This session shares how a gamified, narrative-based approach and metaphors were implemented in an undergraduate online asynchronous multidisciplinary capstone course. To motivate students and create situational interest, narrative and metaphors were used to reflect core course tasks. The overarching metaphor used throughout the course was Scaling the Summit.
The capstone experience is a hallmark of every curriculum or degree program. Students are required to demonstrate their mastery of the knowledge and skills in the content area. Capstone experiences are typically designed as projects that encourage students to synthesize knowledge from multiple courses in the program, engage higher-order thinking skills, negotiate strategies to complete the project (individually or in teams) and employ their creativity to design a solution to the problem posed in the capstone project description. So, a key question for the designers of online learning environments is how to conceptualize and implement an online capstone experience that will both engage the learners in a real-world problem-solving context and help instructors and educational administrators produce data that captures each student’s ability to synthesize and apply the knowledge and skills as evidence of their competencies in the program.
One approach that holds promise regarding both these aspects of designing online capstone experiences is gamification of learning using an engaging narrative that situates learning in a context that students may encounter in the real world. Gamification refers to “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts” (Deterding, Sicart, Nacke, O’Hara, & Dixon, 2011, p. 10). Common examples of game elements are narrative/story, missions, leaderboards, badges, levels, and so on. Gamification is hypothesized by many to positively impact student course interest, motivation, satisfaction, and engagement in a variety of contexts (Werbach & Hunter, 2020). Gamification literature calls for researchers to look beyond the mere pointification (i.e., the use of only inclusion of leaderboards, badges, and points, Seaborn & Fels, 2015) in educational research. Some of the game elements that literature urges researchers to explore are narrative/story and quests/missions, which are typically used together (Huang, 2020; Ritzhaupt, 2021). When employing the game element “quests/missions,” the learning environment is meaningfully chunked into smaller units/challenges comprised of learning activities that students need to complete. The game element “narrative/story” explains how “quests/missions” unfold in the learning environment and provides context to the course goals and mission/quest objectives. Key to gamification are design metaphors to motivate students and create situational interest that drives them to engage in higher-order thinking during their learning experience. Importantly, these metaphors must reflect the nature of the processes students have to follow to complete the project.
Guided by the research on narrative and missions in gamified education, our team of subject matter experts, instructional designer, graphic designers, and video editors conceptualized, designed, and created an online capstone project in a bachelor’s digital arts and sciences program. The overarching metaphor used to engage learners in the senior project was Scaling the Summit.
The course is a shell for 3 tracks (courses): (a) Experience Design and Production, (b) Animation, and (c) Games. After enrolling in the course, students choose one of these tracks and commit to it. The course employs metaphors and a narrative-based approach to presenting content and introducing activities. The story is presented primarily via module intro videos and names for different course activities. The course theme is Ascent: The 3 teams (tracks) are to ascend a mountain (i.e., complete their senior project). Their journey is broken down into 5 main sections: Trek In (Course Orientation), Ascents 1-3, and Summit. Summit is the culmination of the final Ascent that signifies reaching the top of the mountain. As students are ascending the mountain, the environment and challenges change from mild to more challenging.
Each Ascent (or Unit) begins with a brief introductory video in which the climbers’ guides (instructors) set the tone for the Ascent.
After studying the Climbing Guide (Learning Resources), students complete the Safety Check (Quiz) to ensure that they have and know everything they need for a successful climb. If students need help with their tasks, they can visit the Help Station (Unit Help Forum).
The next step is to complete the Climbs (Lessons/Activities). Each Climb corresponds to one week and consists of a Check-In (assignment), and a “Campfire” (a discussion where students share their progress and give feedback to each other). At the end of the Ascent, the guide (instructor) of each track provides cumulative feedback for the entire Ascent for each climber (student). This feedback is in addition to the feedback that students receive after completing each Check-In and Campfire discussion.
Each module’s introductory video is different for each track and for each module and shows the track that the student is on and the progress of their journey. Each introductory video reflects the environment that the students experience while climbing the mountain. Environments in the unit intro videos start with mild weather at the bottom of the mountain and gradually change to severe closer to the top of the mountain.
At the end of the course, students submit their final projects that they worked on throughout the semester. Students’ projects consist of a final artifact/game/video, a marketing package, and a post-production reflection.
During the pilot semester, we had 16 online students from 2 tracks. 13 students filled out an optional mid-course survey, and 9 students filled out an optional end-of-course survey. All students ranked their overall course experience as “good” or “very good”, with “very good” being the highest offered rating. For the most part, students enjoyed the course and appreciated the course format:
- “The course's format fits very well, the comparison of climbing a mountain is well suited to the experience of developing the senior project.”
- “I loved the format of the course. First the fun way the course is presented to us using Ascents, Climbs, and the Final Summit is super new and engaging to see. The style where we constantly seek feedback from classmates along with reviews with our professor is perfect since I was able to figure out issues I had and also other elements of my project that needed to be worked on that I haven't thought about before.”
- “I am very satisfied with the way this course is formatted and I don't think anything needs to be altered thus far.”
- “…[the] entire degree should follow the same path/climbs in order to become more specialized and less of a generalist program. …”
- “…this has been a very enjoyable experience this semester. I really like how the course is set up…”
In terms of the suggestions for improvement of course design and structure, two students indicated that they would like a faster way of getting to assignments. In order to decrease the chances that students skip course lectures and other resources and go straight to the assignments, the assignments button was disabled from the fast access navigation pane in Canvas. However, two students wrote, “I would have liked a fast way to travel to the assignments, discussions, lectures, and so forth” and “I'd suggest adding direct links to the assignment and discussion boards to the sidebar.”
In conclusion, a gamified, narrative-based approach implemented using a variety of metaphors related to mountain scaling resulted in an engaged online capstone course experience. More evaluation should be conducted to identify the navigation issue (described above) without sacrificing the richness of the student experience.
Plan for interactivity: In this discovery session, attendees will explore the course and together with other attendees and the presenter discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the course design that uses a gamified, narrative-based approach and metaphors.
Attendee takeaways: Attendees will explore a way to approach design of project-based capstone courses in asynchronous online learning environments using a gamified, narrative-based approach and metaphors.
References:
Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness. Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference on Envisioning Future Media Environments - MindTrek. https://doi.org/10.1145/2181037.2181040
Huang, R., Ritzhaupt, A. D., Sommer, M., Zhu, J., Stephen, A., Valle, N., Hampton, J., & Li, J. (2020). The impact of gamification in educational settings on student learning outcomes: A meta-analysis. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(4), 1875-1901. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09807-z
Ritzhaupt, A. D., Huang, R., Sommer, M., Zhu, J., Stephen, A., Valle, N., Hampton, J., & Li, J. (2021). A meta-analysis on the influence of gamification in formal educational settings on affective and behavioral outcomes. Educational Technology Research and Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10036-1
Sailer, M., & Homner, L. (2019). The Gamification of Learning: A Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 77-112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09498-w
Werbach, K., & Hunter, D. (2012). For the win. Philadelphia: Wharton.