throughout the game. The goal provides players with a sense of purpose. The rules place limitations on how players can achieve the goal. By removing or limiting the obvious ways...