Teachers entering the world of Gamification receive very mixed messages about feedback. What is it.. how often it should be delivered … how much feedback (versus discovery) .. does feedback have negative consequences?
I am reading this article with comments by Karl Kapp where he says:
You are right; most games provide immediate, corrective feedback. You know right-away if you are performing the right action and, if not, the consequences of performing the wrong action. A number of games also provide delayed feedback in the form of after-action reviews. These are often seen in games using branching. At the end of the game, the player is given a description of choices she made versus the correct choices. So, delayed feedback is common in some types of games. In terms of what is missing in terms of feedback, I think that most learning games do a poor job of layering feedback. In well-designed video games, at the first level of help, a player can receive a vague clue. If this doesn’t work or too much time passes, the game provides a more explicit clue and finally, if that doesn’t work, the player receives step-by-step instructions. Most learning games are too blunt. They tend to give the player the answer right away rather than layers choices or escalating the help. I think that is a huge missed opportunity…Our learning games seem to fail at including both of these elements in our feedback. In general, our field needs to focus on feedback that is more naturally occurring and within the flow of the learning.
Source: Will at Work Learning: Interview with Karl Kapp on Games, Gamification, and LEARNING!
For me as a teacher I try to observe the effect of the feedback I am providing. I am aware of the short term vs long term consequences. I am still aware of moments in my own life where feedback (or lack of feedback) from one of my teachers has deeply affected me decades later.
Overall I would say that I give far less written formal feedback now than I used to. I rely on self and peer assessment more and I use formative assessment models. My feedback these days tends to be: “That’s great you are at Level 2 .. would you like to know how to level up …”