This is my presentation on gamification in education from the MADLaT Conference, 2014. In it, I discuss what gamification is, what MMORPGs are like, and how you can map those strategies to a course you are teaching.

1. Gamification
Leveraging the Power of Games for Teaching
Richard Van Eck, 2014, University of North Dakota

2. A Tale of Two
Talks
• Title discusses
gamification and
games for
mathematics and
science
• Really two different
topics
• Gestalt, Monster, or
Shavian Reversal?

3. What Gamification Is Not
•Using video games in your classroom
•Building a video game
•Tricking students into enjoying your
class

4. What It Is
•Making your class INTO a game, or
•Borrowing elements of games and applying
them to learning
•A buffet
• Take what you want and what works; leave
the rest

5. What Is Gamification?
•Applying game strategies to some
activity
• Learning, social change, getting healthy
•Not because games are fun (they are)
• Because they use good teaching strategies
• Objectives, assignments, assessment
•Figure out how they map to the classroom

6. What Are Games?
•How many game players here?
•How many MMORPG players?
•Game types
• Many can be mapped to teaching
• Many share the same characteristics
• MMORPGs make some of the best
• 400 million worldwide (50M in USA)*
*Petitte, O., 2012. Infographic shows $13 billion spent worldwide on
MMOs in 2012. PCGamer, http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/15/mmo-
infographic/

7. Develop Some Character

8. Starting Out in Life

9. A Questing We Will Go

10. Home Away from Home

11. Learning the Ropes

12. Oh, The People You’ll Meet!

13. There’s Treasure in Them Thar
Hills!

14. Getting Ahead in Life

15. My Sixth-Grade Teacher WAS Right!

16. The Right Tool for the Right Job

17. Rinse and Repeat (Only Harder)

18. More Friends

19. You ‘Da Boss—YOU ‘Da Boss!

20. 1. Things Betwixt
and Majula
2. Forest of
Fallen Giants
3. Heide’s Tower
of Flame
4. No-Man’s Wharf
5. Lost Bastille
6. Sinner’s Rise
7. Belfry Luna
8. Huntsman’s
Copse
9. Undead
Purgatory
10. The Gutter
11. Black Gulch
12. Grave of Saints
13. Shaded Woods
14. Doors of
Pharros
15. Brightstone
Cove Tseldora
16. Return to
Huntsman’s
Copse
17. Harvest Valley
to Earthen Peak
18. Earthen Peak
19. Iron Keep
And All The Rest

21. Related Items

22. More Tools

23. Principles
•Failure is not an option, it’s a goal
• Failures are small and recoverable
•Every action earns points
• What you gain with each task, not how many
points you lost off the maximum score

24. Principles
•Start easy and build up
•Quests are steps on the journey toward
the big boss

25. Principles
•Work at your own pace, but work together
• Can move ahead or take time, but all have
to be successful
•Many ways to play, for many kinds of
players
• Skip some, do them all, do them to mastery
• Dex, Strength, Faith, Intelligence builds

26. Assessment
• Typical training teaches, then tests
• Practice questions as attention checks
• All levels and knowledge assessed at once
• Long stretches of info-dumping

27. Game = Assessment
• Can’t progress
without
demonstration
• Game completion =
mastery
• Learning/practice/as
sessment/feedback
…
• …are recursive
and frequent

28. Gaming Your Class
•Have to think about course differently
• Epistemic frames
• Map outcomes in real world to projects
• Map real world roles on those projects to
roles in the class

29. Assignments
•Ours go to 11
• At least two assignments for each outcome;
let them choose or do them all
• IDT Final Project Options
•Let your students fly the co-op
• Group work is powerful

30. Classes Games Notes
Points Experience Points Should be lots of them
Grades Levels
Level up early & often
Requires more later
Assignments Quests
Should build on each otherExams/Big
Projects
Bosses
Tools & Theories Weapons Required to beat bosses
Facts/Concepts Items (found things)
From readings or given out
(they must figure them out)
Real-world
roles/ind.
differences
Character classes Choose avatars
Groups Co-op/Guilds Consider throughout class

31. Examples
•Attendance
• Points for attending each time, not lump
sum at end
•Course structure
• Start with several small projects in
beginning and build levels quickly
• Choose avatars (name and character)

32. Major Projects
•Let students propose major project
•Pitch to class
•Vote on best projects
•Vote for ones they want to work on
•Form guilds based on top projects and
interests

33. Guilds
•Keep constant throughout class
•Structure rewards based on group success
• Extra points go to whole team if one member
gets
•Require participation from each member
•Do anonymous group evaluation
• Guild Leader (max points), Raid Leader,
Crafter, Leeroy Jenkins (min points)

34. Guilds
•Create physical and virtual spaces
around key concepts
• Forest of Finances (budgetary aspect)
• Rotate them through each area as they work
on each aspect of their projects

35. Rewards
•Consider token economies
• XP or loot can be used for privileges
• Extra day on assignment; trade in for extra
advising session/feedback
•Easter eggs and special items
• Hide items and valuables in places they can
uncover if they go the extra mile

36. Debates & Readings
•PvP (Player vs. Player)
•Guilds play as a team (Family Feud)
•Clickers to ring in with answers
(readings quiz) or to vote

37. Bosses
•Mid-term exam and final project pitch
•Prepare for Mid-term as PvP
• Generate more questions than will be on
exam
• Use them in PvP guild wars (compete with
clickers or ?
• Give out XP for first, second, and third

38. Projects &
Presentations
•Pitch final projects to “experts”
• IDT 560 RFP
•Award points for content AND creativity
in presentations

39. Game Your System
•Add up max points for minimum work to
see how it grades out
•Be prepared to shift during class as you
find weaknesses
•Prepare for three iterations before you
are completely happy

40. Part II:
The Games

41. Project NEO
• Conventional wisdom says middle school
• Fundamentals not mastered in elementary
• Elementary Preservice Teachers (PSTs)
• PSTs are themselves underprepared
• Ball, Lubienski, and Mewborn, 2005; Wu, 2009; Hill, 2010;
Morris et al., 2009
• Less than 4% of PSTs have a science major, and
• 42% have taken 4 or fewer science courses
• Fulp, S. and Horizon Research, 2002

42. •5E Learning Cycle
Model (Bybee, 1989)

43. The Premise

44. Talia Awakens

45. Villain Addresses Talia

47. Results
•Knowledge increased (acquisition) or
stayed the same (decay prevention) on
concepts covered by the game
•Attitudes toward games (perceived
barriers) INCREASED from pre- to post

48. PlatinuMath
•Preservice teachers
• http://platinumath.com/load.html?gid=11
• http://platinumath.com/load.html?gid=12
• http://platinumath.com/load.html?gid=21

49. Math Builders
• Middle School
Students
• Findings
• Competition
inhibits
Transfer
• Avatars promote
transfer

50. Notable Serious Games• Project Selene
• Re-Mission
• McLaren’s Adventures
• River City
• Global Conflicts
Palestine
• Triad Interactive Media
(PlatinuMath, Far
Plane, Contemporary
Studies of the Zombie
Apocalypse, Project
NEO)
• Alelo, Inc. (Tactical
Iraqi, RezWorld,
Encounters Chinese)
• Filament Games (Citizen
Science, We The Jury,
Law Firm, Reach For The
Sun)
• Darfur Is Dying
• Food Force
• www.gamesforchange.org
• www.gamesforhealth.org