Gamification - Analytical Exercises
Design Pattern Tags : Active learning, Gamification
Gamification - Analytical Exercises December 2015
Gamification - Analytical Exercises enables students to cooperate in teams and combine individual assessment scores of the weekly tutorial analytics tasks and discussion activities in an online leaderboard. The leaderboard indicates the progress towards certain benchmarks and enables the tracking of completed activities.
Rationale The aim of the leaderboard is to motivate students; to set goals; work in teams and build communities.
Learners/Context Gamification - Analytical Exercises compare students’ progressive assessment tasks which can be plotted and connected to individual and group contribution. Leaderboards can be used to show team scores within a tutorial class, between different tutorial class sum, averages and/or the scores of students across campuses.
Alignment Gamification - Analytical Exercises gives students the opportunity to analyse their understanding and knowledge acquisition in a cooperative environment.
Instructions/Processes Pre-session
Prepare the shell for the spreadsheet, the badges and leaderboard. These will need to be available to students and tutors in the course resources in Blackboard.
Link or attach relevant resources and support material – references, curriculum, Blackboard sites (links and/or screenshots), storyboards, graphics, videos, interviews, podcasts, URLs and other documentation.
Decide whether to employ a 3rd party leaderboard app such as Oscelot Project's Blackboard compatible leaderboard or to build a Google based RMIT resource. There is no leaderboard tool currently available in the Blackboard (Bb) suite. It is listed as an upcoming design enhancement.
Design the badges and add into the Blackboard Achievements for the tutor to assign. Some recommended badges are listed in the resources/technology section.
Decide on the timeline for the leaderboard to be released during the course.
Enable Bb Achievements in the student profile pages.
Assign students to team assignment and notify students of their teams.
In Session
Ensure students are aware of their team in the first tutorial.
Each week, display the leaderboard in class and make badges/award announcements when appropriate.
Enter into the leaderboard spreadsheet and displayed online team results. Badges will be assigned by tutors and appear in the leaderboard for the team and in the Blackboard Achievements for each team.
Optionally, ask students to design or propose new and additional badges for the second half of the course to maintain interest and motivation and to create a space for participatory design, ownership and feedback on the gamified system.
At the end of semester, offer a final badge or level to acknowledge student successes/excellence.
EXTENSION
Simultaneous parallel campuses course can compete against each other. Team competition is effective in recognising each individual’s contribution without divulging individual student grades. Aside from driving individual excellence this kind of competition can give rise to voluntary mentoring, encouragement and coaching by students within a team.
Beyond points, badges would give additional goals for student achievement. For instance a badge for a team where all members scored above a certain grade or a badge for most consistently high scoring team can further encourage collaboration while further celebrating quality student work.
Conditions/Critical Success Factors Knowledge of rolling leaderboards.
Knowledge of Blackboard’s Grade Centre
A well planned competition reset at different stages of the course could further motivate student to achieve with the change of topic.
The most effective leaderboards show team scores (the mean or sum) rather than individual completed ranking. Badges can be displayed in the Achievements in Blackboard. Leaderboards are not available at this time.
Resources/ Technology Related Patterns
