I’m running a little experiment right now at Brookline Tai Chi to see if we can help our students develop better home practice habits. Specifically, I’m experimenting with self-reporting and automated reminders to spark daily practice sessions outside of class. Now, when I talk to other people in our international tai chi community, I realize what a powerful practice aid Brookline Tai Chi already is. What I mean is, the bricks-and-mortar experience of coming to the school and being around other people removes so many barriers people have to doing tai chi.
As March comes to an end, I’m wrapping up playing Health Month, an online game that helps you integrate new habits and change behavior. Here’s my review of Health Month and a recap of what I experienced. I have to say, I don’t think I really explored it to the fullest, but there were a couple of things I really liked about it and a couple of things I didn’t connect with in the design.
I’m pretty excited to try this one out. Health Month is a behavior change game where you set rules to follow each month and do daily tracking, with rewards and penalties for how well you follow them. I’m just digging into it, but so far it looks like you can choose “do more of this” or “do less of that”. I like the idea of limiting the scope of the goal to a month (what BJ Fogg calls a “
I’ve been reading/watching a lot of BJ Fogg’s work lately. He studies the persuasive power of technology for positive behavior change. You’ll recognize my interest here if you read some of my recent posts on game design mechanics and the potential to integrate technology into real world learning. (Check out his Youtube channel for some shorter videos that explain facets of his work “in 60 seconds”) Here’s Dr. Fogg on simplicity:
