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