Presentation
Leveling Up by Gamifying Freshman Engineering Clinic
2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
(2016)
Abstract
This Work-In-Progress paper describes the development of a gamification platform for the Freshman Engineering Clinic II course at a North Eastern university and its proposed assessment strategy. Freshman Engineering Clinic II is a course designed to teach engineering students about multidisciplinary project design, with special focus on developing skills associated with teamwork, software application, and ethics. An important part of learning is receiving feedback as part of the learning cycle and studies have shown that increased feedback can be helpful in supporting student reflection and developing the intrinsic motivation necessary for mastering a task. One method of encouraging students to master material is by providing students with immediate feedback through gamification platforms. The gamification platform being employed in this implementation uses interactive learning techniques to provide students with clear cut goals as well as immediate feedback as an indicator of the student’s performance.
Gamification transforms the traditional homework layout into an entirely new entity. Students can work to earn badges by completing assignments that interest them within the platform. Students also have the power to learn at their own pace and mechanics such as experience points, badges, leaderboards, and achievements can be used as motivating factors to encourage student completion of activities. In addition, the system acts as a scaffold for the students starting with activities that are easier and become progressively more challenging as their knowledge increases, while allowing them to repeat tasks as necessary to encourage mastery of course material.
The effectiveness of this platform will be assessed by a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures. Student activity completion, accrual of badges and achievements, and the process through which students select the activities to pursue will all be monitored. Students will also complete the College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI) to measure their perception of the classroom environment with the addition of the gamification platform. Qualitative feedback from students will be collected through open ended survey questions to gain a better appreciation for how the gamification platform impacted their course experience.
Disciplines
Publication Date
June 26, 2016
Location
New Orleans, Louisiana
Comments
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Citation Information
Gulotta, J. A., & Parisi, N. S., & Bodnar, C. A. (2016, June), Leveling Up by Gamifying Freshman Engineering Clinic. Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26207.