[game_edu] curious

[Tom Toynton]

I have been refining a positive feedback point system with levels and
achievements in my introductory course for the past 2 years, and am working
on implementing it into the Capstone experience for the coming year. I have
used it at various levels of complexity with some excellent results, but
find that excessive game vocabulary creates a large barrier of entry for
non-game dev students. This is an issue since my intro course is also taken
by other majors for 'arts as catalyst' gen ed requirements. That will change
in a couple of years, but for now I have to keep it scaled back to help all
students with their understanding of the course structure. (e.g. last fall I
renamed all of the resource and discussion areas in Blackboard to things
like The Town Crier, The Great Library, The Bard's Tavern, etc, and some
non-game students really struggled remembering what was what. It essentially
breaks the basic rule of interface design and forces the user to relearn the
interface - which can be overwhelming to some of our students. If I keep the
names standard to what other courses use, it frees up the students to focus
on understanding the point system and other course changes - which is
already a big leap for many of them.)

My one major change to what Sheldon is doing is the number of points in the
system. Studies in the Psychology of motivation suggest that people place
more value on higher numbers. So doing an assignment that is worth 5 points
out of a total of 100 is deemed less valuable that doing an assignment that
is worth 500 out of a total of 10000 - even though the relative values are
exactly the same. And although I don't have any quantitative proof (outside
of my fiddling with the numbers over 4 semesters), I believe there are
diminishing returns on any number over 1,000. So I now build all of my
assignments around a point system that ranges from 250-1000, with some very
special assignments/experiences worth as much as 1,500 out of a total of
30,000. But even these numbers aren't final, and I plan on lowering them a
bit more for next fall and see how it works out.

One cautionary tale I would like to share about using a points system:
The first semester I tried mimicking standard RPG level progression. So
students leveled up quickly in the beginning, and slowed down as they
climbed higher in level. That definitely didn't work well, as students
thought they were doing really well in the beginning even if they weren't
doing all of the assignments, and then got frustrated with their slowed
progress towards the end of the class. So I now keep it extremely simple,
for them and myself, and make it 1 level per 1,000 experience for every
level.

As for teaching gamification, it is a small part of the serious games
section of my intro course, and will be covered in more detail in the
special topics "Serious Games" course that is running in the fall. But that
is it. On the experiential side the most I do is give students the
opportunity to suggest changes to the gamification of the intro course
during the last week of class for bonus experience.

Outside of my classes, I know of one two-year program that is doing
something phenomenal. It is at Camden County CC in New Jersey, and the
program is run by Ryan Morrison from Island Officials. The points and
leveling up system happens throughout the entire two years in all game
courses, and during graduation the students are called up for their diploma
not only by their major, but also by their class and level. This should be
the first year that students graduate this way, and I am excited to hear how
it goes. Getting buy-in by the administration for such a major change is
really impressive. I know my college would never go for it. But can you
imagine the college dean calling students up... "Kate Smith, Associates in
Applied Science, Game Design and Development, and 19th Level Sorceress!" How
cool is that?!

Cheers,
Tom

Tom Toynton
  Assistant Professor of 
     Game Development 
  Faculty Advisor for 
     Alpha Chi
  Bloomfield College
  467 Franklin Street
  Bloomfield, NJ 07003

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-----Original Message-----
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Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:49:16 -0400
From: Susan Gold <goldfile at gmail.com>

Do you know of examples in education using gamification as incentives or
grading? Of course I already know of Lee Sheldon's example but am looking
for others. Also, has anyone added sections on gamification to their
courses? 

Thanks in advance,

Susan