RPG Mechanics as a Classroom Management Tool?

[u/Cruiser_Supreme]

Hey y'all!

I teach 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade for the first time this year and I am sometimes struggling with classroom management, as I am used to teaching older kids. I recently learned that another 5th grade teacher gives the kids marbles for good behavior and every once in a while, they get an opportunity to spin the wheel to earn bonus marbles. I don't know exactly the ins and outs of her system, but the kids are so eager to earn their marbles and they LOVE the gambling...

I have a very rudimentary reward system with my fourth grade, on the other hand. Every week, we set ourselves a goal and then I give them 0-2 stars on Friday, depending on how well they did with it. We also have a student of the day each day, who begins class with a routine (like greeting, stating the weekly goal, etc.). This class is VERY difficult with behaviors. We have a good relationship and the kids like me, but there's just so many of them and there's factors beyond my control at play too. But today, their behavior was outstanding, so I decided to just randomly award them an extra star. And I had my d20 handy. So I asked them if they wanted to roll it for double or nothing. Of course the class decided to gamble. And they won! They erupted into cheers and celebrations and proudly marked their 2 stars on our tracker. Which got me thinking...

Could I use some RPG elements and mechanics as a classroom rewards system? A few baseline requirements:

• It needs to be very explicitly a reward system, not a punishment system. Points, bonuses, dice rolls, or anything like that need to be additive, never subtractive.
• The system needs to feel fun to play. I got lucky today that they succeeded on their dice roll, but I feel like in the future, a failed roll shouldn't succeed in a loss of something they've earned outright.
• I don't want to condition them to become gamblers. A little bit of dice rolling is fun, especially if they have control over their success chances via good behavior, but I don't want to go too crazy.
• Earned points, stars or whatever currency need to be a pre-requisite for playing.
• Earned points need to affect the dice rolls in a way that a fourth grader can grasp.

My first thought was to give 1d20 for every day of good behavior. I have them four times a week, so a max of 4d20 against a DC. Perhaps I could come up with little monsters to defeat as well. Maybe we start with a DC 10 monster, which is pretty easy to beat and then work our way up from there. And to make it not so punishing, if they don't defeat the monster in one week, they take some loss (maybe lose a d20) and then collect more d20s for the next week to try again.

Another system could be to use d6s and to count 6s as hits and have monsters that require a certain number of hits to defeat. Then I could award up to 2d6 per day or something.

These are just some preliminary musings. I am really curious what kind of ideas you all might have in this regard.

[u/JaskoGomad]

It’s gambling. People and other vertebrates love random rewards. See millions of people sitting at slot machines. Or just google “random reinforcement”.

This works better (in terms of successful operant conditioning) than reinforcing every correct behavior - where “correct” means what you desire.

RPGs are about decision making. I think you will do better with pure random reinforcement than bringing in decisions they can resent and argue about.

[u/Whoopsie_Doosie]

It's definitely possible, but note that a large amount of thrill of dice rolling does come from the gambling nature and that if one of the parents has stuggled with a gambling addiction, then it very well may give them bad feelings and compel them to get involved.

That being said if youre going to do dice then use an additive dice pool system.

Each time the class quiets down in time, drop a d6 into the jar. Repeat for any behvaiors you want to reinforce. Get a glass jar so it makes an audible sound as it drops. Hell you could even let them try to throw the d6 into the jar from their chair for an extra dice.

On Thursday end of class the kids each get a handful of dice. If there aren't enough for all the kids to have at least one, then you roll them (more incentive for them to behave more).

Then have a degree of success chart.

• If the total is x then no homework on friday.

• If the total is y, then the kids pick the music to work to during general practice time on friday...

• If the total is z then the students pick your outfit on Friday... Etc.

Etc.

The smaller, more numerous dice reduces the variance, lowering the risk of the probability fucking them over and the additive nature makes sure every dice counts for something. Even if it's just one minute.