As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Gamification in higher ed
PirateQueen
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Help me brainstorm ideas for gamifying an intro psych class?
Usually, I teach it face-to-face, but it will have to go online now. I want to do everything I can to keep it engaging and not put people to sleep. So... maybe gamification?
I know a bit about it from workshops and readings, but am struggling to come up with specific things to do that would work in this class
I was thinking maybe... designing it so students can level up in core topics? Get achievement badges they can post? Puzzles they need to solve to unlock bonus content...
Was hoping you creative smart people on this forum might have other ideas?
The crazier the better - these are first-year students still a bit intimidated by uni so anything fun that would break the ice with them and get them to start interacting with each other and with the instructors would be a huge help
Thanks in advance! : )
Usually, I teach it face-to-face, but it will have to go online now. I want to do everything I can to keep it engaging and not put people to sleep. So... maybe gamification?
I know a bit about it from workshops and readings, but am struggling to come up with specific things to do that would work in this class
I was thinking maybe... designing it so students can level up in core topics? Get achievement badges they can post? Puzzles they need to solve to unlock bonus content...
Was hoping you creative smart people on this forum might have other ideas?
The crazier the better - these are first-year students still a bit intimidated by uni so anything fun that would break the ice with them and get them to start interacting with each other and with the instructors would be a huge help
Thanks in advance! : )
+2
Posts
A levelling up system is the easiest method of gamification, I think, and you can tie awarded points to things that you want your students to be doing; watching videos, posting or answering questions on discussion boards, clicking links to read articles, etc. Maybe block off parts of the module until they've reached a certain level to provide a sense of progression.
You could also set up a leaderboard to provide a sense of competition for your students, although your mileage may vary on how much you want to encourage that.
Those are the key points I've hit on, at least. It's a tricky line to walk because you don't want the system to be overwhelming (especially when they're already going to be overwhelmed by studying) but you still want it to be engaging.
That is such a thoughtful and helpful response!
We're just switching to a new learning environment (Aula) and I'm meeting online with one of their IT support specialists later this week
They'll help.me set everything up & I'm sure they'll know how to incorporate a levelling up system that looks good isn't too overwhelming....
About your leaderboard idea:
Wow! That sounds like something that could really motivate people
Have you ever done something like this with your students?
Do you think it would work better with individuals or maybe teams (so they cooperate and don't just compete)?
If you're teaching an 8am intro course online and also realtime, my condolences, there's not a ton to can do. At least, if my 8am intro to psych courses was any indication. Then again, I actually had to go.
Additionally, I have ADHD. I'm someone who basically requires gamification to get through many classes that aren't part of my core program, but that's why I'm a good test-taker. Frequent small quizzes do a lot more toward that than just a midterm and final, and so can little silly things that I can pick up on, since I will be carefully examining your bookshelf or whatever you've got in other parts of the frame anyway. If you don't have anything in other parts of the frame then that will become "things on my desk," and then it's all over. It might be good to do something like "message me with what was in the background when I talked about [X]." Bonus points could count toward their final grade.
I'm willing to bet this whole situation is hell for people who have trouble paying attention, and of those a percentage may be, like me when I was in college, as yet undiagnosed. I wouldn't have wanted to have to unlock content especially for gen ed, that would have been so hard for me and another roadblock between me and a decent grade that I wouldn't have had to deal with in person. I had such a hard time reading and doing things for classes outside of the classroom, and that's why I relied on tests so much in the first place: they almost always covered things I was physically present for and often explicitly excluded other content. Now everything is other content.
I don't know if you necessarily feel compelled to tailor all this around a fairly specific situation though, especially for an intro course, and I don't know what your screen or streaming program or whatever will be set up to do. This may all be entirely inappropriate for your "classroom" environment, the above speaks only from my experiences with college gen ed and what works for me watching online content, even for fun, today.
Fortunately, video lectures will be posted online & viewable at any time and only seminars will be at real time (hopefully not 8am : )
So you preferred having weekly short quizzes where you could immediately do well instead of waiting for a midterm/final?
Thanks for pointing out unlocking content could be a roadblock - that didn't even occur to me
If the past two years are a good indicator, there's a fair number of students taking that class that have ADHD so tailoring materials to fit what they might prefer makes perfect sense
I love your idea for "message me with what was in the background when I talked about [X]" - never done that before and can't wait to try it : )
If you have any other ideas, please let me know!
That would be amazing! TYSM!
https://info.badgr.com/spotlight/badgr-for-canvas.html
Thanks for the useful link!
Never used Badgr before - will have to look into it!
@ceres
: D
Aah now I get it! It's that nice approach motivation
Though, would love to find a way to make quizzes more game-like (making them motivating and rewarding like video games are instead of stressful/causing avoidance for some people: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272519057_Video_Game_Training_and_the_Reward_System)
i think for gamification it's really going to depend on your LMS, or what you're able to set up outside those constraints.
What worked best for you in myCred/Canvas?
What did your students respond to most (if you don't mind disclosing)?
Luckily, sounds like colleagues from IT will help set everything up in Aula for my class so I'll know what is/isn't possible after talking to them this week.
another good thing to do is make other students' work purchasable, and have the 'money' go to the person who made the content. so you can do a jigsaw-style activity where everyone researches one topic and creates material using a scaffold, then anyone can buy it to expand their knowledge, with (ideally) the best stuff getting rewarded. again, that's myCred
:0
You made your own podcast?
Clearly you're a much cooler teacher than me!
Your two-currency system sounds fantastic
Mind if I try and copy you?
I love using the jigsaw classroom - never thought of making students' work purchasable.
I wonder if it might be possible to flip that so students get points for peer reviewing & helping others...
Also awesome idea to incorporate RPG elements - will have to try that too
p.s. when i say 'podcast', i mostly just sat in the car while my then-one-year-old son slept in the baby seat and recorded a rambling chat about the subject. this was my first year of full-time teaching, i was very ambitious... i did get a few years of value out of it though
Also, that sounds like an awesome, spontaneous podcast - no wonder it's so popular!
If you're going to gamify, make sure it's relevant to their grade or otherwise, as "useless internet points" are something many have figured out. Also, embrace the medium of online and do mixed media or other stuff live. Most people want agency, so if possible give them that. I'd start with something like polleverywhere (pollev) for simple decisions on content or experiment examples (think - who thinks this person will act altruistically?) that lets you read the room and engage on topics.
I often do polls like that in class and didn't think of the fact they'd also work online
Love it when people disagree in their predictions of findings - always gets a good debate started
Thanks for alerting me to pollev!
We could track poll results over the course of the semester and students can see how much they progressed (preventing retconning and the "knew it all along" effect)
Thanks again!
Polleverywhere might be a nice happy medium but I wasn't able to do what I wanted with it but admittedly, I didn't put all that much effort into it.
I don't like the idea of leaderboards at least personal ones. Something I played around with in my intro bio course was a house cup. Basically like Harry Potter. In my head it promotes team based peer support and I imagine it would be easier online. If you use zoom you can put them in team based breakout rooms to work on problems etc.
Awesome!
Did it work out well in your intro bio course?
Thanks for the idea @mts !
(Now I really want to make Hogwarts houses but psychology based, e.g. Instead of Slytherin House it can be Skinner house with a pigeon as their house symbol or maybe Zimbardo House)
You have to be careful with composition if you are using it for any rewards or it can skew heavily
Could I take a sneak peak at your write-up?
Currently, I'm not sure what our cohort size will be (was around 150 last year but will surely drop)
This is a bit different in the UK, I think. Assuming that PirateQueen is teaching on a BPS-accredited course, as long as the content necessary for that accreditation is taught it doesn't necessarily matter in which format it's delivered, and outside of core modules the universities I've been affiliated with haven't cared too much about broad changes to material.
Luckily, just like @Burnage says, it's a BPS-accredited programme so there's a lot of flexibility with the content and delivery style
So, the advice and ideas you have given me on this thread are extremely helpful and I'll try to implement as many as I can!
Sadly, I don't have as much agency over changing the assessment (which seems to be much harder compared to when I was teaching in the US).
If you guys know some techniques to charm external examiners into letting me make tests a bit easier and user-friendly, please tell : )
My research centre got closed last year so this would be a great way to get some useful data and still publish something despite teaching full time...
A plus of the UK system - I don't have to worry about tenure & got a permanent contract as a lecturer just a year after joining my uni : )
Though, wouldn't mind getting promoted in future so I'll listen to your advice & document everything carefully (both for my sake & for my students)
Really appreciate all your help : )
Individual leaderboards would be de-motivating to me. If there are things I am interested in doing then I'll do them. I don't want to be 'guilted' into interacting with your systems, and I usually find competition for the sake of competition to be insulting.
However an overall class leaderboard where my contributions contribute to everyone's scores sounds positive and rewarding. I really like the idea of students interacting with each other being rewarded, particularly discussion topics and research sharing. Not only is this great for incentivizing students to help and support each other in class but it also works as a great ice breaker for people who might not normally interact and can lead to friendships forming which can be an immensely important support for all students outside of the classroom.
Like @ceres I was a great test taker. I disliked repetitive homework and generally never took notes as that only seemed to make my internalization of the material harder to achieve. Passing weekky quizzes was both gratifying when I passed them, but also instructional in seeing what material I may have missed or had struggled to understand. Having maybe a standard weekky quiz that allows both you and the classroom an easy metric to see how much people are struggling with a topic is helpful as long as doing poorly is not treated as failure.
I also like the idea of having optional "go at your own pace" quizzes which can unlock further materials on the subject for a few reasons: 1) having the option to race ahead of the class or really dig deeper into a concept is very rewarding when you are feeling voracious for knowledge. Students who find class too slow get bored and quickly tune out making their ability to contribute meaningfully to the class fade over time.
2) For someone like me, really getting into the weeds on a topic is beneficial to my learning and committing the knowledge to memory. The more I learn about the concepts the more sticks. And it really helps if I can do that without continuously dragging the teacher aside or derailing the class for my questions. A discussion area for people who have plunged ahead in a topic might be incredibly useful!
3) The quiz concept is effective gatekeeping. Often I find teachers can be reluctant to encourage further reading before they are certain the student has the base concepts firmly grounded in mind. If you pass the quiz, you can be more readily assured that you are prepared for the next level of complexity and be less likely to confuse yourself. And if you don't pass the quiz it means that you need more work on understanding the material before proceeding.
4) Possibly passing the optional quizzes could give viewable achievements, with perhaps a subject "mastery" quiz that gives a badge to denote the student as someone who can tutor classmates on that subject. So achievement and badge tracking may effectively function as an individual leaderboard, but the overall message is that this student is qualified to help others rather than just "performing best"
I really like the idea of an overall class board where everyone's scores contribute to success - never seen that done before, but it sounds like a great way to promote collaboration. Maybe there could be some kind of reward for everyone once a milestone is reached?
It sounds like you're someone high in need for cognition who likes exploring concepts in depth - that is awesome! I had a MSc class last semester with a number of people like that and they improved the whole group's experience (pushing the whole class to think more critically with their questions)
So, I'll make sure to add bonus materials and discussion boards for all topics at the start of the semester so people who want to work ahead or go into more depth can do that -
I hope that would give enough stimulation to highly motivated people like you and @ceres?
Also, thanks so much for the idea of Mastery Badges. Some students pick up some things unbelievably quickly in first year (e.g. all the boring referencing rules) and spontaneously start helping everyone else - I really like the idea of giving formal recognition for that.
Thanks again!
If you think of any other ideas, please let me know!
Also, thanks @bsjezz and @ceres for the caution!
I don't think my uni would let me link the new gamification elements with assessment anyway. So, it will definitely be optional and people will be able to opt out completely if it doesn't work for them
I can only speak, as someone with some pretty nasty problems focusing attention, to what my intro classes were like, and how I did with gen ed classes I didn't want to take that were not part of my major. It was always pretty hard for me to care too much about that stuff, or basically anything that didn't occur at a lab bench on a microliter scale for which I was all ears. It's probably best not to design your stuff around me personally; my advice is only that, based on my own experiences, some of these extra measures people use to gamify college courses can be helpful to some but act as a roadblock for others, especially those who might need more time to get things done in general. Class participation is good, extra credit might be good, unlocking classwork is not, leaderboards bad.
Seminars on gamification focus on the benefits, but not the drawbacks (at least the ones I've been to). So, it's very helpful to hear which aspects of it not work for you and might be best to avoid
Fortunately, the cohort in my intro class is just criminology and psychology students. So, as long as there's examples about serial killers, mass market fraud and wrongfully convicted people being freed after getting help from Elizabeth Loftus, they're pretty easy to engage
(at least they were in person - we'll see how it goes online!)
Thanks again for all your help!