Project concept

• Rooted in conversation about games and

student motivations.

• How do we keep students motivated

through their academic career?

– Small step, could we take elements of games

and apply them to a course? In short : gamify

a course as a proof of concept?

– The pitch : let us break apart your course, and

put it back together “gamified”.

Goals

1. Rapid development

2. Werbach

– Develop agency by offering choices

– Define clear states of winning

– Offer front-loaded immediate feedback

3. Focus on scalability while maintaining

quality

Three Strategies

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel

– Use existing tools

– OER: Leaderboard

2. Empower students with choices

– Self-paced modules for didactic content

3. Focus on community

– Discussion board and groups

Implementation

• Icons: Scalability

• Complex module design– Business vs. Technology

– Point Value

– Self-paced vs. weekly due dates

• In addition to Syllabus– Extraneous Cognitive Load

– Emails

• Resources:– Paas, Renkel, & Sweller (2004)

– Edward Sanchez Blog, Jacob Nielsen, Don Norman

Implementation (cont.)

• The Leaderboard: Win-States, Feedback

– Points

– Levels

– Competition

• Intrinsic Motivation

– Time on Task

• Limitations• Resources:

– Chickering and Gamson (1987)

– Ryan & Deci (2000)

– http://projects.oscelot.org/gf/project/gamegogyleader/

Implementation (cont.)

• The Achievement System: Student Agency, Win-States, Feedback, Scalability

• Constraints:

– Avoiding the Badges tool in Bb: flexibility

– No increase in instructor work: scalability

• Examples:

– Passing the course

– Wide understanding (interrelated subjects)

– Deep understanding (high scores, advanced topics)

Discovery: HTML Achievements

Discovery: Adaptive Release

Initial:

‘Unachieved’ Badge visible

• “Dummy_single” column = 1

• “Dummy_total” column = “Dummy_single” + “Real” columns = 1+0 = 1

• Adaptive release rule set to visible if “Dummy_total” column < 2

Student meets requirements

• Completing this requirement gives a score for “Real” column = 10

• This makes “Dummy_total” column = 11

‘Achieved’ Badge replaces

‘Unachieved’ Badge

• Now “Dummy_total” column > 2, so “Unachieved” Badge no longer available

• “Achieved” Badge adaptive release rule set to visible if “Real” column = 10

Issue: Blackboard changes may be delayed, and therefore this process may not be instantaneous

U AModule

Results

• Time on task: more evenly distributed

• Twice as many students

• Retention rate increased from 85.7% to

92.3%

Contact Us

Project site http://bit.ly/1eJYEUO

Sunay Palsolé

Associate Vice Provost Educational Technology

Michael Anderson

Director of Online Learning

Josef Varga

Instructional Designer

OER Resource

Leaderboard

Spring, 2013Fall, 2013