University of Arizona South: Teaching with Technology - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 86

Game design is never easy. It gets even harder when you consider the effect of
each choice not just on the game as a game — Is this more or less fun? More or less

balanced? but on the experience of students and an instructor, for whom what

is learned, and how well, must remain the primary measures of success. At the
same time, we wanted to avoid what Richard Van Eck identified as the main
pitfall of many games created by educators: that

—

“ neither the learning nor the

�

game is effective or engaging.

We wanted to find ways to exploit the extrinsic motivational power of games
without limiting the intrinsic motivation of students to learn. We considered it
critical to focus on mechanics, which were not only compatible with a learner-
centered instructional model, but inherently aligned with one. There needed to
be no question of the game somehow the learning; to as great

an extent as possible, they needed to be the same thing.

“ overshadowing �

Previous course-as-game models adopted the framework of a traditional role-
playing game (RPG), and after some deliberation we realized that an RPG was a
wise choice. RPGs feature complex numeric metaphors for character progres-
sion, which could be adapted to serve as both a grading system and a tool for
student reflection. The genre is also fairly flexible, which allowed us to
incorporate mechanics adapted from elsewhere.

GAME is a design-based research project, which means that we expect our
technology and pedagogy to continually evolve based on our experiences and
observations. Our current design for GAME (now in its second semester)
features some elements taken from other game-based courses. We use a system
similar to Lee Sheldon

s for grading, in which experience points and levels
correspond to letter grades. Janna Jackson

'

s policy of allowing students to retry
assignments for a higher score was also adopted. We have also incorporated
several additional game-like systems:

'

n Multiple assignments within each content area, each mapped to
Bloom

s Taxonomy. Students must complete lower-level assignments
within a module in order to progress to more challenging and valuable
assignments. These assignments are designated as

'

“ Bronze (identify,

remember, understand, apply), �“ Silver (analyze, evaluate, critique,