Gamification in ELT: Balancing Academic Rigor and Soft Skills
by Katie Welch
A common concern when teaching high school and college
English learners (ELs) is how much students’ grades should reflect mastery of
the content as compared to their work habits, professionalism, and effort. For
instance, teachers often grapple with whether students should be penalized for
turning in a late assignment even though they demonstrated complete knowledge
of the content. Conversely, they may wonder: If timely assignment submission is not reinforced, am I adequately preparing students for
success in the professional world? This problem is compounded when we consider
that some ELs possess limited or interrupted formal education and are likely
unfamiliar with K–12 school routines and expectations. Likewise, many college
ELs are unaware of the “hidden curriculum” in higher education, which is
heavily composed of soft skills, such as knowing how to ask a professor for an
extension on an assignment.
Gamification, the process of applying
video game principles to educational contexts, offers a solution that enables
instructors to maintain rigor while simultaneously fostering soft skill
development. Whether you are a hardcore gamer yourself or a complete gaming
newbie (like me), your classroom can still benefit from gamification.
Following, I outline my own experience of gamifying a university course as I
sought to combat engagement challenges, such as spotty attendance, reluctant
participation, and assignment procrastination. By implementing a gamified
“bonus level” in the course, I was able to reimagine the traditional notion of
“extra credit” in a way that incentivized strong work habits without creating a
high amount of grade inflation in the process.
What Is
Gamification?
When we hear
about gamification in educational contexts, typically this means that certain
elements common to video game design have been adapted and incorporated into
the classroom experience. After all, don’t we all wish our students were as
addicted to their coursework as they are to popular video games, such as
Minecraft, Farmville, and World of Warcraft? Gamers love these games not only
because they immerse the player into a fantasy world, but also because of the
built-in incentives that keep the player engaged. For example:
-
Easter
eggs are hidden elements within a video game that are not always
immediately obvious to the player and therefore must be “hunted” for, similar
to the more traditional Easter egg hunt where children search for literal
hidden eggs.
-
Badges
that players earn as they accomplish skills or meet goals are another incentive
for gamers, as well as opportunities to level up
after meeting specified criteria.
-
Leaderboards
are another common gaming element; they allow players to see how they are
performing compared to their peers, which stokes competition.
Many
educational technology companies have incorporated these gaming elements into
their apps, which is why we see tools like Kahoot! using leaderboards to
encourage friendly competition among students, and why Duolinguo offers badges
when language learners have accomplished a task. In fact, instructors have
found gamification to be so useful that an entire platform called Classcraft has been
developed that offers teachers a turnkey solution to transform their entire
syllabus into a gamified quest, complete with avatars, fantasy worlds, and
levels to navigate. In my case, however, I opted for a more DIY approach that,
while grounded in gamification fundamentals, did not require any additional
technology or software beyond what I was already using.
The Bonus Level
In 2016,
after studying the principles of gamification, I decided that I wanted to take
on the task of gamifying a college-level course that I had been teaching
face-to-face for a number of years but that had recently moved online. Once I
realized that the online format didn’t have the built-in accountability that a
face-to-face format affords, I began researching a way to incentivize students
to watch video lectures, complete timely assignment submissions, and
participate in discussion boards and other nonmandatory portions of the course.
Of course, one common way of accomplishing this goal would be to offer extra
credit, but I worried that offering too much extra credit would lead to
inflated grades. So, I developed what I call the bonus level.
The bonus
level was a completely optional component of the course that was revealed to
students at the beginning of the fourth week of the semester, after we had
gotten settled into the class somewhat. I gave some hints about a big
announcement that would be coming in Week 4 to build some anticipation about
the soon-to-be-released bonus level. Once the fourth week arrived, I explained
to my students that the bonus level was a game that they could opt into at any
point throughout the semester so they could start earning tickets.
Earning Tickets and
Prizes
The tickets
were completely virtual and would be tracked in a Google spreadsheet that they
could access at any time to see how many tickets they had accrued, who was
currently ahead in the class leaderboard, and what prizes they could earn with
their tickets. (I was happy to discover that Google Sheets has a built-in, easy-to-use widget that auto-generates a leaderboard in a
matter of minutes!)
To earn
tickets, students could participate in a variety of gamified activities, such
as the following:
-
Easter
Eggs: Every few weeks, I would hide an image somewhere within
that week’s online module. The image was a clickable link that led to a Google
form. Students knew ahead of time what types of image to be looking for, and I
would usually send out an announcement letting them know an Easter egg would be
posted sometime soon. This encouraged students to read each page of the online
module closely and not simply skip through to the assessment.
-
Scrabble
Letters: To encourage students to watch video lectures and announcements,
I would randomly share a scrabble letter at some point throughout every video.
Students were encouraged to keep track of these letters. At the end of the
semester, they unscrambled the letters to reveal a hidden message related to
our course. Students submitted their discovery on a Google form and earned
tickets for their correct answer.
-
Early
Assignment Submission: Our course had reoccurring assignment
deadlines each week, and the bonus level offered students an opportunity to
earn tickets if they submitted an assignment more than 24 hours in advance of
those deadlines. Because the learning management system time-stamped every
assignment, I could quickly award tickets for anyone who submitted assignments early.
This incentive kept many students from waiting until the last minute to turn in
assignments.
-
Other
Opportunities: I offered tickets for other aspects of course
engagement, such as attending a guest lecture, commenting on classmates’ posts,
or participating in an end-of-course survey. The flexibility to add
opportunities meant I could adjust the bonus level as needs arose.
In any gamified situation,
the goal is to have gamers so immersed in the narrative of the fantasy world
that they are no longer thinking about the real world. This phenomenon is what
allowed me to give out so many tickets without awarding a prohibitive amount of
extra credit. Students would get so involved in the “game” of finding hidden
messages and seeing their name on the leaderboard that they were no longer as
interested in the actual prizes they were working toward. This is similar to
how children at an arcade love the process of collecting all the tickets that
the machines spit out even while knowing that they will likely cash in those
tickets for a cheap trinket or token.
Though most
of the students did ultimately redeem their tickets for a prize of their
choice, the prizes—which ranged from resubmitting a missed assignment to
dropping their lowest quiz grade—were equivalent to less than one percentage
point of their final grade. This meant that I could add any number of
ticket-earning opportunities to reinforce soft skills without worrying that I
was unduly influencing their grades.
Developing Soft
Skills
Another
benefit of gamification is that it creates a safety net for students who might
need an alternative path to course completion. I work primarily with
first-generation college freshmen, some of whom are not fully prepared for the
rigor of a university classroom. I typically have a handful of students who
find themselves contemplating withdrawal because they have had a rough start to
the course. These students often don’t opt-in to the bonus level initially but
are later relieved to learn that it offers redemption opportunities, such as
resubmitting low-grade assignments.
For students
to earn the required tickets to resubmit an assignment, they must start
engaging in the healthy habits built into the gamified system, such as
participating in course discussions or attending office hours for tutoring.
Thus, the bonus level becomes a win-win, as I can maintain the expectation that
all students perform at the required level of academic rigor while
simultaneously providing the support they need to do so. Plus, the soft skills
they learn along the way should position students for success in future
coursework as well.
A Quick-Start Guide to
Course Gamification
If you are
interested in trying out gamification in your own course, regardless of whether
you use a ready-made program like Classcraft or create your own version like I
did, here are some key steps you’ll want to follow to ensure that your efforts
are successful (see Figure 1 for a graphic outlining these steps):
Step 1:
Identify the classroom behaviors you want to incentivize and the problems you
are trying to solve. Are you struggling with attendance? Late work? Lack of
communication? Start by making a broad wish list and then pinpoint two to three
top priority issues.
Step 2:
Choose what story or narrative you will use to explain your gamified system to
your class. Students must “buy in” to the world you create, even if it’s
something as simple as a bonus level with electronic tickets. (Don’t skip this
step, it’s actually the most important part of the process!)
Step 3:
Decide the results of the desired behaviors, the rules of the game, and how you
will communicate progress. Give some thought to how you want to organize your
gamified classroom and then test out your plan to ensure you aren’t overloading
yourself with lots of new tasks or accidentally overwhelming students with a
confusing system. Start small and communicate clearly.
Step 4:
Implement the plan with enthusiasm so that your students enter into the game
narrative with you. Gamification is a game, after all, so the goal is to have
fun! Set the tone for your class by creating some anticipation and “hype”
around game elements and events.
Figure 1. Gamification quick-start guide graphic.
(Click here to enlarge)
Overall,
gamifying my class was worth the initial time investment to set it up,
especially since I have continued to use the same system in many subsequent
semesters. It was a rewarding and fun experience for both myself and my
students.
Dr.
Katie Welch, an active contributor in the
ESL community, currently serves as past president of TexTESOLV, an affiliate of
TESOL International Association that serves the Dallas-Fort Worth region of
Texas. She led the Board of Directors as conference chair of the 2018 state
conference and has presented at numerous conferences nationwide. Katie has
amassed a lengthy dossier in preparing ESL teachers for both adult and K–12
classrooms, most recently completing 7 years at the Emerging Teacher Institute
at UNT-Dallas.
Previous Article
;){kind=small}
Hello and welcome to another edition of the TESOL Games and Learning blog! Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of Fulbright foreign language educators about ways to incorporate elements of video game design into their online courses. For this month’s post, I thought I would share a condensed version of that talk.
