And the team at the Gameful Learning Lab Going Gameful with And the team at the Gameful Learning Lab

What we’re going to do today Introduce the team Introduce GradeCraft as a student Planning for gameful Interaction and discussion

Shameless plugs Summer Institute – July 24 & 25 in Ann Arbor Follow us on Twitter @GradeCraft

Who is here today? Barry Fishman Rachel Niemer Camille Ulrich Evan Straub Please feel free to grab any of them and have a side conversation at any point

Pick Barry’s Brain

My Introduction (to gameful) Let me tell you abit about myself. To be honest, I am the newest member of the GradeCraft team, but I consider myself as someone who tries to teach gamefully for many, many years now. So my background is in neuroscience, instructional technology and my doctorate is in ed psych. My doctoral research focused on why learning technology ticks us off so much. Picture it – undergraduate educational psychology – a required course for all pre-service teachers, but one that has students with a lot of different backgrounds, skills and knowledge levels. I’m sure no one here has dealt with class like that before either. And I was really struggling with this class. It was hard to make everyone happy. So one time I taught it, I turned the assessment of the class over to the students. Now, I didn’t have the capacity for individualized paths at the time – I didn’t have the time to set up the spreadsheets like Barry did – and certainly not the capacity like GradeCraft. But I had the students work together to come up with the plan. I would coach them here or there, and the activity doubled as a demonstration of some of the concepts we would talk about later on in the semester. Overall what I found is that most of those times, the students would come up with a syllabus that was remarkably similar to what I had initially planned. But the complaints? Gone. Students felt like they had some ownership and autonomy in how that class was being assessed. And because they made the “decisions” – it was all transparent to them as well. And that is powerful stuff. And I’m going to guess that many of you here already have what we would consider gameful aspects of your own classes. Maybe you encourage resubmitting assignments. Maybe you give students some choice about the topics they write on, or you let them drop a quiz. Those are all what we would consider gameful. Those will probably feel familiar to you. And since you are here, it probably feels right. So, here is my big pitch, my big soapbox moment. I’ve been working in ed tech for over 15 years. I’m sure I’m not the only one here. And despite all the advances, all the new gadgets – technology is still most frequently used as supplement to instruction. I think this is because the real technological advances in education happened so long ago. Think about when the last time a technology changed the way we were able to teach. The first teachers passed knowledge to their students through stories. When paper became accessible to all students – the way we taught fundamentally changed. No long were students required to be dependent on their memory. They could write things down. And I truly believe that GradeCraft fundamentally changes the capacity for how we can teach. Offering choice and keeping your sanity as a teacher is hard. Without a stack of teaching assistants or a tool like GradeCraft – well, I just don’t know how you could manage it. Off my soapbox.

Since you’re here….

What are gameful principles? Clear Learning Goals Identity Play Embedded Assessment Productive Failure Allow for Practice & Reinforcement Encourage Exploration Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation Support Autonomy Encourage Belonging Support Competence Autonomy Belonging Competency

How are you already teaching gamefully? Offer choice? Transparency? Building up? Freedom to fail? Prompt feedback? Experiential? Role playing? Resubmitals? How are you already teaching gamefully?

Highlighting Support for Autonomy/Choice

Implementing Choice

Linear Course Design Grade A=290/300 pts Total Points for A: 290 Assignment 1 50 pts Assignment 2 50 pts Quiz 25 pts Assignment 3 50 pts Test 125 pts Total Points for A: 290 Total Points Available: 300

Ala Carte Model – Number & Points Group Project @50 pts Possible 50 pts Exams @50 pts each Complete up to 2 Possible 100 pts Weekly Quizzes @15 pts each Complete as many as desired Capped 60 points Final Project @60 pts REQUIRED Complete One Grade A=290/420 pts Reflections @10 pts each Complete up to 5 Possible 50 pts Case Study Analysis @20 pts each Complete up to 5 Possible 100 pts Total Points for A: 290 Total Points Available: 420

Choice in Challenge Total Points for A: 290 Level 1 20 pts Level 2 35 pts Level 3 50 pts Total Points for A: 290 Total Points Available: 450 Assignment 1 Level 1 20 pts Level 2 35 pts Level 3 50 pts Assignment 2 Unlock Project Level 1 20 pts Level 2 35 pts Level 3 50 pts Assignment 3 Level 4 75 pts Choice in Challenge Level 1 20 pts Level 2 35 pts Level 3 50 pts Assignment 4 Level 1 20 pts Level 2 35 pts Level 3 50 pts Assignment 5 Unlock Project Level 1 20 pts Level 2 35 pts Level 3 50 pts Level 4 75 pts Assignment 6

Choice in Mastery Resubmit Resubmit Resubmit Resubmit Resubmit Assignment 1 50 pts Assignment 2 50 pts Quiz 25 pts Assignment 3 50 pts Test 125 pts Resubmit Resubmit Resubmit Resubmit Resubmit Total Points for A: 290 Total Points Available: 300 Choice in Mastery

Managing this is hard. Thus, GradeCraft Balancing Autonomy with Competency

What is GradeCraft? Course Management System Help you build assessment structure Grade Predictor to help students self-regulate choice What is it not? Not a full learning management system

GradeCraft as a student Student account username/passwords are on each table You will log in to a demo course. http://app.gradecraft.com

Things to look for as a student: Dashboard with upcoming assignments/events Grade Predictor Grading Scheme Assignments nested in categories Badges Group assignments Grading Rubrics Things to look for as a student:

I’m sold. What’s next?

Transforming to Gameful Know yourself, your class, your limitations Even if it means - start small or incremental Take your time with planning Lots of different ways to implement gameful strategies Think about how you will manage it My bias – while I care about student learning – and I really, really do. I’m also a teacher myself. And I have real empathy for teachers.

Planning for a Gameful Class Transparency can’t happen on the fly Gameful elements can be integrated It doesn’t have to use technology – but it helps

Simple Planning Tool

Planning Gamefully How are you going to offer choice? Categories of assignments Don’t worry about grading scheme immediately Don’t just think about student effort – think about your effort as well Utilize technology where it makes sense to automate tasks GradeCraft, spreadsheets, autotext, rubrics Take your time with planning!

GradeCraft as an Instructor http://gradecraft.com (may need to log out)

Contact Us – help@gradecraft.com Camille Ulrich culrich@umich.edu @culrich Evan Straub evanstr@umich.edu @estraub Barry Fishman @BarryFishman Rachel Niemer rkniemer@umich.edu @rkniemer