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A Course Is Not a Game, Even If It Is Gameful

Gamification gets no respect - or, at least, not much respect. Most teachers still say that "learning shouldn't be a game." Some even say "learning shouldn't be fun." But gamification isn't about making coursework a game as much as it is using game tools and strategies in learning.

A wise conference presenter once told me that, "If your faculty are opposed to gamification, call it 'simulations.' They understand those and it's easier to get grants for them."

Whether or not that is true, using gaming techniques in higher education has arrived. Simple game tools like the use of points, missions, badges and leaderboards can be effective, especially in online environments.

Much of the research into gaming theory or "gamification" in education centers on trying to increase student engagement and motivation. It's tempting to think that the student who can't focus on an assignment for 20 minutes, but who can play a videogame for 4 hours straight, might be more engaged in an assignment that is more like that game.

What if the classroom was more like a video game? A professor at the University of Michigan is using gaming to develop GradeCraft. It is a learning-management system that lets instructors organize their courses in a “gameful” way.

One gaming technique it uses is allowing students to choose their own path through a course, selecting the assignments that interest and challenge them. 

Most courses don't offer chances to make mistakes without penalties. Yes, games have penalties too, but in most games risks don’t come with serious consequences. It is more likely that you will have to repeat a level. In other words, you learn by practicing, revising and trying again.




Competency and Mastery: Part 2 - How to Measure It

measuring tapeYesterday, I was writing about differentiating mastery and competency in the light of movements such as competency-based education and degree programs.

The Mozilla Open Badge project and other initiatives have tried to standardize the use of badges for documenting learning. I like the idea but I don't see that badges have made any serious entry into educational institutions.

Badges have been used to mark what a person knows or what they can do. Proponents say using them is more student-centered and more about real student learning. It's certainly more real than using seat time and time on task as a measurement. Because a student has completed 9 credits hours proves nothing, and more often we hear that employers also question that getting an "A" grade for those 9 credits also doesn't prove any mastery or competency. Enter competency-based or evidence-based approaches to learning.

I still think about the merit badges I earned in scouting when this topic comes up. The badges were extrinsic motivators and they worked for me and most of my fellow scouts. You wanted to get them. I liked the ceremonial awarding of them at meetings and the recognition. My mom and my "den mother" were pretty conscientious about signing off that I had completed the requirements to earn them. But much of the work I had to do was on the "honor system" and I'm sure I cut corners on some things and got away with it.

If I earned a badge for "climbing" (as in rock and mountains), would you say I was competent at the sport? Would you say I had mastered it? I don't think I'd be comfortable saying either one of those things. I had learned about it and I had done some actual activities involved with it. I had not mastered it and I'm not sure a real climber would say I was competent enough to do it on my own or very seriously.

As Bernard Bull and others have pointed out, this same critique can be leveled at letter grades. Do both make school about "earning instead of learning?"

We also associate badges with video games and in the gamification of learning, they play an important role. In the pure gaming environment, earning badges, points, power pills, or whatever tokens are given sometimes does take precedence over learning. Then again, some games aren't much interested in learning.

It's better to think of badges as markers, milestones of progress rather than as a goal. 

The Mozilla project and others have tried to give more trust in badges as credentials and educational currency. Education has always valued tests, scores and credits as evidence of learning even though we have been arguing about it for hundreds of years and continue to do so.

If the organization awarding the badge is credible, then the real concern is what evidence is being used to determine the completion. As with the goals and objectives we now hold as important in schools, some things are more easily measured.

Want to earn the "Miler" badge? Then run a mile in under 5 minutes and have it verified by the teacher or coach. Want to earn the "Team Player" or "Leadership" badges? Then... play on a team... be the captain...  Hmmm. Those are tougher things to measure.

Students, teachers and schools have talked for a long time about trying to get away from a reliance on just grades, but grades persist. Portfolio assessment and other movements have made a dent in some instances, but the quantifiable test score still wins the day. That stopwatch on the mile runner is easily validated. Today there is more testing and data being used and more complaints about its use.

Learning Beyond Letter Grades was a course offered last year that examined why so many schools use and rely on letter grades. "Where did they come from? What do they tell us and fail to tell us about the learners? What is the relationship between letter grades, student learning, and assessment?" That's a lot to ask in a six-week course, but it comes from this desire many of us have to consider authentic and alternative assessments, peer assessment, self-assessment and badges.

Some badges set an expiration date, meaning the badge bearer will need to return for more training or provide updated evidence to keep the badge.  That's an idea from the world of professional development, licensing and credentials. If you earned a computer programming or phlebotomy badge in 2001, should it still be valid today? Perhaps not.

Perhaps the most difficult hurdle in launching a competency or mastery-based program might be how to assess/validate learning. We have been hitting that one back and forth for centuries.

Badges

I have been hearing about badges for showing learning progress for years, but I don't think they have yet to make significant inroads in education.They are often included in discussions of lifelong learning, MOOCs and alternative education. It is not surprising that they are part of discussion on the gamification of courses and education.

When I first heard about them at a conference, they were compared to the badges in Boy and Girl Scouting. You earn badges by mastering a specific set of skills. But the better comparison is to video gaming where they have long been used as a way to mark achievement. Called a badge or trophy, badge, stamp, medal or challenge, in many games they mark the achievement of a "meta-goal" that is outside the confines of the game environment and architecture. You may "unlock" an achievement, but that guarantee winning the game or even future achievement.

In education, or more accurately "learning," badges are being seen as one way to open up new pathways for learning. For MOOCs and other lifelong learning opportunities, badges are a way for learner who are not necessarily going to college to show achievement, competence and progress.

This year the MacArthur Foundation showcased winners of its Badges for Lifelong Learning competition who had been awarded $2 million worth of development grants last year.

This summer the city of Chicago announced that badging would be a key component of its Summer of Learning program, which is being called the largest citywide learning campaign in the country.

The Mozilla Foundation has been developing and testing its Open Badges Infrastructure for about two years. We know the Mozilla Foundation more as the maker of the Firefox web browser, but their efforts are often pointed to as something that could have a big impact on the acceptance of digital badging. They have focused a lot of their efforts at K-12 education because educators at that level have proved to be open to badging.

HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) administered the MacArthur competition which focused on digital badges which was cosponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation. Almost a hundred competitors entered and they were given resources for the development of badge-related content by Intel, Microsoft, NASA, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the 4-H Council, among others.
Employers are interested in badges as a way to rate potential employees and a way to mark professional learning/development for active employees.

As with MOOCs, the key to badge success will be the acceptance of a standardized, certified badge system by employers and schools as a credentials for advancement.

We're not there yet, but Dr. Bernard Bull blogged this month about an online master’s degree in educational technology that is built around competency-based digital badges. He writes about the degree that:

"As of August 2014, Concordia University Wisconsin is offering the first (to the best of my knowledge). That means that you earn your master’s degree along with a series of digital badges, each of which represent new knowledge and skill that you are developing as you work through the courses and program. This also means that you are gaining new micro-credentials (digital badges) even before you finish a full course. These are credentials that you can display online as evidence of your growing competence and perhaps your qualification for a new position for your current employer, or evidence of your skill for that future dream job."

Quest-Based Learning

Perceval and the quest for the Grail


Quest-based learning (QBL) is an instructional theory that uses elements of game design and learning communities to support student choice while still operating within the context of a standards-based curriculum. Many educators and many schools at all levels are uncomfortable moving away from a top-down approach to information acquisition. So, QBL may bee seen as moving out of many comfort zones.

Some game-based feedback tools - not games - like experience points, progress bars, badges, and achievements are motivating and meaningful to students.

Rather than design courses via textbook learning and lectures, QBL classes require students to select quests and progress at their own pace through a series of educational activities. This may remind educators of project-based learning or problem-based learning, but the unique element is the self-selection part of the design.

Quests are often online learning activities that address the core of the subject matter. These might be an audio podcast, a short video or collaborating online with classmates in discussion or composing.

For me, the most important thing is not putting the quest-based learning label on the pedagogy, but the inclusion of the QBL elements in course design.

In a white paper by Chris Haskell (Boise State University), he explains that QBL lesson design "focuses on an individualized and flexible curricular experience. In QBL, students can select activities, called quests, rather than assignments in a fixed linear order. Students leverage choice to promote engagement rather than waiting for a due date.”

Hands might be raised immediately to question how autonomy over what and when to learn would have any effect on academic achievement. Haskell and a colleague implemented an experimental QBL curriculum with pre-service teacher candidates in 2010 and they found “93% of students using this approach reached the winning condition, described as receiving a course grade of ‘A’ . . . the average completion time was reduced from 16 weeks to 12 ½ weeks with one student completing [the course] in just four.”

It's interesting that this experiment started in higher ed and is being moved down to K-12, since much innovation in teaching and pedagogy moves up from the lower grade levels.

Will this quest lead to a holy grail for teaching? No. There is no grail. It's all in the journey.

This post also appears at Ronkowitz LLC