Why Partner?

Why should HIED and business /non-profit organizations partner to create micro-credentialing opportunities?

I suppose my response is Why not?

The previous blog post explored the use of micro-credentials along with the research supporting them and the benefits for employees, employers, and HIED organizations. Employees receive targeted training that provides them with a specific skill set to help them sucedd on the job.  Employers, in return, get better trained employees.

Sounds perfect!

The reality is, however, that few businesses and non profits possess the instructional design staff necessary to  design quality engaging micro-credentialing training for their employees.

Why not, then, consider partnering with a higher education institution to provide such training?

1, Universities understand adult learners.

This is what universities do. They work with a variety of student populations, and those with graduate-level programming  understand the unique needs of the adult learner who is trying to balance workplace commitments, family commitments, community commitments, and educational commitments.

Adult learners have different motivations behind their learning and different educational needs.  Universities have experience in meeting those needs and in designing learning experiences that cater to this group.

2, Instructional designers are trained in designing quality online learning experiences.

Face-to-face training has its place: so does online training.

The increase in online instruction in universities has necessitated their having faculty and staff who are trained as instructional designers able to provide quality online learning experiences.

Instructional Designers are education professionals whose job is to identify the performance, skills, knowledge, information, and attitude gaps of a targeted audience and create, select and/or suggest learning experiences to fill this gap.

This is not the same as dumping content into PowerPoint slides or pasting text to read: instructional designers do far more than that.   If this is all your organization needs, then you do not need an instructional designer or a university.

An instructional designer knows how people learn and how  to design engaging learning activities to connect the organization's training to the necessary real life skills..

Trained in best practices in online delivery, an instructional designer can help change employee behavior as a result of training, along with designing engaging ways of delivering content and assessing employee mastery of the content.

Instructional designers often consult with subject matter experts (SMEs), either on-campus or off, depending on the content they are trying to deliver.

3. Businesses and non-profits can work with universities to serve as subject-matter experts.

SMEs play a critical role in the instructional design process. The SME is an expert in a particular content area, often with either an advanced degree in this subject or work experience in the field. 

The first step in designing a new training  starts with the instructional designer who performs a training needs analysis to identify skills, behaviors, and knowledge gaps in the organization. This helps them identify which training courses  - or micro-credentials - need to be developed, and what the learning objectives will be.

The very next step, though, involves the SME. The SME (or a group of them) is responsible for mapping a path backward from the training goal to the training content. They’ll work with the instructional designer and decide on the best ways to achieve the required learning, such as which activities are best suited to each objective,.

In the case of micro-credentialing, this would be the time to identify clusters of skills and content needed, along with a hierarchy. Allowing the instructional designer to work with SMEs from the university as well as organization could help to provide a better quality online training. .

What should an organization look for in choosing a higher education partner?

Organizations might want to consider higher education institutions who have already designed micro credentials, whether for their own use or for other galvanization.  This insures they already understand the actual practice of micro-credential designs so their instructional designer can better assist your SMEs in content determination.

Because micro credentials are small chunks of content designed as performance based assessment, the instructional designer will need to already know how to take the SME material and break it down according to micro-credentialing best practices.

There also needs to be some sort of hosting system for the training, perhaps using the institution's Learning Management System or LMS. This will insure any proprietary content will not not be available to the entire internet while affording employees some manner of confidentiality as they progress through their training. An LMS is also likely to be more user-friendly for the employee to navigate simply due to design.

Finding someone local is not a necessity with the increased availability of video conferences for meetings with the SMEs, but accessibility to the instructional designers and to the LMS will be vital.

Including SMEs who work in education can greatly enhance the design process as they likely understand both content and instructional design..  For example, if an organization wanted to create a series of micro-credentials in conflict management training, then having access to a university  employee with conflict management training to assist the organization's SME could streamline the process.

Next steps

Investing in one's employees can provide organizations with a better workforce, one that is engaged and wants to produce.  Consider providing micro-credentialing training by partnering with an institution in higher education.

This can be a win-win for all!

Thinking about micro-credentialing

Yes, I am still gamifying courses (more on that in a later post), but now I am intrigued by the idea of micro-credentialing...and how we might utilize them in a higher education setting.

What are micro-credentials?

Micro-credentials are a competency-based digital form of certification that can be issued for formal and informal professional learning experiences. They prove competence in one specific skill at a time, via a portfolio of evidence, created through worksite and, in this case, online training practice. This evidence - these digital badges - can be shared with supervisors and prospective employers, serving to document specific skills central to their jobs. 

Think of micro-credentials as mini-qualifications that demonstrate skills, knowledge, and/or experience in a given subject area or capability. Sometimes known as nano-degrees, micro-credentials tend to be narrower in range than traditional qualifications such as diplomas or degrees. However, they can also be broad in focus rather than specific. For example, institutions can offer a micro-credential for something as broad as Fundraising  while offering a another micro-credential focusing specifically on how to empower others in the workplace.

The increasing interest in micro-credentialing is, in part, due the need for workplaces to remain competitive by ensuring employees continue to develop new capabilities. Micro-credentialing provides a way to map employee career paths and quantify any types of skill.


Earning a micro-credential can involve completing activities, assessments, and projects, with the employee earning a digital certificate or badge as evidence of attaining this new credential. The micro-credential could be a "one-off" qualification, or it could be part of an employer-mandated training pathway leading to a final overall qualification for the employee.

Think "professional development." 

Think "chunking" of information. 

Think developing "skill sets." 

Think "degree alternative."

Think self-paced.

Think student-centered.

Think flexibility.

Think cost-effective.

.....all of those items that appeal to adult learners who want training and education in areas to help them advance in their job, but not necessarily a degree.

So what? Why should we consider offering them? 

I have long been a fan of online instruction- good online instruction, that is.  I can be a fan of micro- credentialing, if it can be structured following best practices of online instruction and if it can truly be performance-based.... and if it can be supported by the research.

Research suggests that micro-credentialing can be a viable option for adult learners.

Let's start with "digital form of certification," aka badges,

Badges and motivation

A badge from our MSOTID practicum course

Digital badges have been connected with instructional design as a form of motivation and engagement. As a component of game mechanics (Kim, 2015; Robson, et al., 2015), badges serve several purposes.

Possibly the most obvious function of badges is as a  aa goal-setting device: goals keep us focused on what we need to achieve, and badges challenge us - i.e., give us the extra motivation  - to complete the action.  Goal-setting is most effective when learners can see their progress toward the goal.

Research suggests setting goals helps motivate us to achieve them, and, in fact, it is often thought that the fun and interest of goal-seeking is the reward, rather than the earned badge.

I would think, then, that earning a badge - in this instance a digital certificate - a competency-based digital form of certification  that proves learners have specific skill would serve as a motivating factor.

From badges to micro-credentials

Badges, while more often associated with gaming, have also been used in micro-credentialing.

Initially micro-credentials were merely digital badges that were first established in online forums and other social media platforms as a way to differentiate average users from advanced users (Wu, Whiteley, & Sass, 2015). However, their purpose has moved beyond demonstrating differences among users into a method of demonstrating skills and abilities thus becoming micro-credentials. This evolution of micro-credentialing now provides learners with the ability to engage in a performance-based assessment that is a less expensive and faster method than acquiring a traditional degree (Fong, Janzow, & Peck, 2016; Wu, Whiteley, & Sass, 2015). 

Example of a Law & Ethics in Instructional Design Badge

Today micro-credentials are represented by icons or graphics that serve as badges to indicate a learner has successfully completed the learning experience in an accredited institution (Kerver & Riksen, 2016). The badges are created through metadata (Gamrat, et al., 2014). Metadata is data connecting to other data; it is “descriptive markers placed in a stream of data, which informs a machine about contents” (Gibson et al., 2015, p. 407). The metadata is embedded with relationships between the issuer, standards, activities, artifacts created, experiences, and quality of evidence (Gamart et al., 2014; Gibson et al., 2015). As micro-credentials are successfully completed, based on the metadata, learners can earn a digital badge and move to the next chosen badge.

What's in this for employees and their employers?

Micro-credentials offer numerous benefits for both employees and employers.

 
When well-designed, micro-credentials can be flexible, portable, and cost-effective for the employee, Often available for much less of a financial investment than a full degree, micro-credentials can allow employees to pick and choose  among possible skill sets, and, when done so in conjunction with their supervisor, micro-credential attainment could be directly connected to an employee performance plan.

Micro-credentials offer employees the chance to focus on one single area, personalizing their professional development training.  Clusters of micro-credentials  could assist employees in meeting  their career goals and responsibilities.

Allowing employees to "show what they know" is a strong alternative to reviewing transcripts and generic coursework that may not be as current as is necessary in the business world.

Micro-credentials could help to boost employee engagement and support an employer in accurately tracking employee  development. The digital certification aspect of these credentials would allow employers to truly ascertain what skills their employees have gained.

 What's in this for HIED?

Higher education institutions have started to view micro-credentials as not only an effective learning tool but also as a way to increase revenue by providing an array of cost-effective learning experiences to adult learners who are seeking additional skills.


Perdue University and Carnegie Mellon University recognize the benefits of offering micro-credentials and have created opportunities for adult learners to earn micro-credentials (Hurst, 2015). HIED that offer micro-credentials reported that micro-credentials are responsible for 81% of their unit or enrolled user revenue (Fong, Janzow, & Peck, 2016). Also, 97% of a baccalaureate college’s unit revenue comes from micro-credential course offerings which are “significantly higher than doctorate-granting universities (75%), master’s colleges or universities (77%), and community colleges (86%)” (Fong, Janzow, & Peck, 2016, p. 7).

HIED and Employers? As Partners?

While some organizations are large enough to house employees in-house with the necessary skills to  design such trainings, not all businesses and non-profits may be able to do so. They might want to consider  looking outside of their organization for such expertise.


What if....businesses and non-profits could partner with an HIED to develop personalized training?

Up next..... Why Organizations should partner with HIED in micro-credential design

References

Fong, J., Janzow, P., & Peck, K. (2016). Demographic shifts in educational demand and the rise of
alternative credentials [PDF Pearson Education and UPCEA]. Retrieved from http://upcea.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Demographic-Shifts-in-Educational-Demand-and-the-Rise-of-Alternative-Credentials.pdf

Gamrat, C., Zimmerman, H. T., Dudek, J., & Peck, K. (2014). Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital badging within a teacher professional development program. British journal of Educational Technology, 45(6), 1136-1148.

Gibson, D., Ostashewski, N., Flintoff, K., Grant, S., & Knight, E. (2015). Digital badges in  educatiion, Education and Information Technologies, 20(2), 403-410.

Hurst, E. J. (2015). Digital badges: Beyond learning incentives. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 12(3), 182-189.

Kerver, B. & Riksen, D. (2016). Whitepaper on open badges and micro-credentials [PDF document]. Retrieved from https://www.surf.nl/binaries/content/assets/surf/en/ knowledgebase/2016/whitepaper-on-open-badges-en-micro-credentials.pdf 

Kim, B. (2015). Designing gamification in the right way. Library Technology Reports 51(2), 29-35. 

Robson, K., Plangger, K., Kietzmann, J. H., McCarthy, I., & Pitt, P. (2015). Is it all a game? Understanding the principles of gamification. Business Horizons, 58, 411-420.

Wu, M., Whiteley, D., & Sass, M. (2015). From girl scout to grown up: Emerging applications of
digital badges in higher education. The Online Journal of Distance Education and E-learning, 3(2), 48-52.

Gamifying a course, phase 11: Game Over

Tasks are submitted and graded, badges collected, job interviews completed, and life at Mountain View Community College is on hold now until January 2019.

Time to reflect and regroup.

Technology, Gaming, and You

Students completed an in-course assessment exploring their experience with games, technology, and their attitudes toward learning.

Student age ranged from 36 to 57, with a mean age of 47. All were employed full time, and they reported having regular access to a computer both at home and in their office. They accessed Canvas through both their computers and their smartphones. They did not report a history of game play, either on their cell phones or through their computers, with the exception of "a little Candy Crush."Although one student was familiar with virtual worlds such as Second Life or Mindcraft, the others were not.

They were familiar with more traditional games such as crossword puzzles, word searches, Jeopardy,

Tetris, board games, chess, checkers, Scrabble, jigsaw puzzles, and video games

They reported feeling strongly connected to one another and felt supported in this course, appreciating timely feedback.

Other Tidbits

All students earned all badges, spending anywhere between 55 and  60  hours in Canvas. (NOTE: I logged 326 hours to create, tweak, grade, and problem-solve in this course, so we all spent  a lot of time in Canvas. Interesting to note, students in other courses sent far more time in Canvas that same semester, ranging from 29 hours to 133, with  mean of  75.3 hours.)

All submissions were on time (all 57 of them!) as compared to a more traditional online course with 18 submissions, where 75% of students had at least one late submission.

The final project at Mountain View Community College  was a one-hour interview for their dream job....with their interview responses integrating what they had learned throughout their time as  visiting staff member. Students seemed to enjoy this type of final project (I know that I did) as a change from a written submission...but they did have to think fast on their feet in their interview responses.

Students also participated in a final forum where they identified three pieces of new information and why they this information was important to them....one last chance for them to reflect together and to explore course learning.

 For Further Reflection... and MVCC 2.1

Mobile access.  MVCC 1.0 was not designed for mobile use, but for PC access. I was not deliberately omitting that group, I simply did not design the course to be mobile friendly. The next iteration, then, will need to become mobile friendly...which means I need to become Canvas mobile app savvy.

Motivation.  These students were highly motivated and well matched spending equal mounts of time within Canvas, then branching out on their own to work on MVCC tasks. I am unable to determine however, whether this is connected to the gamified design, a strong sense of classroom community,  or to personal attitudes and behaviors. They all "strongly agreed"  with statements such as, "It  is important to me to be a good student," "I expect to work at studying in college," "I am committed to being an active participant in my college studies," "I find learning to be fulfilling, " "I allow sufficient time for studying," and "I feel really motivated to be successful in my college career." The connection between gamifying a course and motivation needs further exploration, so I plan to increase class size the next time this course is offered.

Pacing. This course required a lot of work on the students' parts, so I tried to be mindful of their time and build in some breathing spaces where they could work on their Experiences Paper and Video...but I evidently did not do a good job of explaining that to students as several remarked about uneven  pacing.  I will definitely look into this to see what I can do to improve pacing in MVCC 2.1.

Student interaction and sharing. The quality of the work I was reading was so good that I wanted them to share it with one another to increase opportunities for learning.  To do that, however, means requiring an additional assignment where they post and  share.  While useful in theory as a learning task, do I really want to increase the number of required tasks?  After all, they had 57 submissions in  the 15-week course. Perhaps I could add one final forum where they share an item they created during the semester, an item that makes them the most proud.

Experiences paper/video.  In this assignment students interviewed a faculty member teaching in  a transfer course,  a vocational-technical faculty member, and a staff member, shadowing all three and comparing and contrasting their experiences in working with students. Each student said they learned  a lot from this assignment and to be sure to include it....but next time I want to do  better job of integrating it within the specific modules.  I thought I did so this time, but I am sure this could always be done better. While the video quality was good, it was not as creative as I had hoped, so I want to delve into that area a little more.

Module design.  Module design is still little clunky to me and clutters up Canvas for the student.  Lacking the ability to create a module-within -a module  is somewhat problematic when trying to give students assignment choices and connect them to the gradebook and/or provide badges based on specific tasks, but I believe I have figured out a work around (playing with it this summer).  If it works as planned, I will log about this later.
 
I have truly enjoyed this journey into gamifying a class...and have already started gamifying another course for the upcoming fall and will begin tweaking MVCC 2.1 later this summer.

Game on!

Gamifying a course, phase 10: Student voices

Mid-semester and assessment time...

What do students think of this gamified course?

Just because I spent hours in planning, creating content, and designing does not mean it is a worthwhile learning experience for the students. In some instances I can even make a few mid-course corrections.

I needed input...and input now while students are immersed in the gamified content, not after the course is over (although I have a post assessment already designed, but more on that later).

What is working?  What isn't?  What do THEY think about this experience?

I created a google form to find out.

Here it is:



Fortunately, this is a small class which allows me to move quickly in responding to issues and making adjustments.  Unfortunately, this is a small class which means I do not have the luxury of a lot of feedback and voices...but I did learn quite a bit from this mid-point assessment.

Badges are good.

Students seem to like the badges.  One student responded,

I have to admit, when the little 'earned' thing pops up, I have a moment of happy! While I am not a "gamer" (I may be the ONLY person alive who has never played a computer game!), it adds a bit of fun to the completion of a module! I can't say that earning these badges motivates me, but it does serve to give me a feeling of confidence that I have completed all of the assignments in a given module. That sense of closure is reassuring, as I maneuver through the course!

 I like happy.  I can deal with that in a fully online class.

Another student offered the following:

I think that badges are really important in courses using gamification. For me, badges help me measure my progress and success in the course. They also keep me motivated to progress toward completion of a task or activity.

Badges may not motivate everyone. One student reported badges are "(k)ind of fun but not really a motivator for me. I am 100% intrinsically motivated!"

This group of students likes choices.

Overall, students enjoyed the opportunity to select an assignment that appealed to them. Most of them prefer 3 or 4 choices while one student opted for more choices.

During some "stops,"  students had, as one option, the opportunity to create their own task.  At this point no one had chosen that option so I asked for input as to whether or not to leave that in as an option. Their responses were interesting:

I haven't chosen this option just because I didn't feel I had the time to decide and then get the OK to go ahead. 

I love the opportunity to have four choices; the fact that I have not chosen to create one is only because the other choices were appealing and gave me a parameter to start from. I like the idea that if I have something that fits the overall goal but is not a stated choice that I could say to you, "Hey! How about THIS for my project?"

While I have not "created-my-own" activity, I think it could be structured as the only task in that category. Within the task of "Create-Your-Own", there could be some suggestions that students can pick from. While it is essentially the same as what is there now, instead of having 4 grade book blanks there could only be one... but still have a choice. 

Great food for thought!

Students appreciated having a pre-assessment determine their reading assignments.

 I am already considering one tweak based on these responses: 

I like the idea. I would just like to see my pre assessment again at this point for reference but it vanished. 

I enjoyed doing the pre-assessment (there were questions in there that had me completely flummoxed...such as the tribal college). Additionally, it gave me a sense of accomplishment when I would see that my experiences or knowledge "allowed" me to skip over readings. I generally looked at them, but there was an emotional "whew" at times that I appreciated!

I really like the pre-assessment. I felt like you were able to gauge some of what I already knew and I was able to focus on others where I could improve or learn more about. 

Students have mixed views regarding possible changes to organizing modules.

I toyed with the idea of making modules worth a specific set number of points and requiring everyone to do the reading and forum, then choose a combination of tasks to equal, say, 300 points. Those 300 points could be earned through one task or several in combination. I really liked this idea but could not figure out a way to do this in Canvas without it being cumbersome, but I thought I would ask the students for their thoughts...with some interesting results:

One student responded with a resounding, "That would just confuse me!"

Other responses were as follows:

Because you build these modules in such a way that they are clear and I am always able to understand what is required, I would say that creating a module that allows us to earn points in multiple ways would work...but only because you build them well. I like choices, and I feel that you give us a variety of options already!  

I like the idea of modules being worth a specific set of points and the student have options and choices to get to those points. That way a student can skip certain assignments that they feel comfortable with and work on assignments they feel they could learn more about a specific topic within a module. I think if this were an option, there would need to be lots of different opportunities within the modules so that they could complete assignments that will benefit them in their careers and where they need improvement.

 Hmmmmm... for right now, I will leave these modules pretty much as they are designed...at least I will table the idea of points per module coming from a variety of tasks...

The use VOKIs evoked (LOL) mixed responses.

Students either liked the VOKI and were considering using them in their own training... or they found them confusing at first.

When I asked for more open-ended input regarding the use of VOKI in general, the responses were more informative:

I don't mind them but I am not a huge learn by video person in general so they just seem like extra to me.  

I can't honestly say that they add or detract; I think that the concept of the tour guides through the campus was clever, but I can't imagine the work that went into creating all of these.

I like the different characters going through the different aspects of the community college. This is because in a community college, there are a lot of different faculty and staff members that we would meet as we start a job and it is more like what would happen when going to a new place to work. 

Interestingly enough, I provided transcripts for the VOKI that delivered content, thinking that some students may prefer to just read rather than listen and watch a VOKI. The transcripts seemed to not matter...perhaps I need to ask specifically as to whether or not they reviewed the transcripts and their preference. I create transcripts to create the VOKIs, so providing one is not any more time consuming as it is merely a link.

Again... much for me to ponder  . . . I need more information and to do more research regarding the use of VOKI...and gather more student input.

Students have great suggestions.

 I love suggestions!  I asked students  

What changes should I consider?  What should stay the same? Are there other topics that should be included? Omitted?

 And they responded as follows:

The only thing that I would like to have done at the beginning was to give a brief "bio" in the first post...although I feel I'm coming to know [the other students] a little better with each discussion module, I think it would be great if we were asked to give a short synopsis of ourselves so that we have a better understanding of who we are.

I think this is a great course and it is designed really well. The only thing that seems disconnected from the overall gamified course is the paper. Even though I know it is connected, I feel like it is almost a separate aspect of the course. Otherwise, I love the course and really feel like I have gained a lot out of it so far. 

I feel like two forums and an assignment are a lot of work for a week! 

I had already redesigned the course to address the last comment before they completed the assessment. I had one stop with two forums and an assignment, decided that was too much, and quickly reworked upcoming modules to avoid that pitfall.

 As to the bio.... I returned to their first forum which was part of attending their Staff Social where they were to meet one another (which seemed like years ago):

I like this task because it forces student to reflect and begin to integrate technology.  What I could d is make this a video post s they can see each other, they can identify their music and do that portion while presenting a brief bio... I need to think through this more and decide how married I am to the music post, but this is certainly worth considering. I love new ideas!

As to the Experiences Paper - I am unsure about that assignment as well. Earlier tasks allowed them to perform the various interviews to complete other tasks as we, reinforcing the idea of planning ahead and "working smart," but no one selected those tasks.Usually this course has a balance of community college staff and faculty, and they tend to be very "siloed" to the point of not really knowing the college from another group's viewpoint. This time I only had faculty members.  This paper is not due for another month so I will re-assess after they have completed that work and submitted it.... but a removal or tweaking of the assignment is certainly a possibility for Mountain View Community College, version 2.1.


Great feedback which I will definitely consider!

On to...Game Over. . . .

Gamifying a course, phase 9: Level up!

Level up!

Words to warm every gamer's heart.

What does the phrase mean, though?

Games have different types of levels. 

One type of level is mission-based where players progress from one level to the next as they move toward the end of the game.

Another type of level relates to the degree of difficulty  a player chooses when entering a game.

A third type is the level of experience and skills the player receives while playing the game.

Normally all three types of levels occur simultaneously as a player moves through a game. Players  complete a task and earn points.  Points lead to badges and placement on a leaderboard. Badges can represent levels of knowledge and skills gained, and leaderboards allow players to compare their standings in the game to others. A specific number of of points are usually accrued to change levels. 

OK, but why use levels?

In game design, levels help designers direct a player through the game, assisting the player in learning how to play the game and acquire the necessary skills to be successful in the game. In each level, the player accomplishes a small set of goals and when completed, moves to the next level. A well-designed progression of levels serves three purposes:

1. Each level helps the game's narrative - or story line - progress. As the player moves to a new level, new information unfolds, and that information is necessary for the player to move to the next level. Unfolding the information a little at a time leads to player buy-in, player engagement, as the narrative - or story line - unfolds at each level.
2. Players build and reinforce skills at each level. At the beginning of a game, players are taught how to navigate the game and what is important.  Although they typically learn one skill at  time,  players may progress through  practice levels where no new skills are added.
3. As players progress through levels, and the levels become more difficult, players are required to remember and use more of the skills they had learned earlier....just to advance. They may have to perform these skills more quickly or under greater pressure...and by the end of the game players are applying multiple skills learned from previous levels  in combination to win the game.

 Levels are not new to education.

Come on - as you read the previous section, if you have ever taught before, you were probably checking each item off in your head..yep...I do that....

Educators currently call this scaffolding....but it is similar to the use of levels:  We give students the basic skills they need to succeed in a course and provide them the opportunity to practice them until students demonstrate achievement. In some instances we have to break down a skill or topics into a series of smaller skills or topics, but these are all similar to students "leveling up."

Isn't that what graduation is?

Using levels in a gamified course is really very easy if the narrative is strong. 

Remember, the level relates to the narrative and needs to assist in the unfolding of the story to help motivate the players to continue to progress. The type of narrative depends on the audience, i.e, the learners. Designing a narrative of interest to the entire class is sometimes tricky as the designer considers previous backgrounds, age, motivation, and, well, the learner's needs! With adults, I tend to lean toward a work-based narrative, thinking they might feel a more practical approach is useful or more engaging than participating in wizarding challenges where different wizards use a different style of leadership in their battles. Hmmmm...some days THAT seems pretty realistic...

I digress....

So... the narrative needs to intertwine with the levels, and the levels need to help learners engage with the narrative...and the course.

What does integrating all three purposes of levels look like in a gamified course?

In this course, students had to complete some modules in a specific order to learn a skill set or knowledge set necessary to progress to the next level or piece of content. This means some modules had to be completed to unlock other modules.  Unlike in many games with a prescribed order of progression, I had specific pieces of information that needed to completed before specific modules, but as long as the skill set/knowledge set existed, the order of completion of the next few modules (or "stops" in this course) was not crucial. After all, I work with adult students, and adults need a little freedom to choose. Canvas made this easy to accomplish by allowing me to set module prerequisites and requirements of completion. Students could see an upcoming  module, but it was grayed out with the notice that it had a prerequisite. 

 Earlier tasks required more basic skill sets for completion and were worth fewer points.

Also key to developing the basic skills to navigate the course was the Virtual Coffees with me as I required to students to navigate the course with a me "peeking over their shoulder" through screensharing during a video conference. This way I could see what was giving them trouble and direct them in their navigating the course. the Virtual Coffee also allowed me to be understand how students viewed the course, giving me their valuable input.  For example, when a student logged in and I realized a VOKI played automatically and she had it turn it off before proceeding, I immediately made that fix as soon as our coffee was over.

Every "stop" along their tour (module) afforded students the opportunity to earn a badge (a level of sorts), and for FERPA reasons, I removed the leaderboard option.

The very act of accruing points and earning grades provides levels, and I created this grading scheme  (see left) in Canvas. As in games where levels come with names or titles, I wanted to emulate that in this gamified course, so I used such titles as Rising Star, Networking Specialist,  Adventurer, Explorer, and Apprentice to represents grade percentages of  B- through A.

In the actual course, students earned XP, however, with the total possible points available of 7,660 XP. When students select their view in grades they see the screen to the right.  Notice that this student is just less than halfway through the course as shown in points (actually in week 6 of a 15-week course). Notice that students have to toggle off the Calculate based only on graded assignments section to see their points earned and their current level...in this case the You can do this! level.

So far, all is well, and students are progressing and appear to be enjoying the course design, but they will have several opportunities to provide input on both their view of gamification in general and this course specifically.

Stay tuned! Next stop is to hear from the students themselves....

Gamifiying a course, phase 8: Oopsies!

Sometimes, things don't work.  It doesn't matter how much planning you do - some things just do not work out the same way you think they will work. 

While, overall, I feel the course is working, I wanted to share some Oopsies that have occurred.

Badges

I suppose this isn't really an OOPSIE, so to speak, just something I have noticed. Not everyone is intereted in picking up their badges. Although I could award them manually, I have decided to just montor and see what happens. It is not really that important that students pick up a badge, just more of a curiosity on my part. I will be surveying them about this at mid term.

Choices

So far, students are selecting different choices as they progress through their units, and I am enjoying reading their blog posts and briefs. It is interesting to note, however, that everyone has selected a specific topic, meaning they have avoided the "create-your-own" activity. I want to add that to the mid-curse assessment to see whyand whther to keep offering them or remove them.They do no harm, I suppose, by keeping them in, but they may not be necessary.

MasteryPaths

 MasteryPaths is a new feature in Canvas. ...and I am an early adapter. :-)

For those of you who use Canvas in a classroom or training setting, you cannot really use masterypaths until a class in published....  and, what I have just learned....if someone adds the class after the paths have been created, the paths disappear....and when one path s not assigned to anyone, it takes over and reassigns itself!



This was brought home to me through an email from a student:

" Hi Molly,
I was just a bit confused on this one. There are three ACCESS Resources "assignments." I got a pass on the first one (which is actually 03). Then a partial pass on the second one, needing to read chapters 4-5 but no articles. Then on the third one (which is actually 01), it repeats that I have to read chapters 4-5 and now also have to read 3 articles, which are the same articles that were optional before. So I am just curious what it's doing?"

Good question!

When I checked her mastery path, all three reading assignments were linked to her, instead of of just 02. I know that wasn't correct because I remember checking - painstakingly checking - each student's pathway. to make sure each student had only one reading assignment per topic.

Alas....

So... after scoring the pre-assessment, I created a card with scores and used that to map out each student's MasteryPath. That worked well until I added our L-R instructional Designer, Jenny, as a student, to do some troubleshooting and to share my experiment.  Jenny and I have dreams of one day teaching a course in Gamification for Business and Education, but I digress.

Adding Jenny disrupted the flow..... MasteryPath grew confused because it had a student who was not tagged in anything.... so it gave folks what it wanted them to do. Reading Resources that I had not assigned to anyone suddenly became assigned to everyone.  I have since gone back in and assigned all of those to Jenny, the student...sorry, Jenny!

Next time I will know to create a dummy student  - no offense meant - and assign all of the leftover assignments to him or her.

Voki

VOKI started as a good idea and something a little different, but they began to take on a life of their own. I quickly earned to provide a transcript for those VOKI who delivered content, thinking that not everyone might want to learn through listening. While time-consuming to produce, they are easier than other ways to deliver instruction and to help provide a framework within a gamified course..

But...they  become obnoxious... I had one on the Home Page to introduce the course. Great in theory!In reality, every time the course opened, the VOKI started talking.   I quickly grew tired of this and turned it into a link that students needed to click to view...I did wait, however, until I was sure everyone had the opportunity to view her, but I am convinced she was obnoxious just the same.

Originally each VOKI was a separate tour guide serving just to escort students to the next stop, but then, the VOKI  wanted more involvement. I think they called the VOKI UNION on me and demanded equal time....Any way, they became interesting ways to deliver content, as long as I also provide a transcript.

Conclusion?

To the best of my knowledge, there are no more "sudden learnings" or oopsies at this point of the semester although I am sure they are not over :-) Students will be competing a quick survey in a few weeks, and I will share those results at that time.

Meanwhile..happy gaming, y'all!

Next in this journey is... Level up!

Gamifying a course, phase 7: Fat points

One aspect of gamifying a course includes the use of points. Let’s  consider points and assignment values……and something referred to as fat points.

The majority of my personal academic experiences have been with assignments worth 100 points and adding up to 100 points.  That is just the way it was.  A 100-point essay that took me 20 hours to craft was worth the same number of points as a 100-point quiz.   Now, weight might have been different, but points were the same. Let’s shift to classes based on 100 points, making some assignments worth 3 points, another 7 points, and so forth, totaling 100 by the end of the course. An assignment worth 3 points does not sound that important to me, and as a busy adult with a lot of commitments, I may well choose to ignore a 3 point assignment, no matter useful that assignment may have been. Also, many courses start with 100 points, and student grades drop as the course progresses…..almost counter intuitive with regards to learning and performing.

Is it possible that I am the only one who feels that way? 

Evidently not.

When attending a Teaching Professor Technology Conference several years ago,  I heard Dr. Tom Heinzen speak about fat points and grading. I have pondered this topic and how to integrate it into my courses ever since, and I have found it both useful for me and and more descriptive for my students, resulting in higher quality projects.

http://www.gbelabs.com/projects-1/2016/7/13/fat-points

Heinzen, et al., (2014) suggest that grading schemes really do matter to students. These researchers discovered that students  view fractions as an unfair grading scheme, focusing on the distribution of effort required by the grading scheme. At the same time, these same students viewed a course with 10,000 points as fair.

Huh.

Just a cursory glance at Heinzen's results to the left shows us that  students equate points with fairness.

It appears as though we have an issue with numbers, or, in this instance, points. faculty trained on a 100-point system might want to consider other ways to reward  and assess students, emphasizing the importance of a project. I am not sure that weighting assignments delivers the true importance of a task, particularly if every task is scored on a 100-point scale. Game designers have taken advantage of this to motivate game players to engage in meaningless tasks…just to earn points. The most time-consuming the task (or level of difficulty), the higher the points earned.

Why do people spend so much time playing a game, just to get a good score? According to Schell (2015), games become "structures of judgement and people want to be judged" (220).  People want to be judged favorably, however, and rewards are a way of demonstrating to the player how well they have done.

Points matter.

Points are rewards.

We like rewards, and businesses have been rewarding us for decades. Remember Cracker Jack?  Each box has a toy inside...a reward... I remember as a teenager  filling  up my car at a local gas station, making sure that I would be able to pump at least 8 gallons in the tank to receive a free glass to complete a set that I was working on. Our Ingles grocery stores offer points based on purchase dollars. These points can then be used  - in increments of 100 - to  purchase gas at a discount of 5 cents per 100 points. You can believe that we schedule our shopping and gas pump visits to coincide.  Why pay an additional 40 cents per gallon when you don't have to?

We like rewards. Points are rewards.

After reading the above mentioned research and that by Schell (2015), I no longer base my courses or assignments on 100 points.  Each assignment is worth a specific number of points based on the  complexity and estimated length of time needed to complete tasks within the project. Effort and doubt also play in assigning a point value.  I see complexity as what students to have to “figure out”  in an assignment. I know they can solve the problem and complete the task. Students may also have a feel for how they will approach the task, but they still will need to figure it out….and that will take some time and thinking.  Effort is the sheer amount of work that students need to do to complete the assignment. Doubt comes into play  with regards to student perceptions of the difficulty of an assignment as they may doubt their ability to complete the assignment.

So, the more complex the assignment, the more effort required, the more thought needed….the higher the point value. One such assignment in this gamified course is their Experiences Paper, worth  1000 points. Students complete three interviews, 3 shadowing experiences, transcribe each interview, analyze their findings  thematically, integrate peer-reviewed research, reflect upon their experiences and lessons learned, and compile this into a qualitative research paper. Surely this much effort is worth more than 100 points!

I equate a day's worth of time (8 hours) to 200 points, so a 1000 points assignment, to me, requires approximately 40 hours of work o the students' part.  this includes every single task, from identifying the interviewees, the sending emails to arrange the interviews,  writing drafts, revising drafts...and so forth.

Blog posts requiring students synthesize research to support their approach are worth 250 points as they had to identify their topic, locate peer-reviewed research, read  and evaluate the research, then craft a solid blog post demonstrating best practices of blogging.

So, how does this work in a gamified course based on experience points (XP)? Howe does this work in Canvas?

Just as various game tasks earn points, so do various course tasks.

In some instances, students earn points for messaging me the names and titles of their interviewees. I set this up as an assignment worth 50 points (allotting for their identifying three different interviewees EARLY in the assignment) in Canvas. Reading assignments are also worth 50 points, and students submit a message to me as well to earn those points.

While I do use Assignment Groups I do not assign points to the groups, only to the individual assignments. The gradebook function is set to "treat ungraded as 0," and student pathways show number of XP they have earned....and their next steps to earning more.

At the midpoint of the semester, I plan to survey students regarding points, badges, pathways and such for feedback, so more on that later...

What's next?  Oopsies in course design....

References

Heinzen, T. Salazar, A., Shipway,B., Kim, T. & Paterson, W. (2014). Fat points and game mechanics (When the points don't matter, they really do). Paper presented at the 2nd Annual CUNY Games Festival Conference, CUNY Graduate Center, NY.

Schell, J. (2015). The art of game design: A book of lenses, (2nd ed.)NY: CRC Press

Gamifying a course, phase 6: Early Weeks

All right...the game's a foot!

I wanted to share how the first few weeks of class are going . . . .

The students seem to be navigating the course well and are scheduling their first video conference with me, but  the Voki providing the Course Overview on the home page annoys me! Every time I log in, Voki begins speaking automatically, making me race to cut it off.  Now that everyone has logged into the course, I am assuming they have heard the course overview, so I have changed this to a link and rearranged the home page to include a banner as follows:

 Badge Report

One student completed the Social Butterfly Badge from Staff Social before class officially started, and the others completed it within the first week of class.  In one instance the module was completed but the student did not "pick up" the badge. To fix this, as soon as I see that a student has completed a module, I send a quick email to remind them to pick up their badge. This seems to help speed the process. After the one reminder, they are now picking up badges regularly.

The tasks to complete the Orientation Badge took much longer to complete than I expected.  Although the module was completed within the first 10 days of class, some students waited to pick up their badges  That is not really a big deal as I can award them once I see they have completed the module, but this does reinforce some of the research regarding external and internal motivation described later in this post.

I needed the pre-assessment results  as soon as possible, and the students, thankfully, obliged. The main holdup was one i did not foresee although I should have. Students had 3 forums to complete, and all three forums required they respond to each other as art of their grade. Students who posted in a forum quickly had to wait for their classmates to post so they could respond. As completing the Orientation Module unlocked the remaining modules or stops on their tour, this requirement slowed down students who wanted to work ahead.When I saw that a student had completed every item in the Orientation but was waiting on classmates, I messaged the student, telling them I would grade their forum post now to allow them to go on, but they needed to remember to return later to respond to their classmates. I later had to send a reminder message, but the students took care of this immediately after that.

Earning the next badge, the silver Student Expert Badge, went much more smoothly and quickly. The 2nd stop on their tour of Mountain View Community College opened with  their tour guide, Elizabeth providing some demographics on community college students in general while escorting them to the Student Lounge where they met several other community college students and watched their videos. Other activities  for this badge included reviewing a fact sheet provide by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), readings, a forum post with responses to classmates, and an overview of the 4 Options : Choose 1 assignment that connects to the gold Student Expert Badge.

Ah...time to level up! The Gold Student Expert Badge is awarded to those who complete one of the 4 options with a score  of 230 /250. These tasks were completed on time, and students provided excellent submissions. These were so well done that I wish I had considered including ways for them to share them with one another, perhaps in a forum where they could review and comment.  I hate to create more work for them, but learning from sharing is invaluable...More on that later.

Due Dates

I like using due dates as I feel it helps students keep on track and mirror the importance of deadlines in the workplace. I have never thought to ask students, however, for their thoughts. Experience has shown me that when an assignment lacks a due date, some students procrastinate..and when no or few due dates are used, those students tend to drop further and further behind, sometimes making it difficult to catch up. For the time being, due dates stay, but I will ask current students for their input on this topic. These current students have strong time management skills, but I am sure they have some useful insight to share.'

Pre-Reqs or Not?

When the course first opened, the Staff Social was a pre-req to the Orientation, and the Orientation unlocked all remaining stops along the tour.  My thought was to allow students to look ahead to better manage their time.

One student, however, was in the 2nd stop and had completed her initial forum post when I noticed she had jumped ahead to the readings in 3rd stop, Faculty Lounge. I checked the forum, and she was obviously waiting for others to post so she moved ahead.  When I contacted her about this to see if all was well, she explained that she had a brief window of time to work that evening and wanted to accomplish a short task. The other task on her list was a blog post, and she did not feel as though she had enough time to start and finish that task that evening, but she could complete the readings in the next stop. This makes perfect sense to me as I want to encourage students to take control of their learning and make choices that benefit them the most.

I decided to ask the other students their thoughts regarding  module pre-reqs, locks, and such. After all, it is their course and their learning experience. Results were interesting, offering more perspectives I had not considered.  While they reported understanding the value of pre-reqs and locking/unlocking modules, they also appreciated the freedom to work ahead and select tasks that fits within their personal time frame.

I respect that.

One suggestion was to look at a module/stop and see if knowledge form a preceding module/stop was necessary to understanding and completing that series of tasks. This way, some modules would unlock immediately, and others unlock through progression.

I like this! Students still have some flexibility yet can see the requirements and view what still needs to be completed to unlock specific stops. Canvas is a big help here. Students can easily see when a module is locked and what they need to complete to unlock it.  Yay, Canvas!

Screenshot of a locked module in Canvas

 

Learning through Sharing

The quality and creativity of student work never ceases to amaze me. It is often of such high quality that I wish I had thought to provide a vehicle for them to share their work with one another. Reading and commenting upon each other's blog posts and reviewing  other projects are such good learning tools. For example, for the Student Expert gold Badge, one student designed an orientation course for her culinary arts program, a course designed to address barriers to success and access for her students. What a great project and worthy of sharing!

I could, of course, have projects submitted to me for their grade and then ask students to post them in a forum for review, but that gets repetitive.  I need to experiment with other ways to encourage them to learn through sharing.

Discussion

Badges.  Badges are a component of game mechanics (Kim, 2015; Robson, et al., 2015) with several purposes. Possibly the most obvious function of badges is as a goal-setting device: goals keep us focused on what we need to achieve, and badges challenge us – i.e. give us the extra motivation – to complete the actions.

Goal setting is most effective when learners can see their progress towards the goal. Ideally I would like to award points along with badges to help push learners over the threshold of their current ‘level’ of achievement and ‘level up’. I am not sure, however, if Badgr and Canvas will let me do this. (A good reason to do another IM with Canvas support.)

There’s plenty of research to show that setting goals motivates us to achieve them, and in fact it is often thought that the fun and interest of goal seeking is the reward, rather than the badge. In this case, the badge merely directs the leaner in the correct direction.

Social Presence.  Best practice in online instruction stress the importance of social presence (Bird, 2007; Garrison, 2007; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). Students demonstrate social presence when they project themselves as real people within a community, establishing personal and purposeful relationships. A key point here is for students to recognize they are not here purely for social reasons, but to interact with common purpose for the sake of inquiry. Students need to feel secure to communicate openly and to create cohesion. Swan and Shih (2005) found that group cohesion is significantly related to social presence and perceived learning outcomes. Richardson and Swan (2003) go on to connect social presence with student and instructor satisfaction with and perceptions of a course. Social presence in online discussions has even been identified as a predictor of academic performance and can be used as early detection for students at risk of failing an online course (Joksimovic, Gasevic, Kovanovic, Riecke, & Hatala, 2015).

Integrating opportunities for students to engage and interact with one another  is an important component of online instruction instruction as well as gaming (Ekman, et al., 2012), so I tried to provide such opportunities in this gamified course. The problem that has arisen, however, is that requiring students to respond to one another within the forums definitely enhances social presence, yet slows down student progress toward module completion.  Students need to wait for one another to post before they can respond.

I need to find a way to balance social presence with student need to move at one's own rate.

Differentiated Pathways.  The pre-assessment allows me to begin to differentiate learning in this course although not nearly to the extent that I would like to do. In an ideal world with 15 students in this course, I could actually differentiate more. I strongly feel that students learn a great deal from one another as they read, reflect,and discuss, and doing this creates social presence.  Students who already possess quite a bit of knowledge regarding one area could assist their classmates in their learning. If they are allowed to skip topics entirely, then remaining students may miss out on this expertise.

Couple this with the goal of making sure students become familiar with the peer-reviewed research and are able to use it as support....and I have a conundrum. Pre-assessment scores should be kept confidential, so I cannot really tell those students who already possess a great deal of knowledge on a topic that they do not have to integrate research into their response. that would signal their scores to their classmates. I suppose I would have to give up requiring the integration of peer-reviewed research on some discussions..... More food for thought...

Another part of differentiated learning is assignment choice. I want them to choose what benefits them, what challenges them, and would like to provide more choices. MasteryPaths will allow me to individualize assignments, and I can envision ways of incorporating this, but I want it to be meaningful and not busy work.

Ah...the joys of instructional design . . .  up next is Fat Points. . . .

References

Bird, N. (2007). The 3C design model for networked-collaborative e-learning: A tool for novice designers. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(2), 153-167.  

Ekham, I., Chanel, G.,  Jarvela, S., Kivikangas, J. M., Salminen, M., & Ravaja, N. (2012). Social interaction in games: Measuring physiological linkage and social presence. simulation & gaming, 43(3), 321–338.

Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61-72.

Garrison, D. R. Anderson, T, & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education 2(2–3), 87–105.

Joksimovic, S., Gasevic, D., Kovanovic, V., Riecke, B. E. & Hatala, M. (2015). Social presence in online discussions as a process predictor of academic performance. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 31, 638-654.  

Kim, B. (2015). Designing gamification in the right way. Library Technology Reports 51(2), 29-35.

Robson, K., Plangger, K., Kietzmann, J. H., McCarthy, I., & Pitt, P. (2015). Is it all a game? Understanding the principles of gamification. Business Horizons, 58, 411-420.

Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students’ perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(1), 68-83.

Swan, K. & Shih, L. F. (2005, October). On the nature and development of social presence in online course discussions. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 9(3). Retrieved from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v9n3/pdf/