GAMIFICATION TO ENGAGE STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION DR. RANI TAN (LKCSB) & DR. NACHAMMA SOCKALINGAM (CTE) SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

 Gamification refers to the application of gaming mechanics in non-gaming contexts to increase participants’ engagement. MAKING LEARNING FUN WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?

 Leadership and Team Building (LTB)  University core module  All students need to take this course  Not all may be interested  Can be challenging to engage students  Learning seems to stop at the end of the lesson for students A CASE-STUDY FROM SMU

 To promote student engagement  In an interactive manner  Beyond the classroom  To enhance teaching and learning OBJECTIVE OF GAMIFICATION IN LTB

 Mobile / Desktop application  Compliments/supplements in-class lessons  Weekly challenges  8-10 quests  Some are done individually and some collaboratively  Helps to know and collaborate with peers  Teams compete against each other via a leaderboard  Earn points  Be rewarded with special privileges  Student participation and the earned points from the GameLead application integrated with the face-to- face lessons FEATURES OF GAMELEAD

MOBILE INTERFACE OF GAMELEAD

ORIENTATION TO GAMELEAD Figures Tour screens The core content for GameLead was broken down into a series of eight quests

WEEKLY CHALLENGES

TYPE OF CHALLENGES

CHALLENGE SCREENS INDIVIDUAL GET TO KNOW PEERS COLLABORATE

REWARDS AND COMMENTS

POINTS AND PEER REVIEW

 Pilot-testing with 4 classes of 177 students in 2014 over a period 9 weeks IMPLEMENTATION Total Players177 Total Submissions9,262 Average number of submissions per player 52

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

 94% recommend the use of GameLead in future LTB courses  86% would like to see such games in their other modules in SMU  64% rated GameLead to be useful in their learning of LTB  62% indicated they were much more engaged as a result of GameLead  36% indicated increased interest in LTB as a result of GameLead END-OF-COURSE FEEDBACK

 “The videos that were put up provided more perspectives and learning points for us which were not covered in class.” – Group 3 student  “I enjoyed the videos even though I did not have time to watch some of them. Nevertheless, I will still bookmark them and watch it in my free time. I think these kinds of real-life examples on leadership such as videos, speeches and articles really inspire me to become a better leader.” – Group 3 student FEEDBACK FROM STUDENTS

 “The function that allows us to view your classmates answer and see multiple perspectives from different angles. Knowing how others think and openness to their experience is something that can enrich our learning experience.” – Group 1 student  “I found it useful learning about everyone's perspectives about leadership, team building and what really makes us special or different and unique as individuals that eventually lead or follow effectively one day.” – Group 1 student FEEDBACK FROM STUDENTS

 Overall, student feedback, feedback from teaching assistants and personal experience is encouraging  Worth pursuing  There are ways to improve  More in-depth study will be useful EVALUATION OF GAMELEAD

ADVANTAGE OF GAMELEAD APPLICATION  The “shell” of the mobile application can be adapted and used in any course (at any level).  Project has the potential for direct and immediate application in many fields/courses.  Other instructors will not need to create the mobile application once again.  All they need to do is to change the questions and challenges.

1.What sort of challenges engage students? 2.How to make the challenges/quests more engaging and useful? 3.What sort of rewards are appealing to students? 4.How to better integrate the use of the mobile application in the lesson? 5.… MOVING FORWARD... QUESTIONS

THANK YOU ANY QUESTIONS?