Identifying Learning Objectives and Student Needs - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 191

and attitudes for which no amount of curriculum planning can prepare us. We
must adjust.

So, if we are curious enough about designing our class as a game, the first
question we should ask is this: Is the material appropriate to be presented as a
game? As the case histories in this topic show us, we ve only just begun to ask

that question. But we can look at a class as a series of puzzles that must be solved
by our students, whether those puzzles are explicit (quizzes, exams, questions
posed by the teacher during a lesson) or implicit (how can a student take good
notes?). Each assignment is an obstacle that must be conquered. It isn

'

t that
much of a reach to state that the obstacle is something from a video game: that
theorem must be crafted ; that mob must be overcome.

'

I have yet to hear from an educator who has tried to design a multiplayer
classroom and discovered that nothing of their subject is suited to some form of
gameplay. If there is another edition of this topic, I hope that it will contain
many more examples of coursework that can be constructed as a game. I hope
there will be other topics, and more real research concerning the best ways of
designing classes as games. We are only beginning to scratch the surface.

Educational goals do not change in the multiplayer classroom; only the road we
take to reach them changes. The first step is to list them as you would in any
traditional class. These goals are broadly stated, and need not refer to games at
all. In fact, they shouldn

t our purpose to mold outcomes to fit the
procedure but the other way around.

' t. It isn '

Objectives on the other hand are specific, measurable outcomes. Here is where
you identify your audience and what you expect from them. You

' ve undoubtedly

heard basic learning objectives called the ABCD ' s: A udience, B ehavior, C on-

dition, and D egree.

n Audience. Your audience is your students. In games, it is your players.
n Behavior. The actions needed to demonstrate learning. In games, it is
the actions that result in a player overcoming an obstacle, solving a puz-
zle, completing a quest.
n Condition . The tools a student may or may not use and the circumstan-
ces under which the student may learn. Calculator? Open book? In