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I have always thought that people learn best when they’re having fun. When I transitioned from in-person to asynchronous online teaching — in which my students and I engage with my course’s content at different times — my greatest challenges were implementing experiential exercises online and creating meaningful interpersonal experiences without ever seeing my students.
Then, the big challenge came: I needed to design and teach an accelerated introductory statistics course for my department’s new master’s programme, during the COVID-19 pandemic. How could I help students to overcome their fear of statistics and learn the content? I turned it into a game.
‘Gamification’ is the use of video-game elements, such as achievements, badges, avatars, adventures and customized goals, in non-game contexts. Think about customer-loyalty programmes: they motivate customers to reach certain numbers of points or levels in exchange for a reward, such as premium service. Research has shown that the use of game elements in education can create an environment that is conducive to learning and can generate long-lasting motivation and engagement among students.
In my search for resources and ideas, I found two reasons for optimism: first, gaming is ubiquitous. There were some 3.24 billion gamers around the globe in 2021, according to the statistics portal Statista, including 67% of all US adults. Furthermore, higher-education instructors have reported success with this approach. I was particularly inspired by Dan Childers, an English instructor at Pearl River Community College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who explained why and how he gamified his class in a now-deleted post on Canvas, a learning management system (LMS) used to develop course sites and administer online material. Canvas has a self-paced course on implementing gamification in the classroom, and my university was already using Badgr, the Canvas extension that creates and awards badges for completing modules.
I opted for a low-tech route to ease access for my students. My gamified course uses learning elements you might find in more-standard lecture courses, including reading assignments, lecture and tutorial videos, self-check quizzes, tests, discussion boards and reflection prompts. I turned the class into a game by incorporating a comic-style textbook and gaming elements, such as badges, leaderboards, quests, ‘bosses’, rewards and silly avatars that react to online quiz responses. Quality Matters, a non-profit organization in Parole, Maryland, that promotes and improves the quality of online education, has certified my course as well conceived, well designed and well presented.
The best part? Instructors can easily create gamified content using tech tools that they already have or can get for free. I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make slides and images, Screencast-O-Matic to record lectures, PlayPosit to insert self-check quizzes into lecture videos and the messaging platform Discord to create a gaming environment for students. (I explained how I use these tools in a February podcast.)
Getting started
Define your goals. Do you hope to help students achieve technical competencies, discover more about themselves, develop a narrative or build social relationships with others? These early decisions will influence your design, sometimes called aesthetic elements. For instance, my statistics class lent itself to fantasy, challenge, fellowship, discovery and expression aesthetics. The sci-fi narrative I chose presented quests that students have to complete, prompted interactions and collaborations, allowed them to learn and encouraged them to reflect on their own learning processes.
Embed fantasy or role-playing elements. This step is optional, but it will make your class more fun. Thanks to the comic-style textbook that I use, my students are already immersed in a clichéd ‘save the princess’ storyline. All I needed was to tie other activities to that theme. You can make your gamified class about world travel, fashion, building an empire, running a business or slaying a dragon — whatever fits your needs.
Establish concrete outcomes. Students need to know early on what the goals of the game are and how to win. In my class, students earn badges for achieving the statistical competencies. Their grades are directly determined by the number of badges they earn (for example, nine out of ten badges corresponds to an ‘A’ grade). If the game involves running a business, how profitable does it need to be? If they must slay a dragon, how do they do so?
Define gameplay dynamics. Will your students choose their own adventures, or select which challenges to complete? What kind of assistance is available to them? In my class, each week students must read the textbook, watch my lecture videos, test their knowledge and practise their statistics skills to prepare for the badge test. I have practice quizzes at normal difficulty and advanced quizzes for more inquisitive students. Quiz scores translate to virtual money that they can use in the game.
Identify collaborative opportunities. Is your game single- or multiplayer? If interaction and collaboration are allowed, what rules must students follow? For example, I have assignments called ‘boss battles’, in which the entire class can work together to defeat the ‘bosses’ by solving statistical problems. If the class average exceeds 80%, everyone gets a reward. These assignments provide opportunities for students to study together, check their comprehension, commiserate and support one another — which they really appreciate.
Create activities and assignments. Instructors already do this for non-gamified classes. To adapt your learning activities and assignments to a gamified setting, you just need to ensure that they are consistent with the existing aesthetics, mechanics and dynamics of the game.
Establish feedback strategies. Video games provide instant feedback. Try to do so in your class. For example, my students can immediately view their scores, badges and game money in the LMS. I added feedback and avatar reactions to each quiz question. I also use automated bots in Discord to facilitate the gaming experience and try to respond as quickly as I can to student questions.
Add bonus features. Once the skeleton of your course is complete, add bonus features to increase the fun. These can include colourful maps, a video-game-like home page, theme music and videos or an in-game shop. My students can use their game money to add 5% to their test scores, retake an exam or get a hint on a question. They can also scavenge for game money. I suggest making these features truly optional, so students don’t have to engage if they choose not to.
Provide clear instructions. Some students will inevitably be confused by the gamified class format, so clear instructions are crucial. Use a combination of rule books, video tutorials, lists of quests, timelines, presentations and syllabus quizzes to ensure your students know what to expect.
Start small. Your class needn’t start out as a full-blown design with all the bells and whistles; start with something that is easy to implement but potentially impactful. You can always refine the next time around.
Gamification principles can work with anything from face-to-face, to hybrid, to fully online teaching. Technology makes it easier, but being tech-savvy is not a requirement. Gamification adds motivation and alleviates fear for students, but it does not detract from the rigour of the subject. I hope you give it a try — it has been an exciting and rewarding experience for both me and my students. Said one: “The gamification of the course actually made me excited to learn about and engage with statistics!”
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July 14, 2022 at 09:07PM
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Teaching a difficult subject? Try gamifying your class - Nature.com
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