Gamified Teaching and Learning Chapter Sampler

CH A P T ER SA M P L ER
Gam if ied Teach in g an d

Lear n in g Ch apt er
Sam pler
www.routledge.com
Contents
1. Teaching and Learning Game Design
By James R. Casey
0
From Serious Games in Personalized Learning: New
Models for Design and Performance By Scott M. Martin,
James R. Casey, Stephanie Kane
2. Personalized Lear
ning Game Design
Pedagogy 0
By Scott M. Martin, James R. Casey,
Stephanie Kane
From Serious Games in Personalized Learning: New
Models for Design and Performance By Scott M. Martin,
James R. Casey, Stephanie Kane
3. Staying Connected: Gamification and

Social Media 0
From Best Practices in Engaging Online Learners
Through Active and Experiential Learning Strategies By
Stephanie Smith Budhai, Ke'Anna Skipwith
0
4. Academic Games
From Teaching for Learning: 101 Intentionally
Designed Educational Activities to Put Students on the
Path to Success By Claire Howell Major, Michael S. Harris,
Todd D. Zakrajsek
5. Gamifying Microlearning Elements

By Alexander Salas 0
From Micro/earning in the Digital Age: The Design
and Delivery of Learning in Snippets Edited ByJoseph
Rene Corbeil, Badrul H. Khan, Maria Elena Corbeil
Request your free Inspection Copy and discover more of

our free resources for Faculty on our Instructor Hub.
Teaching and Learning 4
Game Design
James R. Casey
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for chil-
dren play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.
– Fred Rogers, Courtesy of the Fred Rogers Company1
Preface
One of my first gaming memories was from the early 1980s, a time when
personal computers were just starting to make their way into the consumer
market. A military family, we moved around a lot, but at the time we lived in
the suburbs of Miami. We had a covered pool, as was the norm down there,
and we were firmly in what would have likely been called the lower middle
class. One day, probably at my request, my parents brought home a Ti-
99/4A and I was hooked. Although I can’t recall the exact games themselves
(I seem to recall a lot of text adventures), the experience of how I played
the games and what I learned from the experience stayed with me forever.
The TI-99/4A hardware had 16kb of RAM, a cartridge slot, and the
ability to connect to a cassette player as media storage.2 Compared to popu-
lar smart phones of today, where 16gb is now the default memory amount
(which most people still think is insufcient), imagine making do with
16kb. To load a game or program for use on the system, the user could
insert a cartridge and it would load into memory, a process similar to con-
sole games and familiar to most gamers even today. However, there were
two other methods for loading programs, and these were the ones that really
hooked me.
Teaching and Learning Game Design 73
The frst method was direct entry. Imagine, if you can, going to a store
and buying a computing magazine, bringing said magazine home, and then
transcribing a program line by line from the back of said magazine onto
your computer.3 The goal of this painstaking and error-prone process wasn’t
to educate the consumer, it was just a novel (at the time) and cheap way
to distribute code in the only mass medium that made sense at the time. I
still have fond recollections of getting that new magazine home, skipping to
the back, and just typing for probably hours at a time and then hoping that,
once I ran the program, it all worked.
The other method was by loading the games from a cassette tape. I still
mentally cringe when I think about how draconian it feels in our current
always-on and instant-satisfaction culture, but back then, with the lumi-
nance of youth behind me, it was amazing. Are you old enough to remem-
ber those wonderful screeching modem sounds from the early days of the
internet when dial-up was king? That’s basically what the cassette games did:
they communicated via recorded sounds to the TI and it translated those
sounds into code. It took forever and if your cassette player had an issue or
the power fickered (which did happen in the heat of summer in Florida) the
result was that the user had to start over. So, similar to typing it manually, the
process of loading from tape required time and patience.
But I wanted to game . . . and in order to experience these new techno-
logical frontiers, I put up with the disruptions, I put up with the issues, and
I learned everything I could to make my TI do more stuf and play more
games. It was my frst introduction to programming, and it was my frst
introduction to not only playing games but making them, and it changed
me forever. It was also one of the frst times that I was engaged by the expe-
rience of learning. It made long-term systemic memories and knowledge
that informed my career development decades later.
Looking back, with the wisdom of age, I owe a great deal of gratitude to
my parents for recognizing and accepting such a new technology into their
home. When I think about it, all the tech support I do for them now is just
payback for their investment in me.
Human Cognitive Capacity and Balance
The result of information overload is usually distraction, and it dilutes your focus
and takes you off your game.
– Zig Ziglar4
As touched upon in the previous chapters, learning is a complicated bio-

logical process. Like the methods described in this chapter’s introduction,
cognition can be a lengthy and error-prone process.
74 Teaching and Learning Game Design
Cognition = The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge

and understanding through thought, experiences, and the senses.
– Oxford Dictionary5
Have you ever felt like your brain was ‘full’? It’s a common phenomenon
and is a colloquial reference to what scientists have designated as ‘cogni-
tive overload,’ which is predicated on the concept of cognitive capacity. To
understand that, we need to dive into the ideas and history of cognition and
cognitive load theory.
Before the current days of the Covid-19 pandemic,6 back in my child-
hood, my family would take trips in the car and, along the way, in an
attempt to keep us occupied, our parents would play road games.7 You may
have played your own versions: license plate game, alphabet game, or the
dreaded memory repetition game. There are variations of the last one such
as . . . “I’m going camping and I’m bringing a < something that starts with
A>,” and then the next person repeats this and adds an element that starts
with the next letter and so on until people fail. At some point, your ability
to store and recall multiple elements becomes too much to process. Think-
ing back, it’s a crude way of envisioning capacity, also known as cognitive
load theory.
Although the study of cognition has existed for centuries in a variety
of modalities from purely theoretical to the biological, the understanding
of cognitive load as a concept sprung out of a theory regarding problem-
solving proposed by John Sweller in the late 1980s.8 This was later refned
and expanded upon in 1994 as he related the phenomenon to instructional
design and how people learn.9 His theory and studies defned cognitive
load theory by a single construct: element interactivity.10 Elements are basi-
cally anything that needs to be learned or understood. Interactivity was
valued based on how interdependent the elements were to each other. For
example, to understand X, a learner needs to also know Y. If X and Y are
independent, element interactivity is low or nonexistent and cognitive load
is likewise.
As an example, think about those trendy math problems that are all the
rage on social media.11 The equation 8÷2(2+2) creates a conundrum for
people because it requires that people rely on knowing a number of things in
order to solve, each of which would be considered an element that requires
interaction. Someone attempting to solve this equation needs to understand
the individual numbers, addition, multiplication, division, and the order of
mathematical operations. The real issue here is that the equation’s presen-
tation is also problematic and ambiguous, which makes application of the
preceding knowledge result in diferent answers.12
This simple concept gives an idea of the complexity of a task by mea-
suring the elements and how they interact. Sweller’s argument was that
by looking at how complex learning outcomes and tasks are, instructional

design could account for this and adjust accordingly. But this only accounts
for the intrinsic complexity of a task in a vacuum, and doesn’t account for
variables that may afect an individual’s own cognitive load. What else can
afect how difcult a particular task can be?
Think back to Figure 1.1 earlier in this book, which shows how we learn.
(Reprinted here as Figure 4.1.)
Capacitance Change
Biological
Cognitive
Internal External
Disease Environment
Maturation Society
Age Situational
Learning
Types
Structures
Resistance
Figure 4.1 Basic Biological Changes and Generic Learning
Many factors infuence learning, both internal and external to the process
itself. As such, it’s hard to quantify exactly how an individual will react, but
we can create guidelines and principles to reduce cognitive load and prevent
overload. These principles will be touched upon later in this chapter and
demonstrated in games, as well.
As a simple thought experiment, think back to the adage about the
difculty of locomotion when combined with extraneous activity known
colloquially by the idiom of ‘walking and chewing gum at the same
time.’13
At its simplest form, this ability for someone to understand that not all
combinations of tasks can be easily combined gives us a method of under-
standing cognitive load, but to truly look at the variables, a deeper under-
standing of the terminology used in this research is needed.
A number of researchers have examined the process of how to measure
cognitive load in the decades since its appearance, and all of them have
some commonalities.14 In each case, they attempted to defne and classify
cognitive load by examining distinct types of load: intrinsic, extraneous, and
germane.15
Intrinsic, as suggested by the name, is the measurement of factors based

on the inherent difculty of the learning outcomes. Extraneous load
is based on the nature and manner in which information is presented,
which is a crux of instructional design, or as we will see later, the UI/
UX of a learning game. Germane load difers in that it looks at the load
that would be imposed by the process of learning and developing sche-
mas, or the ability for the brain to easily learn and apply learning later
in the process. In some cases, if something is easy enough and simple to
learn, it might make sense to actually increase the germane cognitive load
to provoke the learner into processing and learning. Studies have shown
that if the cognitive load is too low, it inhibits the learning process.16 This
introduces an interesting aspect of cognitive load: how to balance it to
promote learning?
Think back to how games promote engagement by attempting to put
gamers into a state known as fow. Envisioned as a graph (Figure 4.2), one
can see how, similar to cognitive load, fow requires game developers to
consider whether games are too simple or too difcult and look for that
middle ground.17 In that sense, the idea of ‘fow’ is parallel to the idea of
balancing cognitive load (Figure 4.3).
(High)
Anxiety Flow Channel

Challenges
Boredom
0 (Low)
0 (Low) (High)
Skills
Figure 4.2 Diagram of Flow18

(High)
Anxiety Flow Channel

(Overload) (Cognitive Balance)
(Intrinsic/Extraneous Load)
Challenges
Boredom
(Underload)
0 (Low)
0 (Low) (High)
Skills
(Germane Load)
Figure 4.3 Flow Diagram Combined with Cognitive Load Balance
Much like fow attempts to navigate the valley between boredom and
frustration within the context of a game, cognitive balancing navigates that
same valley but in more general terms and often in relation to learning and
skills. In learning games, this means a good developer not only has to make
the game fun by concentrating on fow but must also ensure that the con-
tent, method of delivery, and acquisition of learning schemas by the game
allow for cognitive balancing that promotes their learning outcomes.
With an idea of how cognitive load is viewed and how it relates to concepts
that also apply to gaming and learning, we need to look at a framework for
viewing cognition in context and apply best practices to determine and deliver
the right level of cognitive load and engagement in future learning games.
To formulate that framework, let’s summarize cognition so far as we’ve
defned it. Humans take inputs from all their senses and process that into
sensory memories that are attached to working and short-term memory.
These memories are processed into long-term memories that can be defned
as semantic or episodic knowledge. There are then additional factors that can
afect this process; from both the internalization of inputs to the recall and
retrieval of said knowledge from long term memory. Additionally, the ability
for a learner to recognize and apply their own beliefs and knowledge about
themselves, the task, and the goals of learning can infuence this process.19
Figure 4.4 shows a framework for visualizing this process.
Input Sensory Memory
Speech Long-Term Memory

Auditory Working and Short-Term Memory
Sound
Visual Integration and Storage
Semantic
Text Knowledge
Tactile Filtering and Organization
Images
Olfactory Episodic
Touch Retrieval and Recall Knowledge
Gustatory
Smell
Self Interests, Purpose, and Motivation
Metacognition
Figure 4.4 Framework for Cognitive Process, Including Metacognition for Pur
poses of Defining Capacity and Balance
Here, we can see where and how the cognitive process can be influenced.
In analyzing cognitive balance, we need to look at two primary areas of the
framework: the inputs and the metacognition. In the next sections of this
chapter, we will look at both through the lenses of entertainment games and
examine how they can be used to inspire more engaging learning environ
ments and learning games.
Entertainment Game Appropriation: Motivation, Genre,

Mechanics, and Engagement
A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at some

thing we’re good at (or getting better at) and enjoy. In other words, gameplay is
the direct emotional opposite of depression.
Jane McGonigal20
Ask a bunch of gamers about their favorite memories playing games and you
will come away with a vast array of different experiences. For some gamers, the
game itself is key – other games just don’t compare or capture that certain spark
it creates for them. For other gamers, the game is a conduit to an experience
that appeals to them on a primal level, and created emotions that etched that
experience into their long-term memory. Still other gamers will remember
the experience because of the physical response that it gave them, the endor
phin high21 as they encountered pure bliss, unadulterated surprise, or genuine
accomplishment. Maybe a few remember it in spite of the game, as part of a
larger imprint; a way to pass the time when their parents fought, for example.
In other words, games appeal to not only the senses, but can influence players
in a broader, more metaphysical manner. Jane McGonigal captures this ability
of games to influence our moods for the positive in the preceding insightful
epigraph from her book Reality Is Broken, a great read to expand on this topic.
Entertainment games are not alone in their ability to form sentiment
and attachment. Almost all aspects of our culture are designed to pass along
information and experience. Unlike other media, games provide a visceral
and immersive experience that engages the player in a way that is hard to
replicate in books, movies, or music. This idea of interactive engagement
is central to what makes a game fun and how to stimulate active learning.
The trick, of course, to designing a memorable experience is in identify-
ing ways to classify and categorize how to make said experience engaging.
What makes something fun for one player will bore or annoy other players.
Good game designers try to appeal to a broad swath of potential gamers, and
game design over time has evolved to target audiences with a variety of tools
in their toolkit. To create engagement in learning games, we need to look at
what entertainment games do well and identify and apply those tools.
To do this, we will break down game genres, mechanics, and motivations
and examine how they all attempt to classify game experiences to ensure
proper engagement.
Genres
Pause for a moment and ask yourself what category you find yourself drawn
to when you open your favorite streaming service. Do you go for comedy?
Action? Sci-fi? Maybe you like to learn something while you relax and go
for the documentaries? Regardless of what you choose, there is something
about that genre that appeals to you.22
You know that if you choose a comedy, you are going to view something
lighthearted and, if all goes well, you will smile and laugh. You know that if
you choose a horror flm, your heart rate will likely spike a number of times
and there will be jump scares, suspense, and shocking moments. Genres are a
handy classifcation system that we have developed over time across media,23
and gaming is no exception. In essence, genre is a learned schema that
allows us to assume information about subjects quickly and efciently and
attribute values to unknown quantities in absence of direct investigation.
For entertainment games, genres have evolved over time in lockstep with the
games themselves. The frst electronic games almost always were a variation on
single themes that often mimicked activities like sports that people have been
doing forever. For example, one of the frst games ever was called Space War
and involved simple one-on-one shooting.24 Before that was a simple sports
game called Tennis for Two (Higinbotham, 1958), a lesser known precursor to
the breakout successor known as Pong (Atari, 1972), which came out almost
two decades later. As hardware and software capabilities grew, game designers
were able to capture additional simulated human experiences, such as racing,
exploring, etc. As the types of games grew, genres expanded to accommodate

them.
Though in no way exhaustive, the following is a list of genres that can be
found today:25
• Action
• Shooter
• Role Playing
• Adventure
• Racing
• Fighting
• Strategy
• Casual
Each of these genres provides players with a good idea of what to expect
from the games in its classification. If I have played a strategy game in the
past and see a new game coming out with the same classification, I can
expect similar mechanics, similar types of design, and in general a familiar
user experience to other games in the same genre.
As with most classifcation systems, the distribution of products available
in each category (genre) varies. The popularity of each genre infuences this
distribution, and developers can determine and assume characteristics of the
players of each genre by looking at the demographics of each genre. Not all
games are created equal. Figure 4.5, generated by the Entertainment Software
Association, gives us a snapshot of the popularity of individual genres in 2019.
All Other
Strategy 4%
4%
Racing
6%
Action
27%
Fighting
8%
Adventure
8%
Sport
11% Shooter
21%
Role Play
11%
Figure 4.5 Best-Selling Video Game Super Genres26

Each of these genres can be broken down further into subcategories or

defned by further terms based on the characteristics of the games involved.
As an example, the popular game Fortnite27 is a frst-person shooter Battle
Royale game. Don’t worry if those words don’t mean anything to you. Gam-
ers know exactly what they mean and what they are getting if they play
Fortnite or any game in the same sub-genre. Players of Fortnite know that
they will inhabit the body (frst-person) of one of 100 participants that are
competing via a variety of weapons, mostly guns (shooter), to be the last
person standing (Battle Royale). This competitive environment and sense of
community appeals to them, and the accomplishment of beating other play-
ers and winning the coveted top spot is compelling to them. As well, because
of the vast community of players, it has become a cultural touchpoint for
younger gamers. Some begin playing just because so many of their classmates
play and they want to be part of that social milieu.28 Genres are great because
they allow people to easily identify and understand the game play and game
mechanics of the games they will play, something we will discuss in the next
section of this chapter.
An interesting aspect of genres is that, like other classifcation systems,
they are refned, expanded, and tend to evolve over time. Game develop-
ers tend to fnd what people like from each genre, typically in the form of
mechanics, and apply them, if possible, to other genres. This creates new
meta-genres where there is a cross-pollination of ideas. For example, frst-
person shooters began as a simple concept. Grab a gun, kill the bad guys,
rinse, and repeat. Wolfenstein 3D,29 one of the frst games of this genre, made
the bad guys Nazis and made the killing palatable.
Over time, though, as gaming grew and the gaming market became sav-
vier, frst-person shooters also evolved. Taking their cue from role-playing
games, they added levels and progression mechanics.30 Instead of just starting
and ending the game as a badass, gun-toting hero, players in current frst-
person shooters begin as level-one players and earn their stripes and gain
levels as they mow down their enemies, whether computer-controlled or
other players. This is similar to progressing through the ranks of a career, but
in accelerated game world time. Start as a private but become a general in
no time. But wait, there’s more!
Players can also level up their weapons, unlocking new attachments and
abilities as they use them more, complete challenges associated with that
weapon, and just in general become better at simulated killing. What do
the players get for their eforts? Each of these progression tracks unlocks
new weapons and toys for the soldier to use, attachments for said weapons,
and customization options so they stand out amongst all the other soldiers.
These progression mechanics, coupled with rewards for investment of time
and skill, speak to the player’s motivations. Let’s focus more on why they
added these systems as we shift our narrative to the mechanics of games.
Mechanics
My philosophy is that once you get people compelled enough to sit down and play
the game, the whole way you make the game successful is by giving them enough
unique ways to do things. First, let them deal with pulling levers and things like
that for a while. Then after they’ve mastered that, you give them something else
to do, like getting through doorways by blasting them down with a cannon. Next,
you give them a monster-finding quest, followed by logic problems to figure out.
You pace it that way. Assorted activities and the diversity of activities are what
makes a game rich in my mind.
Richard Garriott31
Before talking about game mechanics, it’s important to define game play
versus game mechanics. Game play is a gestalt of the game mechanics that
defines what a player can do within the game and what the primary player
goals are. Game mechanics describe and detail the same elements, but they
do it in a way that approaches it from an engineering level versus a design
view. As famed Ultima creator Richard Garriott alluded to in the preceding
excerpt, the activities of a game make it rich, and game mechanics are the
key to defining game play.
Jesse Schell, founder of Schell Games and author of The Art of Game Design:
A Book of Lenses, looks at mechanics from a high level defning them by
the following six categories:32 spaces, states, actions, rules, skills, and chance.
These mechanics defne the game play and they need to be balanced and
examined in isolation and in conjunction with each other.33 Others have
defned mechanics in diferent terminologies and created their own def-
nitions; a good history on the topic was done by author and game design
professor Miguel Sicart, who classifed mechanics as “methods invoked by
agents, designed for interaction with the game state,” and then breaks down
mechanics by whether they are primary (core), secondary, or compound
mechanics.34
Take a look at the following list of mechanics that are detailed on Wikipe-
dia,35 supplemented with examples of famous video games that feature this
mechanic for reference:
• Turns (Advance Wars)

• Action points (X-Com)
• Auction/Bidding (World of Warcraft)
• Cards (Hearthstone)
• Capture/Eliminate (Risk)
• Catch-up (Super Mario Kart)
• Dice (Dungeons and Dragons)
• Movement (Chess)
• Resource management (Civilization)
• Risk and reward (Wheel of Fortune)
• Role-playing (Witcher 3)
• Tile-laying (Carcossone)
• Worker placement (Starcraft)
• Game modes (Call of Duty)
Further defining mechanics, we can list some that determine or contribute

to how players ‘win or lose’ the game:36
• Goals (Madden)
• Quests (Everquest)
• Loss avoidance (Fortnite)
• Piece elimination (Go)
• Puzzle solving (Candy Crush)
• Races (Need for Speed)
• Structure building (SimCity)
• Territory control (Command and Conquer)
• Victory points (Small World)
• Combination conditions (Magic the Gathering)
What’s interesting is that most games rely on a number of these mechanics

and, as Sicart noted, some of these are central to the game play and some are
there as options to supplement the main goal. For example, in Super Mario
Kart (Nintendo, 1992) and its many sequels, players are offered multiple game
modes, most of which require players race one another or the computer, and
provide one of the most iconic catch-up mechanics in the form of the blue
shell.37
The preceding lists are not exhaustive and not exclusive to entertainment
games. In fact, a lot of the mechanics listed are common in play throughout
history. What is important is that these mechanics bring to bear diferent
elements that evoke diferent experiences for the player targeting motivators
that drive engagement.
Motivators
To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into
software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy
a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.
Elon Musk38
Elon Musk has arguably revolutionized how technology can evolve industry
and it is heartening to see his motivation to do well was driven by his pas-
sions, which included video games. In fact, at the root of everything we’ve
discussed so far is this tenet: games succeed if they can meet expectations
and target what motivates their audience. Let’s look at the relationship of the
items that we have discussed so far in Figure 4.6.
Figure 4.6 Framework of the Additive Nature of Examining Engagement in Games
Viewed in a diferent light, we can also look at engagement generated by

entertainment games by showing how the elements interact. Genres help
players understand what mechanics and motivators will be included in the
game, setting expectations, and priming their experience. Within the game,
then, those mechanics are designed and presented in a manner that will help
to fulfll one or multiple motivators that drive the player’s engagement and
ultimately their ability to enter the fow of the game (shown in Figure 4.7).
Figure 4.7 Alternative View of Framework Showing Interaction Between

Elements
Put simply, a player will gravitate toward genres as they fnd that the
mechanics of those games hit on the motivators that engage them. As
an example, I like frst-person shooters because they allow me to prove
my skills against other players as the game keeps score and ranks us; this
competition, facilitated by the leaderboard mechanics, is a prime motivator

for my engagement with the game.
Motivation within the concept of play has been studied over the years in a
variety of formats. One of the most famous of these is known as the ‘Bartle
taxonomy of player types.’39 In this taxonomy, Bartle attempts to defne how
players approach games, specifcally Multiple User Dungeons (MUDS) that
are the precursor to Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. In doing
so, two axes of play style were considered: action versus interaction and
world-oriented versus player-oriented.
Based on his study, he classifed motivations by the following four main
motivators: achievement, exploration, socialization, and imposition. He
labeled these players as achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers. He then
abstracted them further by naming them after card suits (diamonds, spades,
hearts, and clubs) as shown in Figure 4.8.40
Abstract Motivation Description of Abstraction

Diamonds Achievement “they’re always seeking treasure”
Spades Exploration “they dig around for information”
Hearts Socialization “they empathize with other players”
Clubs Imposition “they hit people with them”
Figure 4.8 Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types41
Over time, Bartle’s taxonomy has been studied and expanded. In fact, in
1999, a Bartle test of Gamer Psychology was created by Erwin Andreasen
and Brandon Downey.42 Bartle himself added a third axis to show the degree
of explicit or implicit participation that involves the player, resulting in sub-
types for each of the main four types (Figure 4.9).43
Type Sub-Type Description

Achiever Planner (explicit) Sets a goal and aims to achieve it
Opportunist (implicit) Finds and sets goals as they discover them
Explorer Scientist (explicit) Methodical in acquisition of knowledge
Hacker (implicit) Intuitive understanding of the world
Socializer Networker (explicit) Assess who is worthy of companionship
Friend (implicit) Enjoys others company
Killer Politician (explicit) Goal is to get a good reputation
Griefer (implicit) Goal is to get a bad reputation
Figure 4.9 Bartle’s Expanded Taxonomy of Player Types44
As research into games continued, researchers attempted to quantify

motivation by diferent scales, building on Bartle’s framework. In fact, Nick
Yee surveyed 30,000 MMO players to develop and expand how to catego-
rize players and their motivations in virtual worlds.45 Based on his research,
Yee broke down the motivations for players as the following factors: rela-
tionship, manipulation, immersion, escapism, and achievement. What is
interesting about the study is that Yee also found that MMOs fostered mean-
ingful relationships, emotional investments, and facilitated skill acquisition
and transfer. In fact, the multi-user aspect of the MMO resulted in the trans-
fer and development of skills like leadership or social skills that most players
would have never thought about when thinking about playing a game. We’ll
return to this topic of the unique aspect of multiplayer environments at the
end of this chapter.
Over time, Yee expanded and redefned his categories, similar to how
Bartle expanded his own taxonomy, and Figure 4.10 shows a more current
view of motivations that can be examined.
Action Social Mastery Achievement Immersion Creativity

Destruction Competition Challenge Completion Fantasy Design
Excitement Community Strategy Power Story Discovery
Figure 4.10 Categories and Sub-Categories of Motivation in Gaming46
Whether classifying the motivations for players by Bartle or Yee or other

frameworks, a successful entertainment game will engage the player by
appealing to their motivations. The ability for games to fulfll these motiva-
tions via carefully designed mechanics and interactivity make them a prime
model in which to design and infuence future learning games. If learning
can be fun, won’t we learn more? Maybe. There are a few other components
to consider though, like how people learn and how designers present the
learning content.
UI and UX Designs: Case Study
There is more information available at our fingertips during a walk in the woods
than in any computer system, yet people find a walk among trees relaxing and
computers frustrating. Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forc-
ing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a
walk in the woods.
Mark Weiser47
As chronicled in the previous chapter, there was a rush in the early days of
learning games to combine “what games do well” with “what education
does well,” but the results were mixed and led to what Scott M. Martin, in
the prior chapters, characterizes as the first learning game winter. Part of
what we’ll see in these case studies is what Mark Weiser stated so well way
back in 1991: in order for games or technology to be effective, it needs to
be user friendly.
Earlier in this chapter, we approached the idea of entertainment games
through a framework of looking at the meta-design of entertainment
games (genres, mechanics, and motivations). But these elements of the
game are only a part of the framework of learning that we need to exam-
ine to maximize the ability for learning games to succeed. The next
factor to examine is the input senses; i.e., what the player sees, hears,
touches, etc., as they participate in the virtual world. When referring to
how this occurs in games and other mediums, the terms UI, UX, and
UI/UX are thrown around; each of which, much like game play and
game mechanics, describes diferent aspects of how users gain and interact
with information.
User interface, or UI, is the simplest and most common terminology
applied to the way in which users interact with a game. When describing
and designing the UI for a game a developer needs to consider both the
methods and interfaces available to the user. Figure 4.11 outlines what is
typically included in each.
Type of UI What it Means Examples

Interfaces What information and options the game Inventory screen, maps, menus, scores,
gives the player. information pop-ups, etc.
Methods How the player physically accesses said Keyboard, mouse, joystick; clicking.
information and options. scrolling, etc.
Figure 4.11 Types of UI Elements
User experience, or UX, is a more comprehensive feld. According to

cognitive scientist Don Norman, who coined the term:
‘User experience’ encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction

with the company, its services, and its products.
Don Norman48
As you can imagine, that’s a very holistic approach to defining user experi-
ence. In games it is typically defined within the context of the whole of the
product versus the whole of the company.
In its simplest form, UI is a subset of the UX of a game and both must
be examined properly to ensure that gamers are being given the right infor-
mation in the right way at the right time in order to create an engaging
experience.
Sadly, UI and UX have traditionally been the step-children of the games

industry, traditionally handled by artists or designers versus dedicated per-
sonnel.49 This developer-centric approach led to some abject failures and
some accidentally triumphant designs, but it was based on intuition and
guts more than science and research. Over the last few decades, though,
developers have started to realize the importance of crafting a UI that is
not only usable but that appeals to the many aspects of what they would
later come to embrace as UX. In a similar fashion, learning games need to
embrace not only a learner-centric design philosophy but a gamer-centric
philosophy, as well.
Building on UX as a method of design, Peter Morville (founder and
president, Semantic Studios) created a honeycomb visual (Figure 4.12) that
shows the dimensions to consider when evaluating efective UX design.50
Useful
Usable Desirable
Valuable
Findable Accessible
Credible
Figure 4.12 UX Honeycomb by Peter Morville51

Others have adapted this into frameworks for learning, tools, and
even games, much to the surprise of the author. At the core, though, we
can really identify with how UX helps in the cognition process. Earlier,
when talking about cognitive load and identifying how diferent types of
load can afect your ability to learn, we saw that the extraneous factors in
cognitive load can increase or decrease your cognitive ability. These factors
are the same said areas that UI and UX are pursuing. How do we make a
game fun by giving the player “the right information at the right time with
the right ability to use it”?
When designing for the player, a good UI/UX designer will take into
account a plethora of issues and make a ton of decisions over the course of
an iterative game development cycle. These include the bare basics noted
earlier in the UI’s methods and interfaces, but also include topics like the
following:
• Level of details in games

• Layout of information in games
• Presentation or information in games
• Perfect versus imperfect information
• Implicit versus explicit information
• Intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards
There are scores of books on UI/UX and studies done on the topic, so let’s
look at some of those examples that help us to demonstrate what games have
done well and done poorly, and how we can learn from both. When exam-
ining UI/UX though, it does help to have a framework, and Celia Hodent,
former director of UX at Epic Games (creator of the aforementioned Fort-
nite), defines one in her excellent book, The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience
and UX Can Impact Video Game Design.52
In Hodent’s framework, there are two main buckets in which we can
address the UX: usability and engage-ability. Usability is defned by pillars
such as signs and feedback, clarity, form follows function, consistency, mini-
mum workload, error prevention/recovery, and fexibility. Engage-ability
is defned by motivation, emotion, and game fow. Keeping those domains
in mind, let’s look at UI and UX in relation to a number of specifc games.
Dead Space
One of the common questions that UI and UX designers must ask them-
selves is how to present information to the player in a way that promotes
engage-ability and doesn’t negatively affect usability. Fagerhold and Lorent-
zon looked at information by examining whether or not it was diegetic. By
examining if a UI element is part of the 3D game space (versus a layer on

top of it) and whether or not it exists in the fictional game world (diegetic or
non-diegetic), they could help to define how to visualize said information
in ways that made the UX more immersive.53
With that in mind, the creators of Dead Space (Electronic Arts, 2008), a
sci-f horror-themed third-person shooter, decided to go all in on diegetic
display of information. The game’s lead UI designer explained the philoso-
phy as ‘diegetic by design and implementation,’ meaning that all elements
appear in the context of the fction as well as the audience.54
What this means is that any crucial information for the player, like player
health, oxygen levels, energy levels, maps, or even ammunition were woven
into the player avatar and in-game models. For example, the main character
in Dead Space has a unique full body armor that protects them from harm,
provides limited oxygen, and lets them do all kinds of neat sci-f things.
Rather than just have an overlay on the screen showing your health, oxy-
gen, or energy for your items, they created lights on the armor that seemed
part of the design, yet provided the information needed at a simple glance.
Such a simple change meant that the player never was pulled out of the
action by non-diegetic information sources. They could concentrate on being
immersed in the creepy and scary space scenes, and this worked very well. Dead
Space went on to become a trilogy of games that continued this philosophy,
with some minor changes based on player feedback through the entire series.
Super Mario Brothers
Good old Mario first made his debut as the hapless hero of the hit arcade
platformer, Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981). However, one of his most semi-
nal games is the classic Super Mario Brothers, which made its debut in 1995
on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game system. It has all the
traditional elements of a platformer of the era and a very usable and efficient
UI, but what really sets up its status as a classic is the user experience of the
game. Scores of books could be written55 about Mario and even just this one
Super Mario Brothers game, but we’re going to concentrate on one aspect in
regards to UX, progression of information.
Super Mario Brothers has a simple concept. The princess has been kid-
napped, and the player must progress through the game to save her. Doing
so, they can use the joystick and buttons to jump, crouch, and run through
a variety of challenges.
Rather than tell the player didactically about the game mechanics, how-
ever, Super Mario Brothers used its main menu screen to showcase your avatar
in action, and thereby give examples of what can be done upon playing (for
example, the player can jump on the enemy Goomba to propel themselves
over environmental obstacles). No cutscenes or exposition were necessary.

Beginning in the frst level, 1–1, the game rewards players for testing the
controls, exploring, and trying new things, but it doesn’t require them to
master them to continue. It doesn’t overwhelm the player. The game intro-
duces new mechanics, new enemies, and new powers at set points as players
fnish each distinct world. In fact, they can even return to previous worlds
to fnd and do things that are discovered in later game play, giving the
game even more staying power than others of the time. This progression of
information and how it’s doled out is almost a master class in game design.
Every level builds on the last, and this keeps the player moving forward and
encourages backtracking in order to move forward. By defning the ‘beats’
of the game in this manner, SMB promotes fow and ensures that players are
learning the right info at the right time.
Assessment Engines and Game-Based Learning

Evaluation
What is best about the best games is that they draw kids into some very hard
learning. Did you ever hear a game advertised as being easy? What is worst about
school curriculum is the fragmentation of knowledge into little pieces. This is
supposed to make learning easy, but often ends up depriving knowledge of per-
sonal meaning and making it boring. Ask a few kids: the reason most don’t like
school is not that the work is too hard, but that it is utterly boring.
Seymour Papert56
Noted educator and mathematician Seymour Papert does a great job pro-
viding a colloquial look at the idea of balancing cognitive load and chal-
lenges to achieve effective learning. With that in mind and after looking at
how games promote flow (Chapter 3), how cognitive load theory requires a
balancing act to promote learning (Chapter 4), and the user experience that
a learning game needs to promote all the preceding, there is one final part
of the equation to address: Are the players learning?
Everyone reading this book has been assessed at some point in their for-
mal or informal educational careers. For as long as humans have passed along
stories and knowledge, there have been ways to ensure that information
was retained and could be used. It began with simple preservation. Stories
were passed on around a campfre or drawn on cave walls. Could someone
memorize or access the information if needed? From there, it progressed to
understanding and utilizing the knowledge. Eventually we began to realize
that, to truly master a topic, we should be able to analyze it and create new
works based on that knowledge. This transformation of learning is captured
famously by Bloom’s taxonomy as seen in Figure 4.13.
Create
Evaluate
Analyze
Apply
Understand
Remember
Figure 4.13 Bloom’s Taxonomy57
As education became more formalized, the ability to assess the transfer

of knowledge and, more importantly, critical thinking became a focus. At
the end of the day, it’s our primary method of grading, pun intended, how
educators are performing.
In schools, the simplest assessments often take the form of quizzes,
essays, or even the dreaded standardized tests. When looking at each level
of Bloom’s taxonomy, diferent methods of assessment might sufce. If an
educator wants to make sure someone ‘remembers’ something, true or false,
multiple choice, or even short answer questions might be perfect for gaug-
ing this, but to understand if someone can apply what they’ve learned, they
need to engage in more open-ended assessments.
For good instructional designers, it’s not just about what they ask them
when assessing learning outcomes, but when and how.
Now complicate that process by introducing a medium that is new and
engaging to the learner, how do you introduce assessments to learning
games without breaking the fow or introducing cognitive overload?
A designer might be tempted to just resort to the tried and true methods
noted earlier and just include them in the game. Others might just try to
shoehorn the concepts and questions into the game play itself (remember Math
Blasters?). Good learning games should strive to bring the learning and assess-
ment inline, but often in an indirect manner that makes it oblivious to the
learner.
The good news is that games are a digital medium and as such have the
capability to provide tremendous amount of data about a player. Data ana-
lytics and metrics can be generated, stored, cross-referenced, timestamped,
and even replayed if desired in a game. The trick, though, is determining
what to record and how it can be used to assess a player.
Think about this example: in order to proceed through the level, the
player needs to place a box on the other end of a seesaw so that the far end
will be raised and create a ramp to the next level. By doing so, we can show
that the player understands certain aspects of physics and geometry. But
aside from completing the task, what other information would help us to
identify if they truly ‘learned’ about the concepts?
Would knowing how long it took them to fgure out the puzzle help to
gauge their learning? On the surface, it seems like a legitimate measure to
consider. If student A fgures out the puzzle in ten seconds, but student B
fgures it out in ten minutes, it says something about those students, right?
The frustrating answer is that this is incomplete and possibly inconsequential
information. What if the student took ten minutes because he was interrupted
during the play session? What if the student that took ten seconds tried the
correct solution by happenstance? Did they really learn from the encounter?
What teachers might want to look at instead is how the students do over time
when faced with the same type of learning encounter or mechanic and then
factor in time or other metrics to get a better gauge of the same student.
That brings us to the bad news: just because you can get data, it doesn’t
mean that data is useful. It’s not all bad news, though, as games are get-
ting more intelligent and are being programmed to understand and monitor
player performance and respond to it.
So how do we assess learning in games? There are several researchers looking
into this exact question. For example, the Institute for Games for Learning tried
to examine how to break down mechanics into game-based, learning-based,
and assessment-based to ensure that each goal is met accurately.58 Others, like
the many authors in The Wiley Handbook of Cognition and Assessment Frameworks,
examined assessment across a number of applications, including video games;
in chapter 22, Shute and Wang examine how diferent constructs (elements) of
learning can be examined by using evidence-centered design, where compe-
tency and skills can be examined based on actions in the videogame.59 They also
propose and detail how stealth assessments can be designed based on the data
that can be provided by the virtual learning environment. What we see as com-
mon, though, from any game-centered studies is that if learning is an objective,
it needs to be addressed in the design of the game.
In short, when thinking about a learning game, we must examine not only
the design considerations of making a game fun but also understand what
additional or modifed design considerations are present in a learning game.
Let’s take a look at a fnal example: Figure 4.14 shows a hypothetical
design for a quiz game. On the left, it highlights logic for what is needed for
an entertainment quiz game, and on the right, we see how it difers when
we have to add in learning outcomes. It’s no longer just wanting to beat
your opponent or score on the leaderboard; it’s about making sure the player
actually learned something. In fact, in the educational game example, it
doesn’t even address how they learned the materials that are being quizzed.
Entertainment Game Quiz Educational Game Quiz

Start Start
Load quiz questions Load quiz questions

number n from number n from
database database
If n = Yes If n = Yes
0? 0?
No No
Load question: x Load question: x

answer: A answer: A
Assessment
Timer Start Timer Start = Learning
Outcomes
No Answer No Answer
Correct? Correct?
Yes Yes
No No
Timer > 0 Timer > 0
Yes Yes
TotalScore + TotalScore +
= score Database = score
Display Correct Display Correct

Answer Answer
Database
i++; i++;
n.. n..
End End
Figure 4.14 Example Showing Entertainment Versus Educational Quiz Game
Thinking about it a diferent way, Figure 4.15 presents some questions a

designer might need to answer about each game.
Entertainment Game Serious Game

Is it fun? Is it fun?
Design in scope? Design in scope?
Cost to develop? Cost to develop?
Will people play it? Will students play it?
Will people buy it? How do students learn answers/improve?
How much will they pay? Are we meeting learning goals?
Assessment proves learning?
Will teachers embrace?
Stand-alone or dependent on curriculum?
Figure 4.15 Design Questions for Hypothetical Quiz Game Comparison
As a fnal thought on the topic, following are a number of ways that

learning games can potentially disguise or embed assessment into the game
itself and still be able to pull the metrics and conclude on whether learning
outcomes were met.
Examples
Instead of just giving math problems, require the user to use math concepts
in order to complete tasks.
Ex. If crafting one item needs ten resources and we require the user
to craft ten of said item, we can start to see that they understand how
multiplication and/or addition work as they strive to meet and fulfill
those recipes.
Instead of just teaching vocabulary or languages, embed the lessons into the
game play so they are needed to proceed.
Ex. A trilogy of games that teach the Japanese language disguised

the lessons by making it so the Japanese letters, words, and phrases
are ‘spells’ that the player needs to know to defeat monsters that are
attacking the town (Figure 4.16).
Instead of just asking learners to repeat information, show they can apply
it by creating a situation that requires it.
Figure 4.16 Screenshot from Learn Japanese to Survive! Kanji Combat60 (River
Crow Studio, 2018)
Ex. The virtual reality game Tablecraft (Not Suspicious LLC, 2020) is
being developed to teach learners about the elements and chemistry in
a quirky science fiction environment. Instead of providing formulas, it
lets the player figure out how things break down or combine through
trial and error.
Principles of Designing Successful Learning Games
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than
anyone else.
Albert Einstein61
Finally, let’s look at polices and principles to consider when design-

ing game-based solutions today, regardless of subject-matter, that will
better engage the learner and ensure that learners do not face cognitive
overload.
Richard Mayer has published a number of principles over the years that
have guided instructional design, primarily around the use of multimedia
in e-learning.62 From these, we can show that a number of them that
prove true in learning and in games and should be used when think-
ing about how to make learning successful when developing game-based
solutions.
The following are eight principles we will discuss further.63
1 Spatial contiguity
2 Temporal contiguity
3 Coherence principle
4 Modality principle
5 Redundancy principle
6 Pretraining principle
7 Signaling principle
8 Personalization principle
Spatial Contiguity
Put simply, this principle state that people will learn better when corre-
sponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each
other on the screen. Take a look at the example in Figure 4.17.
Example 1 Example 2
A A
45º
180º - A - C 45º
B C B C
A= 45º. C= 45º
B = 180º - A - C
Figure 4.17 Example of Two Ways to Demonstrate How Angles in a Triangle

Relate
In example 1, the information for the angles and information to solve for
angle B are not presented in line with the visual; violating the spatial conti-
guity principle. In example 2, the same information is provided but in-line
with the visual and is easier for a learner to put together.
Like many of the principles that will be discussed here, the goal behind
this is simple to see in the examples. By reducing the distance between ele-
ments (text and visuals for example), the brain spends less time correlating
the two inputs and less time evaluating other alternatives. In gaming, we
start to see this take place by putting information closer to the objects that
are being detailed (Figure 4.18).
Example 1 Example 2
Author Author
Health: 1/100 Health: 1/100
Evil Crab
Health: 50/100
Evil Crab
Health: 50/100
Figure 4.18 Example of Enemy Health Location in a User Interface

In example 1, the information for the Evil Crab is in the bottom right of
the screen, causing the player to need to shift their attention between three
diferent elements (player health (top left), the enemy itself (middle), and
enemy health (bottom right). In example 2, we reduce the cognitive load on
the player by giving them the enemy information in the center of the screen
where most of their attention already is focused.
Temporal Contiguity
The second of the contiguity principles, this principle states that corre-
sponding words and pictures should be presented simultaneously rather than
successively (Figure 4.19).
Example 1 Example 2
Brain Parts Brain Parts
A Brain Parts Frontal Lobe Parietal
C A – Frontal Lobe Lobe
B – Temporal Lobe
C – Parietal Lobe
D D – Occipital Lobe
Occipital
B Temporal Lobe Lobe
Slide 1 Slide 2 Slide 1
Figure 4.19 Example Showing Presentation of Information Sequentially Ver-

sus Concurrently
Imagine being taught about parts of the brain in a class where the teacher
tried to use example 1; seeing the information sequentially here makes it
harder for the reader to put together the concepts. In example 2, the infor-
mation is presented in the moment, allowing for learners to understand; it
also happens to correct for spatial contiguity.
For games, this immediacy of information is extremely important. In fact, we
can see it in action when talking about reward mechanics. Giving a player tally
boards at the end of a level or match that call out rewards and scores are very
efective. They serve to cement the action that took place during the game.
But if we also call out when notable tasks are completed, rewards met, or the
like during a game or level, the player’s behavior will be reinforced by the posi-
tive notifcations. A great example of this in gaming is the achievement sys-
tem, popularized by the Xbox and present in most major game platforms today.
Achievements are tasks that can be completed in the game to unlock a record of
your achievements and gain points for your overall gamer score. In some games,
the tasks are simply things that happen during the game, like completing a level.
In other games, they are intricate and inspire exploration and experimenta-
tion. Achievements unlock when the player performs the tasks or series of tasks
required and display onscreen as a small notifcation (Figure 4.20).
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
Learned About Temporal Contiguity
Figure 4.20 Congratulations! You Got an Achievement
To ensure the gratifcation of the moment, it is imperative to notify the

gamer about an achievement at the time of their accomplishment. When
delayed, the same information lacks the same punch and lacks context. As
an avid gamer, hearing the ding of a rare achievement popping and seeing
it light up on the screen is a true high and makes me go after more of the
same. There have been times when I’ve attempted some difcult achieve-
ments and the system delays the fulfllment and recognition of the reward
and it frustrates, confuses, and distracts me from my enjoyment because now
I’m stuck wondering if I did it wrong or if the system or game is broken, all
of which become a negative reinforcement loop if it continues.
Coherence Principle
This principles states that you should only present information the learner
needs. Remove any fluff and retain only simple text and visuals that are
directly related to the learning topic (Figure 4.21).
Example 1 Example 2
Brain Parts
Brain Parts
Frontal Lobe Parietal
Lobe
Frontal Lobe Parietal
Lobe
Occipital
Temporal Lobe Lobe
Occipital
Temporal Lobe Lobe
The brain is divided into multiple lobes, all of which provide different
functionality to the user.
Figure 4.21 Coherence Principle Examples

In example 1, the image contains extra information and visuals that pro-
vide additional information (bottom explanation) or are fuf (visuals of
teacher and an eye). In example 2, the information is limited to just the
important aspects.64
Again, this principle is attempting to alleviate cognitive overload by pre-
venting the learner from having to evaluate and classify extraneous informa-
tion. With games, this is important, as developers always want to keep your
player engaged and in the ‘fow.’ The “right amount of information at the
right time” is the key way to think about this principle. Take a look at the
example in Figure 4.22 from Legends of Aria, a free-to-play MMO that will
be discussed in Chapter 5.
Figure 4.22 Legends of Aria (Citadel Studios, 2020) User Interface65
As seen in the screenshot, there are so many diferent elements and infor-
mation to convey, and striking a balance in games is a juggling act. In fact,
as we will learn later, giving players the ability to modify their experience is
sometimes key so the users can solve this problem themselves.
Modality Principle
This principle states that learners will learn better when information is
explained via audio narration versus on-screen text, especially given com-
plex, fast-paced, familiar content (Figure 4.23).
Example 1 Example 2
Lorem Epsum
Figure 4.23 Example of Modality Principle
In games, this principle does seem to hold fast, but often voice-overs
are not provided in all games for a number of reasons, including cost,
efciency, and time. Because of this, games have found shortcuts or other
methods to meet the idea behind this principle if not the exact practice.
For example, they pace and simplify the language to make it easier to
parse and digest. In fact, some games rely on made up language to convey
a similar efect.66
Redundancy Principle
This principle states that people learn better by eliminating redundant

information. As an example, if providing visuals or animation along with
narration, there is no need to provide on-screen text describing the same
concepts. It seems similar to the modality principle, but they come at the
same problem from different angles. In the modality principle shown earlier,
we choose narration because the avenue of providing information was better
(narration is better than text); in this principle, we are saying that rather than
just include narration, eliminate the text because providing multiple inputs
to process may overload a viewer.
Although this is true in most cases, including in games, it is important to
remember that another principle is to ensure that the game allows for dif-
ferences in player learning ability. To that end, if following the redundancy
principle, it’s fne to have a cut-scene where avatars hold a conversation,
but the game should allow for the option to enable captioning to those that
require it.
As an example, the Last of Us 2 sets new bars in the options available for all
the senses, allowing for a variety of text, visual, and prompts based on each
user’s preferences or accessibility needs.67
Pretraining Principle
This principle deals with the order of information. For learners to learn
effectively, it is essential to ensure that they have the required information
to evaluate key concepts.
Think back to the example we gave earlier about elements of interactiv-
ity and schemas. In order to solve those viral math challenges, you need
to know about numbers, operations, and, most importantly, the order of
operations, or PEMDAS. The pretraining principle would teach how to
solve a riddle like this in that order, instead of starting with the problem and
trying to work backwards.
In games, this is important because developers want to ensure that the
player always feels comfortable while they are learning about the rules and
tools of the world. This is extremely important in the context of serious
games as not only might the player learn about specifc concepts and knowl-
edge, but they might also be deluged with fctional elements as part of the
virtual construct.
If you think back to the Super Mario Brothers example earlier in the chap-
ter, we can see that it does this well, showing the player the proper level of
information to propel them forward and giving out information before they
need it to be efective.
Signaling Principle
This principle states that learners will learn more effectively when signals are
added to highlight and provide context to the essential material.
To signal properly what is important in any material, this could be done

with highlighting, underlining, or even arrows or callouts of all sorts.
This is shown and used in games to great effect, often because the amount of
information available to players can be tremendous. If something is impor-
tant, multiple cues can ensure that a player doesn’t miss out on essential
information or opportunities or, worse yet, potentially disastrous informa-
tion. In fact, this concept applies when fighting monsters in games. If the
monster suddenly and without warning attacks the player and does tons of
damage, they will be annoyed, but if the monster telegraphs attacks by its
animations (for example, heaving its big sword back and over its shoulder in
order to launch a massive smashing attack), skilled players will see the signal
and respond accordingly.
Personalization Principle
Put simply, this principle states that learners will engage better and learn
more effectively if information is provided in a natural and conversational
tone. Incorporating an agent to focus the information can increase engage-
ment, as well (Figure 4.24).
In examples 1 and 2, the language is stif and formal. In example 1, it is
just presented to the user; in example 2, an avatar is included, which helps,
but again it feels very formal. Example 3 uses more natural language and a
less formal avatar to help the user feel more comfortable.
Example 1 Example 2 Example 3
Greetings. Hey Xavier!
Greetings.
Figure 4.24 Examples of Personalization Principle
In the gaming world, this is done primarily in areas where narration or

immersion are deemed necessary, whereas this principle doesn’t diferenti-
ate use cases. It is good practice to think about how to communicate any
information, whether it’s story, concepts, or just instructions/information,
in a manner that is easy for the player to follow. Like the other principles
here, the key is ensuring everyone can follow along and balancing cog-
nition. Going back to the UX section earlier, think about whether that
information can be presented as diegetic within the world; if so, an agent

or avatar or non-player character (NPC) might be an ideal way to use this
principle.
In summary, these principles all come back to the earlier UX dis-
cussion about reducing the extraneous cognitive load by validating that
how information is presented doesn’t come into confict with what is
presented.
Multiplayer Games and Learning
“HE DIED” “LB is dead!!!”

– Ultima Online players on the death of Lord British68
In 1997, shortly before it’s launch, Ultima Online (UO) was doing a stress
test after months of preparation. Ultima Online was one of the first Massively
Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, also known by the abbreviation
MMORPG or simply MMO, to come online, and it became the first to
popularize the genre.69 We’ll delve more into the history of multiplayer
environments in a moment, but for now, this minor bit of history is needed
to give context to the quote and its relevance. MMOs allow for large
numbers of gamers to come together in a world, each represented by
an avatar, and interact within the constraints of the game world. Not
only was UO a new breed of connected game world, it was also what
became known as a sandbox game. It gave players the ability to develop
their own game play, which has become known as emergent game play.
Rather than just give them a linear path, they were given rules and tools
and set free in the world. In all previous incarnations (both from UO
and previous Ultima games), the avatar for the game designer Richard
Garriott was known as Lord British and was invincible. If it’s your game,
you got to get some sort of perk right? But what happened at that stress
test surprised even the developers. Through a confluence of events, Lord
British’s character was not set to invulnerable, the guards that prevented
looting were not present, and a player was devious enough to see what
they could get away with. They stole a fire field scroll from another law-
abiding player and cast it for fun. One of the other developer’s avatars
just laughed at the attempt, but Richard Garriott found his avatar face
down in the dirt, slain by the errant player, and history was made. Lord
British had to be revived by another developer and they then summoned
demons. People ran amuck and chaos ensued, but, most importantly,
everyone had a blast.70
What has always stuck with me about this story, though, is not just the
absurdity of it but the fact that what happened was truly only possible with
the magic of the MMO. The whole situation reminds me of a classroom.

The players were the students, learning the world and rules of the game.
The developers were there as instructors, providing a virtual classroom to
guide and develop the world for the players. Just like in physical classrooms,
though, good students will interact and push the boundaries. New discover-
ies will occur and, if all goes well, everyone learns from it and is engaged by
it, including the teacher. But how do we capitalize on this idea of bringing
learners together in a digital medium?
Let’s examine how we can leverage the ability of digital gaming, seri-
ous or entertainment, to engage multiple users in a manner reminiscent of
classrooms by utilizing multiplayer learning environments. To do this, we
will examine briefy the negative and positive aspects of massive multiplayer
online (MMO) virtual worlds.
Multiplayer Modality
Humans are by nature herd animals. Our culture is designed around passing
along our knowledge, celebrating our accomplishments, and making a last-
ing impression on our world, even if this is limited to our fellow humans.
We all remember the teachers that impacted our life the most. We also
recall the fellow students that were part of our learning journey over the
years. For good or bad, our whole life is a multiplayer experience. Because
of this, it’s only natural that we look to capitalize on this to achieve better
learning.
Games in general have always embraced multiplayer modes. Why
should we limit our learning games to a single player experience? While
they can be very efective, we also learn by seeing others succeed and
fail alongside us. In fact, you may recall that a number of the motivators
that we talked about earlier require multiple people to work efectively
(competition, collaboration, achievement, etc.). Although it might be fun
to beat our own high score for personal achievement, there is something
inherently more engaging about beating others and getting better in the
process.
Think about the following scenario: You want to learn how to play
tennis and become better. You could read about the topic, set up an area
where you can bounce the ball against a wall to practice against yourself,
but at some point you need a trainer or partner to practice against. But
will you just play the same person over and over? No, you need to increase
your skill, so you seek out others to play against. You register for tourna-
ments, you start to apply yourself at diferent levels of competition, and
soon you are at Wimbledon. Well, maybe. What’s important is that to
learn and become better you need people, lots of them. Maybe not all
at the same time, but you need them. Plus, isn’t winning better with an
audience?
So instead of concentrating on learning games where students play and
learn alone with only game-controlled non-player characters or agents as
companions, what if we can invite real people into a shared space and play
together?
MUDS (Multi-User Dungeons) were some of the frst games to really
dive into this idea of multi-user experience. Similar to the pen and paper
role playing game Dungeons and Dragons, MUDS attempted to allow play-
ers to ‘log-in’ and enjoy a typical fantasy world game together in real time.
As technologies evolved and the internet became pervasive, the capacity to
put players together increased, expanding from scores of players to dozens,
to hundreds, and eventually to the thousands and beyond.
As mentioned earlier, one of the frst truly ‘massive’ multiplayer online
games was a role-playing game that evolved from a single-player series called
Ultima. Called, appropriately enough, Ultima Online, this frst true MMO
forged a community of players that could cooperate or compete against
each other in a sandbox environment. Ultima Online gave players the ability
to fulfll their motivations amongst many other people with similar motiva-
tors, which proved to be immensely compelling to players, as we saw in the
earlier Lord British snafu.
Over time, many companies have embraced this MMO genre and
improved on how they allowed gamers to explore, fght, and interact
with increasingly involved and evolving worlds. Some of these have
become part of our general popular culture, as well, World of Warcraft
being a notable example. Trying to list all of the MMOs that have paved
the way would be time-consuming and beyond the point; MMOs have
proved their staying power by capitalizing on community or socialization
motivators.71
In fact, MMOs’ success in fulflling this primal need for community
among gamers has led to the incorporation of mechanics and technology
from these games into games that traditionally had been solo or simply mul-
tiplayer games. For example, the popular sci-f shooter Destiny incorporated
a number of mechanics that were intentionally lifted from the MMO genre,
including hub zones (where players can meet, chat, and join groups), raids,
and chat features.
MMOs sound amazing, so why wouldn’t we just make all games mas-
sively multiplayer? For the same reason that we need to tutor students or
have personalized learning in some cases: people are a wild-card.
Having spent about 13 years of my game design career developing
MMOs, I have worked in a lot of departments, but all of them revolved
around the user, the player, the gamer. The player was your greatest ally
and potentially your greatest enemy. In a single-player game, everything is
tailored and based on your inputs. How the world reacts, and what your
character hears, sees, and does within it is easy to understand and com-
pensate for. However, when a game starts bringing in multiple players,
developers realize that their designs need to change to compensate for mass
participation.
If your game has one player trying to kill a dragon for experience to
level their character and earn some gold, what happens when the game has
100 players all trying to do the same thing at the same time? What happens
when players who we would classify as ‘griefers’ in the Bartle taxonomy
come to play?
The early days of MMOs were literally learning experiences for develop-
ers struggling to understand how players’ motivations changed when they
were playing together and how mechanics needed to compensate for mul-
tiple users banging away at them.
As an example of how players tend to act diferently and how we have to
account for how player’s actions can afect each other, I ofer the following
anecdote from the development trenches.
It is a commonly accepted theorem in the MMO development world
that if you build it, players will attempt to make something phallic from it.
A more colloquial term exists for this practice, TTP or Time to Phallus.72
It basically means that, as a developer, we have to ensure that any mechanic
or feature introduced limits the ability of the user to create not-safe-for-
work content. Giving the players the ability to stack rocks eventually yields
‘PhallusHenge.’ In a single-player game, no one would care, but when your
world is full of other people, you have to worry about everyone’s experi-
ences together.
Despite these potential problems, which can be alleviated, the appeal
of collaborative learning is attractive and elusive to educators. As such,
a lot of research into games, including a lot of what has been cited in
this book, tends to gravitate toward testing against what they refer to as
multiplayer learning environments (MLEs). Researchers have looked at
existing MMOs (Second Life, World of Warcraft, etc.), multiplayer games
(Minecraft, Roblox), as well as custom virtual worlds created specifcally for
their research.
To give you an idea of the type of research being done in MLEs, here are
some interesting examples.
MMOs as a Way to Learn About Pandemics
In 2005, World of Warcraft introduced a new encounter for players that

were ‘high-level,’ meaning they had progressed very far into the world and
spent a considerable amount of time increasing their characters’ power
and abilities.73 During this encounter, the main monster that needed to
be defeated (the ‘Boss’) had an attack that infected players with a disease
called Corrupted Blood. The infection was designed with these high-level
players in mind as a hindrance, adding a level of challenge to the encoun-
ter. They needed to manage the disease and prevent it from spreading to
other players so they could successfully complete the encounter. However,
the developers had not prepared properly for all contingencies. Due to the
ability of characters to travel instantly from their current location to certain
spots (like the major cities of the game world) and the length of the dis-
ease’s effect on infected players, some of the players ended up spreading the
disease outside of the encounter area. All of a sudden, what was supposed
to be a challenging isolated mechanic then became a full-blown pandemic.
It went from a minor annoyance to killing players all over the virtual con-
tinent of Azeroth.74
The event even got media attention75 because of how it mimicked a
natural pandemic and the chaos it caused for gamers. In fact, it caught the
attention of Nina Feferman and Eric Lofgren, who studied the event in
detail and began research into using virtual worlds to document and show
how they can model real-world contagions, something that had not been
possible previously due to scale.76 Others have also researched this event
and it has even been used as an example in light of the current Covid-19
pandemic.77
Although the preceding is more about learning from the MMO experi-
ence, the MMO itself has been used in a variety of studies as an instrument
to facilitate social learning.78
In summary, the MMO, adapted or created specifcally as an MLE,
provides a unique digital counterpoint to the traditional collaborative
learning communities that have fourished through history. As tech-
nologies improve and the ability to become truly tele-present becomes
increasingly commonplace and cost-efective, we should continue to look
at how to provide collaboration and community via multiplayer learning
environments.
This chapter started by defning, gauging, and mitigating cognitive load
and then applying a framework of learning to show how it mirrors the ways
in which games need to balance engagement, sometimes referred to as fow.
From there, we examined how entertainment games can achieve fow by
looking at their meta-design (genre, mechanics, and motivation). From here
we looked at games, both serious and entertainment, through the lenses of
user interface and user experience design and provided a number of prin-
ciples that can be applied to learning games to help balance cognitive load.
Finally, we looked at a specifc genre of games, massively multiplayer games,
to investigate how they are uniquely suited to ofer opportunities to further
defne learning games and game-based learning in the future. But why does
all of this truly matter?
An old adage, “Children are the future,” seems to be apropos here. For
better or worse, younger generations are being inducted into an increas-
ingly online and virtual world. When I was young, the ability for me to
expand my mind relied on my ability to travel to or acquire sources of
knowledge. Doing research for school back in those days meant rely-
ing on your teacher, the library, or, if you were lucky, perhaps a set of
Encyclopedia Britannica. What once was a multi-volume book set on my
family’s bookcase shelves has been replaced by the sheer overwhelming
magnitude of the internet: Wikipedia is a prime example. We are now a
crowdsourced and verifed multilingual global learning community and
our ability to tap into this global classroom is literally in our hands or
pocket all day long.
In order to compete and appeal to the new generations growing up with
these technological boons, we need to look at how to engage them. We
need to learn from the best teachers, use the best resources, and start design-
ing the best tools. Games are an amazing opportunity for us to do just this.
If kids are going to play Roblox all day, let’s make sure they learn while doing
so. In fact, it has been found that kids will go out of their way to learn
in order to do well and engage in their passions, often learning to read at
higher grade levels than expected.79
As a fnal note, our education system is seeing a major upheaval with
the current Covid-19 pandemic, one that is causing educators, parents,
and students to reevaluate how to teach and learn. Distance learning,
virtual environments, and online communication are all qualities inher-
ent to games that are now becoming the norm in our education system.
It’s only natural that we embrace these technologies as we react and grow
as a culture. Maybe we won’t get to the point where everyone plugs into
Virtual Reality to attend class everyday like in the book80 Ready Player
One (2011, Random House), but wouldn’t it be amazing if we start that
journey?
Notes
1 Moore, H. (2014, September 23). Why play is the work of childhood. Courtesy of Fred
Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College.
Latrobe, PA: The Fred Rogers Center.
2 Wikipedia. (n.d.). Texas instruments TI-99/4a. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A
3 They also offered magazines with cassettes that had the programs typed out for you,
but they were more expensive.
4 Ziglar, Z. (2012). Born to win: Find your success code. Dallas, TX: Success Books.
5 Cognition. (2020). Oxford University Press. Lexico.com. Retrieved July 4, 2020
from www.lexico.com/en/definition/cognition
6 This was written in the spring and summer of 2020 so hopefully by the time it’s out
and you have read it, it will just be a memory.
7 For more fun things to do in the car, check out this list. https://thoughtcatalog.
com/christine-stockton/2018/06/road-trip-games/
8 Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cog-
nitive Science, 12, 257–285.
9 Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design.
Learning and Instructions, 4, 295–312. Elsevier Science Ltd.
10 Ibid.
11 www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a28569610/viral-math-problem-2019-
solved/
12 Ibid.
13 In fact, there are a number of studies on how much you can do while walking. Ex.
Yogev-Seligmann, G., Hausdorff, J. M., & Giladi, N. (2008). The role of execu-
tive function and attention in gait. Movement Disorders, 23, 329–342. https://doi.
org/10.1002/mds.21720
14 Paas, F. G. (1992). Training strategies for attaining transfer of problem-solving skill in
statistics: A cognitive-load approach. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 429–434.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.84.4.429
15 Sweller, J., van Merrienboer, J. J., & Paas, F. G. (1998). Cognitive architecture
and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10, 251–296. https://doi.
org/10.1023/A:1022193728205
16 Ibid.; Schnotz, W., & Kürschner, C. (2007). A reconsideration of cognitive load
theory. Educational Psychology Review, 19(4), 469–508. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10648-007-9053-4
17 Schell, J. (2019). The art of game design (3rd ed.). Boca Raton, FL: A K Peters/CRC
Press.
18 Adapted from Ibid.
19 Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cogni-
tive – Developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. https://doi.
org/10.1037/0003-066X.34.10.906
20 McGinigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can
change the world. New York: Penguin Books.
21 Linden, D. (2011, October 25). Video games can activate the Brain’s pleasure centers.
Retrieved from psychologytoday.com at: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/
the-compass-pleasure/201110/video-games-can-activate-the-brains-pleasure-
circuits-0
22 Or maybe you use secret codes on Netflix to unlock obscure content? www.lifewire.
com/netflix-secret-codes-find-and-watch-hidden-movies-4583157
23 As an example, Aristotle’s Poetics from 335BC is credited as one of the earliest works
of defining genre, in his case for types of poetry.
24 Space War is often credited as the first computer game, despite Tennis for Two or
OXO coming first. www.thoughtco.com/history-of-spacewar-1992412
25 Most genre lists in games differ slightly due to semantics in defining the mechanics
and the merging of mechanics, so finding an exhaustive list is exhausting.
26 Entertainment Software Association. (2019). 2019 Essential facts about the
computer and video game industry. Retrieved from theesa.com at www.theesa.
com/esa-research/2019-essential-facts-about-the-computer-and-video-game-
industry/
27 In fact, Fortnite is so popular that it drew in 27.7 million unique players to partici-
pate in an in-game concert event. Their, D. (2020, April 28). A staggering number
of people saw Fortnite’s Travis Scott ‘Astronomical’ event. Retrieved from forbes.com
at: www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2020/04/28/a-staggering-number-of-people-
saw-fortnites-travis-scott-astronomical-event/#82371e77b41f
28 Ehmke, R. (n.d.). A parent’s guide to dealing with Fortnite. Retrieved from childmind.
org at: https://childmind.org/article/parents-guide-dealing-fortnite/
29 Dransfield, I. (2018, April 28). The history of Wolfenstein. Retrieved from pcgamer.
com at: www.pcgamer.com/the-history-of-wolfenstein/
30 Here you can see how it works in the latest Call of Duty title Modern Warfare.
Hodgon, D. (2019, October 18). Feature: Explaining player progression in Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare. Retrieved from activision.com at: https://blog.activision.com/
call-of-duty/2019-10/Feature-Explaining-Player-Progression-in-Call-of-Duty-
Modern-Warfare
31 Addams, S. (1990). The official book of ultima. Greensboro, NC: Compute! Books.
Quoting Richard Garriott.
32 Schell, J. (2008). The art of game design: A book of lenses (pp. 129–170). Burlington,
MA: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.
33 Ibid.
34 Sicart, M. (2008, December). Defining game mechanics. Game Studies: The Interna-
tional Journal of Computer Game Research, 8(2).
35 Wikipedia. (n.d.). Game mechanics. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Game_mechanics
36 Ibid.
37 For those unfamiliar with Super Mario Kart, players an pick up power-ups that can
alter the race through their use. The blue shell, when used, would launch and hone
in on the player in first place and temporarily stop them. To help balance such a
tactical mechanic, this power-up would only be presented to players who were losing
as a method to level them catch-up.
38 Startocure. (2020, January 26). Top 10 quotes by Elon Musk | The Real Tony Stark.
Retrieved from startocure.com at: www.startocure.com/top-10-quotes-by-elon-
musk-the-real-tony-stark/
39 Bartle, R. (1996, April). Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs.
Retrieved from mud.co.uk at: http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid. Summarized in table format from original text.
42 Andreasen, E., & Downey, B. (2001, August). The MUD personality test. The Mud
Companion, 1, 33–35. ISSN 1499-1071. Archived from the original on August 18,
2000.
43 Bartle, R. (2003). Designing virtual worlds. New Riders, p. 145. ISBN
978-0-13-101816-7.
44 Ibid. Summarized in table format based on original text.
45 Yee, N. (2006). The demographics, motivations, and derived experiences of users of
massively multi-user online graphical environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual
Environments, 15(3), 309–329.
46 Yee, N. (2015, December 15). The gamer motivation model in handy reference chart
and slides. Retrieved from quanticfoundry.com at: https://quanticfoundry.com/
2015/12/15/handy-reference/
47 Weiser, M. (1991). The computer for the twenty-first century. Scientific American,
265(3), 94–100.
48 Norman, D., & Nielsen, J. (n.d.). The definition of user experience. Retrieved from
nngroup.com at: www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/
49 As experience firsthand through my 12-plus years in game development. Hodent
also writes about it here: Hodent, C. (2018). The gamer’s brain: How neuroscience and
UX can impact video game design. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
50 Morville, P. (2016, October 11). User experience honeycomb. Retrieved from inter-
wingled.com at: https://intertwingled.org/user-experience-honeycomb/
51 Ibid.
52 Hodent, C. (2018). The gamer’s brain: How neuroscience and UX can impact video game
design. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
53 Fagerholt, E., & Lorentzon, M. (2009). Beyond the HUD – User interfaces for
increased player immersion in FPS games. Gothenburg, Sweden: Chalmers Uni-
versity of Technology. Retrieved from chalmers.se at: https://odr.chalmers.se/
handle/20.500.12380/111921
54 Tach, D. (2013, March 31). Deliberately diegetic: Dead Space’s lead interface designer
chronicles the UI’s evolution at GDC. Retrieved from polygon.com at: www.polygon.
com/2013/3/31/4166250/dead-space-user-interface-gdc-2013
55 And have been . . . example. www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Skinhead-Super-
Mario-Brothers%3A-An-Examination-of-on-Selepak/581e60a66b63bd58853d9cff
b9304fb81f25314e?p2df
56 Papert, S. (1998, June). Does easy do it? Children, games and learning. Game Devel-
oper Magazine. Game Developer Conference. Retrieved from gdcvault.com at:
https://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault/GD_Mag_Archives/GDM_June_1998.pdf
57 Persaud, C. (2018, August 13). Bloom’s taxonomy: The ultimate guide. Retrieved from
tophat.com: https://tophat.com/blog/blooms-taxonomy-ultimate-guide/
58 Plass, J., Homer, B., Kinzer, C., Frye, J., & Perlin, K. (2011, September 30). Learning
mechanics and assessments for games for learning. Institute for Games for Learning. White
Paper.
59 Shute V., & Wang L. (2017). Assessing and Supporting Hard-to-Measure Constructs
in Video Games. Rupp A. A. & Leighton J. P. (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of Cogni-
tion and Assessment: Frameworks, Methodologies, and Applications (pp. 535–562). West
Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
60 There are several games in the series and they are all charming and engaging. http://
study-japanese.net/product/learn-japanese-to-survive-kanji-combat-windows-
mac-digital/
61 This is often credited to Albert Einstein, but there is some doubt about the quote
as shown here. www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/you_have_
to_learn_the_rules_of_the_game#:~:text=%22You%20have%20to%20learn%20
the%20rules%20of%20the,%281879-1955%29.There%20is%20no%20evidence%20
that%20Einstein%20said%20this.
62 Mayer, R. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
63 Ibid.
64 This one was hard to visualize thanks to my years of design and teaching. If you want
a great example, try to find an old geocities webpage or go to any website where the
ads dominate the content.
65 Citadel Studios. (2020). Legends of Aria.
66 Kilbane, B. (2020, February 7). A history of simlish, the language that defined the
Sims. Retrieved from theverge.com at: www.theverge.com/2020/2/7/21126705/
the-sims-simlish-language-history-20th-anniversary-game
67 Sony. (2020, June 9). The last of us Part II: Accessibility features detailed.
Retrieved from playstation.com at: https://blog.playstation.com/2020/06/09/
the-last-of-us-part-ii-accessibility-features-detailed/
68 Olivetti, J. (2015, October 3). The game archaeologist: The assassination of Lord Brit-
ish. Retrieved from massivelyop.com at: https://massivelyop.com/2015/10/03/
the-game-archaeologist-the-assassination-of-lord-british/
69 Bartle, R. (2004). Designing virtual worlds (pp. 19–21). Indianapolis, IN: New
Riders.
70 As accounted in articles like the one preceding and detailed to me by members of
the development team, past and present.
71 The full list is extensive, over 200 entries, with some that have spanned decades
and some that have just come and gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games
72 In fact, it is so pervasive a concept that a recent comedy based on MMO
development, Mythic Quest, featured this prominently in one of their epi-
sodes’ plot. Martens, T. (2020, February 10). Have a love-hate relationship with
game culture? ‘Mythic Quest’ is the show for you. Retrieved from the latimes.
com at: www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-02-10/apple-
tv-mythic-quest-game-culture
73 I can recall this incident fondly from my play days, but luckily others have docu-
mented it as well. Smith, J. (2012, August 10). Guide to the Corrupted Blood plague
documentation collection. Stanford University Library. Retrieved from Standford.edu at:
https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:xy157wz5444/CB%20Collection%20Guide.
pdf
74 Orland, K. (2008, May 20). GFH: The real life lessons of WoW’s Corrupted Blood.
Retrieved from gamastura.com at: www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.
php?story=18571
75 Ward, M. (2005, September 22). Deadly plague hits Warcraft world. BBC News.
Retrieved from bbc.co.uk at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4272418.
stm; Sydell, L. (2005, October 5). ‘Virtual’ virus sheds light on real-world behav-
ior. National Public Radio. Retrieved from npr.org at: www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=4946772
76 Lofgren, E., & Fefferman, N. (2007, September). The untapped potential of virtual
game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics. The Lancet: Infectious Diseases,
7(9), 625–629. Retrieved from thelancet.com at: www.thelancet.com/journals/
laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(07)70212-8/fulltext
77 Krotoski, A. (2020, April 11). Corrupted Blood: What the virus that took down World
of Warcraft can tell us about coronavirus. Retrieved from sciencefocus.com at: www.
sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/corrupted-blood-what-the-virus-that-took-
down-world-of-warcraft-can-tell-us-about-coronavirus/
78 MMOs as an educational gateway drug. Steinkuehler, C. (2008). Massively mul-
tiple online games as an education technology: An outline for research. Edu-
cational Technology, 48(1), 10–21. Retrieved from jstor.org at: www.jstor.org.
stable/44429539; MMOs as a method to enhance offline relationships as well as
online. Snodgrass, J., et al. (2011). Enhancing one life rather than living two: Play-
ing MMOs with offline friends. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(3), 1211–1222.
Retrieved from sciencedirect.com at: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/

S0747563211000057
79 Thompson, C. (2014, October 9). How videogames like Minecraft actually help
kids learn to read. Retrieved from wired.com at: www.wired.com/2014/10/
video-game-literacy/
80 It was also a great movie by Stephen Spielberg. It’s especially fun if you can remem-
ber all the pop-culture references.
Personalized Learning 8
Game Design Pedagogy
As there is a dearth of research that can demonstrate the efficacy of com-

bined personalized learning games using machine-learning algorithms,
there is also a deficit of literature that explores personalized AI learning
games’ pedagogical design effectiveness. There are, however, a great number
of pedagogical theories, research results, and studies published to help guide
the design of learning games and powerful personalized learning environ-
ments. Before we can design an effective and engaging personalized learning
game with engrossing and fun game play that leads to successful learning
outcomes, let’s first explore common pedagogical design features found in
well-designed standard learning games. Now that we have offered an exten-
sive compendium of serious game history, human cognition, early origins of
AI, and serious learning game technologies, we can examine these impor-
tant learning game design features, principles, and instructional strategies.
This should allow for a better understanding of the feasibility of a particular
theory, technique, or strategy as applied to distinct learning populations in
the future.
In Chapter 4, we explored what successful commercial game elements
should be adopted and integrated into learning games to make them more
engaging and fun, but we never deconstructed successful generic learning
game nontechnical past pedagogical strategies to identify key approaches,
design principles, or frameworks. This knowledge will be imperative to
designing successful future personalized learning games that can offer mul-
tiple instructional strategies required for many learning populations. Let’s
first revisit a popular description of the many features found in any enter-
tainment of a game.
Personalized Learning Game Design Pedagogy 245
By examining the commonalities and differences of past attempts by

scholars to define what a game is, Jesper Juul, the renowned Dutch game
philosopher and ludologist, defined a ‘game’ as:
a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome,

where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts
effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to
the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and
negotiable.1
This is a fairly all-embracing definition whose pieces we can appropriate and

expand upon to redefine the features that we may use in an ideal personal-
ized learning game.
Dissecting the first part of Juul’s definition, all games need rules, poli-
cies, and procedures, as did the historical practice of successful teaching and
learning. The practice of structured education served many functions within
societies through the ages, and they were not necessarily altruistic ones. The
origins and purpose of education within the Western Hemisphere may be
examined from varying viewpoints that suggested education served to rein-
force links between religious and political universalisms. Education shaped
superior workers, better trained soldiers, and molded contributing citizens.
The rules established in education shaped learners to comprehend formal
values and ritualistic rules of society; and taught learners about their relation-
ship to authority, be it divine, political, law, or economic.2 In a personalized
learning game pedagogical framework, however, game rules may be more
informal and dynamically sloped to accommodate a learner-player’s skill
level to meet game subject-matter learning goals. Therefore, informal struc-
ture and accommodating variable rules within personalized learning games
still require a quantifiable outcome, even if game learning goals themselves may
be adjusted or varied during game play. Furthermore, in order to continu-
ally motivate and engage a learner-player, personalized learning games may
assign a variable value to the game’s currency, such as increasing or decreasing
points or coins earned to win challenges or quests. In education or learn-
ing games, the learning outcomes may have dual purposes, such as assign-
ing the writing of a resume, where the learner completes the outcome but
also has a document to use to apply for future employment. In a learning
game, rewarding a learner-player with a high score for maneuvering their
character to avoid major damage and reaching a game checkpoint at the top
of a crest, while simultaneously accomplishing a subject-matter assignment
of measuring the circumference arc of a circle, would be a learning goal.
246 Personalized Learning Game Design Pedagogy
Personalized learning games also may use a more complex value matrix,
awarding a learner-player one score for maneuvering their character to avoid
major damage and for reaching a game checkpoint crest, but may or may
not disclose a ‘grade’ score for finishing a subject-matter measurement of a
circle’s circumference learning goal. Learning outcome scores may be bet-
ter determined by learner-player past and current game play performances
together in the same game, or even include past performances from other
related games in a same academic subject-matter series. Moreover, a per-
sonalized learning game may use a clock/timer, providing a certain amount
of time to complete a challenge or game level for one set of learners, while
the same challenge would be un-clocked for a different learner population.
As we read in Chapter 1, learning requires the suspension of cognitive resis-
tance, which is not always possible for some learners due to inherent states of
anxiety, frustration, and even fear that may lead to an unconscious determina-
tion to actually fail or give up.3 Unfortunately, if games are not designed to
accommodate these sometimes-common psychological states brought on by
certain learning conditions, the game’s intent will also fail. Even un-clocked,
simple puzzle games may cause inherent anxiety, stress, and frustration. Well-
designed personalized learning game pedagogy must dynamically adjust not
only the game play challenge levels and anticipated learning outcomes but also
potentially the timeframe needed to beat a quest or level, as well. This may
be considered an instructional strategy used to personalize player effort. This
means dynamically adjusting a game challenge or quest that isn’t too strident
or too easy in order to keep a learner-player focused and engaged in a game-
embedded learning task – to manipulate the pedagogical ‘flow’ of a game in
order to provide both a fun, challenging gaming experience and earned self-
efficacy when a learning outcomes in completed.
Also derived from Juul’s definition, learning game design pedagogy must
also allow a player-learner to own, or become emotionally attached, to a
game’s outcomes or achievements. Emotions and learning success have proven
to be coupled during the knowledge-acquisition process and to sway con-
fidence and motivation. Emotions may also define aspects of learner-player
engagement, as they may be more interested in subject-matter content they
feel ‘good’ about – perhaps because they successfully completed a previous
related task or surpassed their own self-assessed abilities by completing a
higher ranked academic game challenge. Likewise, a learner-player may feel
emotionally and socially deflated if anxiety, fear, and nervousness become
barriers to successful academic engagement.4
Lastly, Juul’s negotiable consequences refer to external factors. For example, the
time likely required to play a game may be borrowed from that of other real-
life tasks, or the internal game play itself may negatively or positively impact
external social experiences or even the professional workplace. This feature
may be reconstituted in personalized learning games design as the inclu-
sion of larger external objectives within a personalized game’s pedagogical
framework. If a learner-player understands the role that each game’s learning

outcomes perform in preparation for an external professional journey, then
their motivation and perception of control of the learning process and self-
satisfaction may increase, as may new subject-matter appeal.
Akin to entertainment games, learning games also include multimedia
(animation, images, sound, and text), but design pedagogy must provide a
sensitive balance between each of these media channels to ensure that associ-
ated learning goals and anticipated outcomes are not obscured and under-
mined. Although the same sensitive balance must be maintained between
different media channels for personalized learning games, there may be cer-
tain game challenges tied to associated learning outcomes for special learners
that require a pedological overlap or a density alteration of media channels.
Although not designed for personalized learning games per say, or learn-
ing games in general, Richard Mayer’s and Roxana Moreno’s Multimedia
Learning (2002) design principles are generally applicable for multimedia-
multisensory demanding learning content:5
• Multimedia Principle: Students learn better from words and pictures

than from words alone.
• Spatial Contiguity Principle: Students learn better when corresponding
words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on
a screen or page.
• Temporal Contiguity Principle: Students learn better when corre-
sponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than
successively.
• Coherence Principle: Students learn better when extraneous material is
excluded rather than included.
• Modality Principle: Students learn better from animation and recorded
narration than from animation and on-screen text.
• Redundancy Principle: Students learn better from animation and nar-
ration than from animation, narration, and on-screen text.
• Pretraining Principle: Students learn better when training precedes
rather than follows a message, meaning that when students receive pre-
training or advance information about a subject, they are able to build
mental models of expectations, thereby filtering the cognitive load
when postulating a potential solution.
• Signaling Principle: Students learn better when training is singled
rather than non-singled, meaning that when learners are aware of what
expectations are desired within a learning experience, they are better
able to allocate cognitive resources appropriately and reduce cognitive
resistance.
• Personalization Principle: Students learn better when words are pre-
sented in conversational style rather than formal style, meaning that
when words are presented from a computer in a conversational manner,
students are more likely to accept the computer as a social partner, and
therefore try harder to comprehend the given messages.
Although these are good general multisensory principles to remember when

creating personalized learning games, design pedagogy must also consider
that a learner’s cognitive capacity is fluid and influenced by fluctuating levels
of motivation and emotional states potentially caused by artificial stimulants,
illness, diet, or even lack of sleep. Hence, on one day a learner may perform
differently on the same learning game quest than the next day, and therefore
resultant learning outcomes may be quite dissimilar. These cognitive capac-
ity oscillations may require the personalized game design to adjust knowl-
edge transfer rates – to make greater periodic personalization modifications
to match a learner’s metacognitive state on any given day.6
Another organic aspect of a well-designed learning game is the ‘active’
learning nature of the medium itself. Of course, games require interactiv-
ity to play, for learner-players to interact with game environment objects,
NPCs, or other players that stimulate multiple channels of our metacognitive
processing and improve overall knowledge acquisition. Curriculum designers
embarking on personalized learning should also take note that active learning
also reinforces the psychological concepts of embodied and situational cogni-
tion. Bodies move around and interact with their environment, and, there-
fore, the brain as the controlling instrument of the body must be influenced
by the body’s movements and interactivity within its environment. Perhaps
understood as a body’s situated environment. A player perceives their game
character’s body on screen as their own, manipulated by a game controller
‘bridge’ through neural impulses. A learner’s metacognitive activity does not
singularly occur in the mind but is shaped by its body’s relationship to the
environment around it; cognitive activity, and therefore cognitive capacity, is
formed through both the mind and the body’s situated environment.7
Revised by this author from the National Academy of Sciences Engi-
neering, and Medicine’s How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cul-
tures (2018), the following framework provides general guidelines to include
active learning design principles in personalized learning games:8
• Design Interactivity: for every action from a player-learner in a person-

alized learning game, there must be an immediate response, indicated
visually or aurally or both.
• Knowledge Domain Feedback: successful personalized learning games
must provide active learning performance updates – cues, signals, and
status on both game states/embedded learning outcomes throughout a
game.
• Content Choice: personalized learning games must provide choices of
game/content paths with dynamic temporal benchmarks to maintain
active learning, and to match player-learner cognitive capacity to con-

tinually motivate and engage.
• Alternative Representations: personalized learning games should offer
access to different content perspectives, game play approaches, and vari-
ous methods for solutions, not just one, allows for a learner-player’s
fluctuating cognitive capacity.
• Instructor Interactivity: some personalized learning games may require
communications channels for real-time learner-player-to-teacher inter-
activity if a non-game-embedded intervention may be necessary.
• Adaptability: of course, personalized learning game environments need
to dynamically adapt and personalize domain content to match a learn-
er’s cognitive capacity, interests, and performance and motivation levels.
• Nonlinear Content Access: personalized learning games should allow
learner-players to access non-sequential or nonlinear game/domain
content. This active learning feature offers learner-player the percep-
tion of control over the learning environment and facilitates learning
self-regulation and intelligent adaptivity.
Richard Mayer’s and Roxana Moreno’s media channel management framework

and the preceding active learning design guidelines represent excellent prin-
ciples to obey when designing personalized learning games. Indeed, a PLG
Engine, as outlined in Chapter 7, was designed to theoretically offer an author-
ing environment inclusive of such learning game principles, depending on the
instructional strategies required and the complexity of the domain content. The
more complex the knowledge domain, the greater importance proper applica-
tion of instructional strategies becomes for successful overall pedagogical design.
Instructional and Pedagogical Strategies

for Personalized Game Design
Generally, a first step prior to planning and designing an instruction strategy

for any learning experience is to first define the following generic course
planning modules seen in Table 8.1. In a post-secondary setting, the mod-
ules may be co-developed by a professor and a course designer or curriculum
designer to ensure the learning content properly integrates into an overall
degree matriculation plan. Adding faculty contact information, required
and optional textbooks, attendance policy, and honor code to these mod-
ules composes the standard components in post-secondary course syllabus.
When these modules have been completed, the course syllabus learning
goals should then inform what future instructional methodologies must be
employed to ensure that learning outcomes are met. Let’s first apply the pre-
ceding planning modules template to a real-world course and then explore
potential instructional strategies to accomplish our learning outcomes. The
Table 8.1 Generic Course Planning Modules
(1) Domain Subject: course, subtopic, exercise, quiz, etc.

(2) Learning Goals: what learners should know or be able to do at end of a
learning experience.
(3) Teaching Methodology: general instructional pedagogy, philosophy, and
learning management.
(4) Delivery Medium: how is the domain subject going to be provided to a learner.
(5) Assessment Matrix: how are students to be evaluated and learning goals to
be assessed.
(6) Learning Outcomes: what did the students actually learn and what are
they able to do once the learning experience has concluded.
author’s current Game 489, Pre-Internship Seminar, a required undergrad-

uate senior-level soft-skills development course taught in the Computer
Game Design Programs at George Mason University, is used here as a course
planning module example:
Game 489, Pre-Internship Seminar Course Description:

This course will teach, demonstrate, and instill workplace profes-
sionalism, and assist and guide students to prepare them for the
required internship in the Computer Game Design Program, and
job application process. This course will further teach and guide
students to create a professional resume, biography, and portfolio,
cultivate a professional demeanor, attitude, and learn proper attire,
and finally adopt and learn professional communication skills.
Game 489, Pre-Internship Seminar Course Planning Modules:
a) Domain Subject: Four units of instruction will be taught includ-
ing self-reflection, personal vision and mission, and personal
SWOT analysis, how to develop portfolios, resumes, and biogra-
phies, preparing for the phone and in-person interviews, and final
public presentation.
b) Learning Goals: Students will use approaches and strategies
learned in and out of class to build effective and professional
resumes and portfolios, learn professional demeanor, appropriate
dress, and practice professional phone and in-person job inter-
view skills. Students will also learn how to successfully negotiate
job offers, maintain employment, climb the industry ladder, and
overall advance in their profession. Students will produce a pro-
fessional resume and portfolio ready for submission to potential
intern sites and employers, and possess professional communica-

tion skills, attire knowledge, and teamwork approaches to profes-
sionally succeed in the workplace.
c) Teaching Methodology: Currently mixed lecture, inquiry-based,
peer-group, and (manual) personalized instruction.
d) Delivery Medium: Currently hybrid asynchronous and synchro-
nous online.
e) Assessment Matrix: Based on unit assignments (25%), virtual class
attendance (25%), participation (25%), and the final presentation
and project (25%).
To receive a grade of ‘A’ a student must achieve a minimum average
grade of 90% on the course work requirements.
To receive a grade of ‘B’ a student must achieve a minimum average
To receive a grade of ‘C’ a student must achieve a minimum average
To receive a grade of ‘D’ a student must achieve a minimum average
Failure to receive a ‘D’ grade will result in a grade of ‘F.’
f ) Learning Outcomes: Students will have an online portfolio that
reflects their skills, knowledge, talents, professional interests, and
a professional resume and biography. Students will know how to
dress professionally, write and speak in a manner that is common
in a professional workplace, and be prepared for future phone and
in-person job interviews. Lastly, students will know how to pre-
pare for and provide public presentations.
Instructional strategies should be developed in relation to the planned learn-

ing environment. For instance, the delivery method of the author’s course
example assumes the use of one or more online platforms, so instructional
strategies may be somewhat confined to the capabilities and features available
on those platforms. Still, many strategies can still be implemented. Case in
point, instructional strategies such as gaining the attention of learners to secure
their interest and focus their energies on upcoming tasks, and inform learners
of objectives after their attention is gained to outline the purpose of instruction
could be accomplished by employing the platform’s synchronous teaching
option. During this synchronous learning experience, the author as instructor
is required to instill and link the value and importance of the course’s goals and
objectives to a learner’s future professional success. Furthermore, it is critical
for an instructor at the onset of a new learning task to stimulate recall of relevant
prior acquired knowledge to maintain interest and motivation. Again, using
our course example, this strategy may be achieved by providing linkages to

previous curricula team project outcomes, past project presentation criticisms,
informal and formal portfolio critiques, and previous task assessment results. A
few additional instructional strategies, first proposed by Robert M. Gagne and
revised by the author, to consider include the following:9
• Presentation of the Course Content: use of a variety of media channels to

keep content engaging but a design that follows the Richard Mayer’s and
Roxana Moreno’s Multimedia Learning framework to not overload learner
cognitive capacitance and includes personalized active learning guidelines.
• Provide Learner Guidance and Support: create and embed two-way
communication channels within the course plan (or platform) to pro-
vide learner guidance or advise to help navigate the course content, and
personalized interventions when needed.
• Offer Learner Practice Opportunities: provide learners with opportu-
nities for alternative but relevant practice of course content tasks, per-
haps even interactive tutorials prior and during for each assigned task.
Embed two-way communication channels to assist with and augment
learner understanding.
• Provide Temporal-Sensitive Feedback and Comments: provide use-
ful, personalized, and immediate feedback if a learner makes an egre-
gious error or mistake that indicates they are lost or confused about
an assigned task. Provide equitable, fair, and personalized corrective
guidance to correct the mistakes.
• Assess and Evaluate During the Learning Process: provide formative assess-
ment, such as non-graded discussion board and journal assignment assess-
ments, as well as the expected end of the learning task summative assessment.
• Enhance Engagement, Motivation, and Retention: by using stories,
allegories, and analogies, tie past and current knowledge to future tasks
and how they relate to career goals and life experiences.
The preceding media channel design management framework, active learn-

ing design guidelines, and instructional strategies are applicable to either tra-
ditional on-site or online teaching and learning, but let us now combine
some of these pedogeological strategies, frameworks, and guidelines to create
a learning game design process. The first step is to generically combine and
redefine the discussed course planning modules and applicable instructional
strategies into a single learning game design process. This process should
outline how the game content is presented to the learner-player, and then the
application of associated instructional strategies aligned to the course module
planning scheme. Figure 8.1 offers such an outline of this process, identifying
the learner-player experience, applicable instructional strategies on the left
of the diagram, and the generic course planning module steps on the right.
Figure 8.1 Diagram of a Learning Game Design Process Using Traditional

Course Planning Modules and Applicable Instructional Strategies
Personalized learning game pedagogical strategies require an extra level

of combined dynamic game play/learning goals integrated into the game
design matrix. Because personalized learning games are essentially assumed
to be played by a learner without invasive instructional oversight, sans
timely machine-intelligence model feedback and corrective interventions,
design pedagogy options must rely on strategies positioned within successful
autodidacticism. Well-designed learning games are ideal mediums to trans-
form extrinsic motivations (EM), commonly referred to as behavior that is
driven by external incentives such as monetary rewards, fame, awards, and
recognition, into intrinsic motivation (IM). However, EM may be flawed
as a true measurement of pure motivation, as an athlete may run just fast
enough to surpass her competitors to win a race but not exert herself and
run at her top speed. Similarly, a learner may invest the minimal effort to
complete a homework assignment, undermining the learning process once
a short-term objective is achieved.10 As stated throughout this book, games
may increase motivation and engagement. More specifically, structural
elements or mechanics found in games may be great intrinsic motivators

of critical human behaviors found in overall successful learning experiences
such as inquisitiveness, focus, resolve, and determination.11 IM may generate
continuing pleasure, joy, fun, and overall self-satisfaction from participating
in and successfully completing a task – emotional and psychological states
all great instructors try to emulate. If a learning game can exhibit produc-
tive emotional and psychological IM states over time, then self-regulation,
self-efficacy, and self-sufficiency may be reached.12 Consistent self-efficacy
that leads to self-sufficiency may produce deeper comprehension of subject
matter that then may lead to (long-term memory) knowledge acquisition
and greater confidence in tackling future learning tasks.13
Because learning games offer environments where thoughts and notions
are shaped, re-emphasized, and reshaped through various learning experi-
ences, and therefore may create a deeper understanding and new knowl-
edge, they are often considered a prime example of experiential learning.14
Parallel to the common design of games, experiential learning includes the
design of learner/player-centric hands-on active learning pedagogy that
fosters an educational process that encourages repetition that may improve
aptitude and lead to IM.15
Learning games, or the gamification of learning content, may offer the ideal
environment to apply experiential learning pedagogy, as the organic nature of
the medium requires proactive interactivity from a player to engage the content.
In order to personalize an experiential learning pedagogy that may lead
to IM self-efficacy and self-sufficient learning, personalized game design
would need to include a dynamic game/learning outcome content genera-
tion prediction engine, or inference capability based on past game play, to
ensure future self-satisfaction game play is maintained. Furthermore, per-
sonalized learning games – designed to accommodate the learning style,
behavior traits, and influential external factors at any point in time for a
single learner – must also include a dynamic self-learning pedagogy con-
struct that can dynamically serve the appropriate methodology during a
learning experience to foster positive learner behavior traits that deepen the
process of knowledge acquisition. Examples of personalized learning game
pedagogical methodologies that may be integrated into just one personal-
ized learning game include the following:
• Experiential
• Extrinsic Motivational
• Intrinsic Motivational
• Self-Efficacy
• Self-Sufficient
• Self-Directed
• Problem-Solving
Figure 8.2 Four Modules of a Personalized Learning Game Planning Rubric
These pedagogical methodologies and associated instructional strategies

fill several vessels of a personalized learning game design rubric, the others
being a classification and machine-learning model(s), course planning mod-
ule content, and eventually an actual game design document. Figure 8.2
offers a condensed diagram of the four modules of a game design planning
rubric.
Notice how the learning content informs the pedagogical methods that
then drive the personalized interventions, which steer the game play expe-
rience. This design philosophy ensures that both learning goals are met
through game play and that both may be personalized for most any learner
population.
Personalized Learning Game Planning
Using an adaptation from Atsusi Hirumi’s and Christopher Stapleton’s

game design phase schema, we now transform the author’s current online
Pre-Internship Seminar course syllabus into a personalized learning game
plan by breaking down each learning goal into game-based instructional
design tasks and machine-intelligent-driven intervention strategies.16 The
first is the pedagogical and instructional design analysis phase and initial
game preproduction phase, where the learning goals are identified and inte-
grated into the game design planning process. Pedagogical analysis includes
identifying the targeted learning population for the game, their demo-
graphics, prior academic achievement levels, prior aptitude and motivation
levels, behavioral traits, social and psycho-metrics, all perhaps derived from
a personal learning map. Additionally, an AI architect and software engi-
neer would work alongside both a curriculum designer or course planner
and a game designer to determine which machine-intelligent frameworks
and classifiers to use, techniques to deploy, and algorithms to develop that
may offer the greatest personalization intervention accuracy. The first phase
usually includes a discussion about final delivery methods and game play
platform, but since this personalized learning game will be created using a
cloud-hosted PLG Engine and delivered from a cloud server, this step may
be skipped.
The second phase includes pedagogical planning to determine learning
content sequences and objectives, design of tasks and sub-task exercises,
instructional strategies, and assessment methods. Phase two game prepro-
duction includes settling on game genre, story type, navigation schemes,
game mechanics, quests, levels, corresponding scoring/assessment method,
creating game sounds and music, and storyboarding the UI, game con-
cept art, environmental art, and the overall game flowchart. Phase two
also requires the AI architect and software engineer to design the back-
end schema and data flowchart. Essentially, when the machine-intelligence
algorithms interface with game user logs, asset databases, rendering engine,
sound engine, APIs; the overall technical data flowchart, and how the mod-
els intervene to personalize game play and adjust learning goals. With the
instructional designer, AI architect, software engineer, and game designer
working together, this phase should also result in a game and integrated
technical design document.
Actual personalized learning game development occurs in phase three,
when generative prototypes of UIs, game levels, machine-intelligent-
driven game play, learning goals interventions, sound scores, and NPC
functionality are developed and tested, and eventually take the shape of
an alpha build of the game. Although an alpha game build should be fully
playable, it generally contains numerous bugs and issues – the art may not
be completely finished, collision physics may be broken, and, depending
on the quality of the data and the amount of training time, the machine-
intelligent algorithm’s interventions may be incorrectly applied and/or
inaccurate. Furthermore, embedded instructional strategies may not be
appropriately applied, and assessment outcome may be incorrect. These are
just a few issues that the game team may discover playing through an alpha
build, but small group testing from the game’s target population should
still be undertaken in this phase. Without access to a personalized learn-
ing map (PLM) to ascertain a learner’s knowledge base, pre-tests should
be administered to assess each learner’s game play experience, skill level,

pre-play subject matter knowledge and achievement level, and history of
needed support services.
Formative evaluations, to gauge instructional effectiveness, feasibility,
and efficacy, as well as game play interest, appeal, engagement level, and
fun, should be conducted across multiple sessions with varying groups
of target learners. Types of formative evaluations should include writ-
ten solicitation that includes open comments sections and individual and
group interviews.
Post-play analysis should evaluate learner-player achievement scores and
machine-intelligent-driven intervention effectiveness against learning out-
comes. With machine-intelligent algorithms in place, we may also con-
duct a formative assessment by modeling alpha player experience (PEM) to
gather greater insight into a learner-player’s in-game behavior traits, tactics,
and strategies.
The final phase comprises all the changes, repairs, and revisions made
through post-testing feedback to produce a beta version of the Pre-Internship
Seminar personalized learning game.
This is also the phase where final instructional summative assessment
is planned and conducted, and game post-production commences. Game
assets are polished, final UI adjustments are made, navigation tweaks occur,
sound effects and music scores are mixed, and network connections are
optimized. The game’s machine-intelligent engine and dependencies are
further refined, memory management is adjusted, and GPU performance
is tweaked. It’s not uncommon to submit this version to field testing that
still targets identified learner populations, but this happens without the
development team’s oversight of the written reviews or in-person inter-
views. With a larger population testing and less evaluation oversight of
our personal learning game performance, summative analysis results may
provide greater and more honest insights into the game’s pedagogical
effectiveness, amusement level, and efficacy. Moreover, field testing may
definitively provide the answers to whether the personalized learning game
performs as intended with no interaction from the game design team or
from instructors. Using the author’s Pre-Internship Seminar Course con-
tent as a planning template, Figure 8.3 provides a summary of the four
phases just described.
The Appendix to this chapter provides the author’s Pre-Internship Semi-
nar course transcribed into a personalized learning game design document.
The template of the document is derived from Mark Baldwin’s Game
Design Document Outline (2005), but has been updated to include per-
sonalized learning strategies achieved through the machine-intelligence
algorithms.17
Figure 8.3 Personalized Learning Game Planning Phases
Epilogue: The Novel Education Paradigm
For the past hundred years in the United States, university curricula, degree
matriculation plans, and admission standards have been created and shaped
not only by faculty, department chairs, deans, and by central administrations
but also by external public accrediting bodies. In many cases, the delibera-
tion of what courses and credits to include in a degree, what learning out-
comes a learner should gain upon successful completion of a course, and
what profession a degree may provide a graduate to enter has been debated
and scrutinized by all these stakeholders in a semi-public square. The public
K–12 education curriculum approval process has been even more demo-
cratic, whereby most decisions about course content, curriculum, education
standards, and policies are decided by publicly elected local school boards
that generally hold open meetings about such topics. Even though stan-
dards of learning, textbooks, and learner assessment models are decided at
the state level, local school systems, their individual school principals, and
teachers themselves all hold a certain level of autonomy to skip and add cer-
tain course content or change teaching pedagogies. Local schools also hold
stakeholder open houses and public meetings to solicit critiques of their
curriculum, courses, pedagogy, or even chosen auxiliary textbooks. This

regionalization of our public education systems, and to a certain extent in
public and private higher education, is inherently American in nature, as the
open consent process not only helps foster community values and standards
but also underlines the principles of government transparency and citizen
participation.18
Of course, not all public debate about university, public school admin-
istrative, or faculty decisions and choices have been without controversy.
Even though, on the post-secondary level, learners that dislike the views
of a professor or assigned textbook can simply withdraw early enough from
non-required courses without paying a penalty; petitions and protests on
university campuses are not uncommon. Besides student activism and dem-
onstrations about social, racial, and economic inequities, there have been
student protests about everything from faculty views, assigned textbook
content, and their costs.19 In public K–12 education, the textbook wars
have been raging since the Kanawha County, West Virginia, textbook con-
troversy in 1974.20 Still, most conflicts between the public stakeholders and
school staff have resulted in healthy compromises that have had a prevailing
positive impact on sustaining community bonds around local and regional
schools.
Personalized learning platforms, especially technical ones as put forward
in this book, are commonly antithetical to the principles of transparency
preferred by the education community public square. It’s not just the appre-
hension about the potential meticulous data gathered from learners through
such systems, or trepidation about the privacy and security of those datasets,
but it is also concern about the imperceptible architecture of personalized
learning systems that choose what and how to teach. Additionally, as we
read in Chapter 2, even the U.S. Army in the 1970s was fearful of disclosing
to the public the value of personalized learning games that taught battle tac-
tics and strategy to teach courses in a university setting or in schools. Finally,
as was also discussed in Chapters 2 and 6, even though machine-learning
algorithms have become ubiquitous in our lives (setting our credit rating,
interest rates, life insurance policy, and even what we may want to buy), the
black box hidden layers of these self-learning algorithms and the potential
biases ingested from under-scrutinized training datasets have raised alarms in
educational circles.21
None of these issues, singularly or combined, will be easily breached to
smooth the adoption of personalized learning games in the academy or in
school systems unless there is a wholesale shift in the relationships between
education technology vendors and university clients. A change in the overall
technology acquisition process is needed. Currently, most university and
school system CTOs or CIOs and their information technology staffs make
the decision to fund and adopt campus-wide technology, sometimes with
stakeholder input, but rarely after a formal needs assessment, pilot efficacy
study, or training budget analysis is performed. Under a strong recommen-
dation from department chairs and faculty, schools and colleges also typically
purchase discipline-specific support technology, occasionally with student
participation, but seldomly acquired after a structured needs assessment, effi-
cacy study, or cost analysis was completed. Even more egregious, EdTech
vendors often pitch software solutions to universities and school systems,
touting the effectiveness of understudied in-the-field application and tools,
with limited or no data demonstrating positive impact on learner popula-
tions. Vendors tend to display a long list of clients on their websites rather
than cite research studies involving their products. Even though most soft-
ware, such as learning management systems, procured by central administra-
tive offices or subunit departments are intended to support academic agency
and do not cross over into actual instruction, most educational institutions
have learned that independent analysis and study of effectiveness and effi-
cacy should still be conducted prior to adoption.
Since most software solutions and tools procured by secondary and post-
secondary systems are for purposes other than direct instruction, and since
that procurement process is at least partially open for stakeholder feedback,
any computer software that actually impedes, intrudes, augments, or replaces
the act of academic instruction will require even greater transparency. In
order to prepare all the constituents of a learning environment for such a
potentially disruptive modification, it’s critical to follow the formative small
group and larger field-testing recommendations outlined in the preceding
Personalized Learning Game Planning section – but first targeted toward
specific learner populations.
In 2019, the special learner populations reached 14% of the total public
school population and 19% in post-secondary education.22 Although public
universities and public school systems are mandated by state and federal law
to accommodate most special learners, the funding levels available, mostly
covered by the state, rarely cover the teaching specialists and support staff
costs required by many special learners. Likewise, as many of these special
learners access education opportunities online, academic support, teaching
specialists, and support structures are seldom adequate and mostly absent for
the online-only special learner.23
In order to convince and satisfy the demands of all the stakeholders that
may contribute to the decision to adopt personalized learning games within
on-site and online learning spaces, data from small group formative evalua-
tions need to be collected that should include written solicitation as well as
the results from individual and group special learner interviews. Post-play
summative analyses should evaluate learner-player achievement scores and
machine-intelligent-driven intervention effectiveness by comparing cur-
rent teaching pedagogy and learning outcomes to those from a personalized
learning game. Furthermore, a separate quantitative empirical field study or

two should measure the current methods of instruction, manual interven-
tions, and associated learning outcomes against those autonomously pro-
duced from a personalized learning game played by a special learner sample
population with commonly identified cognitive parameters.
With proof of efficacy data for a special learner population sample in
hand, it is imperative to open the personalized learning game architecture,
pedagogy choices, intervention methodologies, and learner performance
metrics to academic and community stakeholders. As with the adoption
of innovative textbooks or pedagogical frameworks, the greater the trans-
parency, the less the potential resistance from immediate stakeholders.
When pitching any new technology, lecture room tool, or nascent teach-
ing method, uniform assimilation into the current instructional framework
must be evident, and the new system or method must not create disruption
or add to faculty labor. Training must be kept at a minimum, and teaching
and learning vernacular must be familiar to both faculty and administration.
For all studies conducted, Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval must
be secured from the appropriate body, and security and privacy protocols
and rules for logins, learning datasets, and personal information must also
align and integrate with standing institution, state, and federal FERPA and
COPPA laws and policies.
With education researchers, faculty, and administration allied with the
concept of deploying personalized learning games, efficacy studies should be
conducted of the largest learner population: the continuing education/adult
learner population. Nearly 37 million American adults currently have some
college credits but no degree or certification, and over 40% of these learn-
ers are nontraditional first-time learners and come from historically under-
served populations. This number is projected to rise and even surpass that
of traditional learners by 2024.24 As nontraditional first-generation learners
and historically underserved populations enter post-secondary community
colleges and universities in greater numbers and increasingly through online
classes, cloud-based personalized learning games may help meet this rising
need to scale and personalize effective instruction, while adding additional
levels of engagement and self-satisfaction to the learning process.25
Finally, personalized learning game efficacy studies should be conducted
in the secondary and post-secondary ‘general’ learner populations through
online channels. State and county financial support for schools and college
capital projects have all but disappeared in the past two decades, leaving only
municipal bond sales and/or fundraising capital campaigns to support facil-
ity expansion to meet future rising enrollments – both uncertain endeavors
in the current economic recession.26 As the numbers of general learners
entering post-secondary education overall are projected to swell, slowly
but more accurately reflecting the demographics in the United States, the
necessity for secondary and post-secondary education to expand their cur-

riculums through online channels will only increase.27
After several decades of haphazard experiments with perpetual technical
hiccups, and given the discovery of massive hidden fees in LMS contracts,
most educational institutions have concluded that online education is a
viable option to teach and scale their degrees and courses, and less expen-
sive than expanding the traditional capital construction model. One recent
examination found four out of six colleges in a recent study had a four-
year cost savings between 3% and 50% over their traditional residential/on-
site teaching paradigm – with most savings occurring from lower facilities
energy consumption and maintenance costs.28 Even with the need to hire
additional faculty and some technical staff to teach and support expand-
ing online offerings, and despite consistent faculty concern about academic
rigor, the quality of online education versus costs savings to provide that
education are indisputable.29
However, as I’ve written about quite extensively in the past and touched
upon in several chapters in this book, not all online education pedagogical
options are equal. Legacy online learning platforms, some now more than
20 years old, were originally designed as asynchronous tools so that learners
could check their grades and assignments outside of classroom hours. As
colleges and school systems collectively began to employ LMSs to actu-
ally teach courses to scale their academic offerings, a historic problem that
first occurred in the days of correspondence schools and cable TV broad-
cast courses slowly re-emerged. Online learners exhibited lower academic
achievement levels and lower retention rates compared to their on-site class-
room peers.
Although these learning platforms could scale course content to a much
higher degree, they were still a one-way isolated learning experience for
the learner.30 Live synchronous courses, however, offer the sense of psycho-
logical immediacy of the in-class learning experience, adding the poten-
tial critical real-time interactive element between learners, and between
instructor-learner, albeit from a two-dimensional instructor. Live-streaming
of instructor-led educational content has also exhibited the concept of
teacher social presence for the online learner. If the stream is live and in
real-time and not archived, and a learner has the option to post real-time
questions in a course chat channel or forum, research studies have demon-
strated that these learners are more engaged and motivated and therefore
perform at a greater academic achievement level.31
Moreover, a learner’s attitude may be influenced by the teaching style
and personality of an instructor. Even live-streamed nonverbal gestures
and cues, such as eye contact, body language, facial expressions, and tone
of voice through a computer camera, may affect learner focus and con-
centration within a learning experience.32 Though asynchronous online
learning management platforms allow learners to dictate when and where

they choose to learn, live-streaming synchronous learning more closely
mimics the bridging of transactional distance that occurs through verbal
and nonverbal cue exchanges between a learner and instructor in an on-
site classroom.33 Still, knowing the instructor is being live-streamed online
is one-half of this transactional equation; facilitating learner interactivity,
between learner and instructor in this case, and seeing the nonverbal cues in
response to a question or from a team discussion is the other.
But for all the advantages that an interactive live-streaming learning envi-
ronment may provide over an asynchronous option, there are downsides
all instructors have experienced teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic.
These include the amount of wasted time it takes for learners to trouble-
shoot technical issues, log on, and adjust their cameras and audio levels
before the instructor ever begins the course. Moreover, environmental and
ambient sounds in each learner’s location – such as family chat, fans, air con-
ditioners, and dogs barking – can also disrupt and delay a live-streamed dis-
cussion, forcing several outed offending learners to mute their microphones
and cameras. Too often those same learners unwillingly forget to unmute
their microphones when they wish to add a salient point to the overall dis-
cussion. It’s also not uncommon for a few not in proper attire to block their
cameras, contributing only as disembodied voices. Learners whose only
visual representation is a static icon offer no nonverbal feedback to other
learners or to the instructors, so their social presence likewise evaporates.
Aside from the disruptions caused by new users of the technology, the
advantages that synchronous online learning offers over asynchronous learn-
ing are obvious, and this technology, in use in the corporate community
for a decade, has been a godsend to many schools and colleges during this
pandemic crisis. However, the current design of synchronous learning
architecture will never accommodate machine-learning-driven personalized
learning experiences. Current steaming architecture is simply comprised of
a cloud-hosted codec application that streams up or down to/from a thin
device or PC-based encoder/decoder interface. Users that log in to the
cloud-hosted codec application can upload an encoded audio/video stream,
and other users can download, decode, and view the same stream if their
thin device or PC has the same interface with little lag. As we learned in
Chapter 7, a robust encoding/decoding engine could indeed also stream
games to players, but the current simplistic architecture as employed in syn-
chronous streaming tools could not also accommodate data rich streaming
personalized learning games.
So, we’re back full circle to pointing to our novel personalized learning
game engine as an ideal platform for designing and building learning games
that may offer a most engaging, effective, and enjoyable individualized
learning experience. Although it is theoretical as I write this today, the PLM
Engine is indeed feasible, and, thus, this author has already begun assembling
a research and development team to build a prototype of the game engine
and the AI engine as described in Chapter 7. Perhaps future updates of this
text will include the results of research studies conducted using the PLG
Engine designed and built games targeting the various underserved online
learner populations that I have mentioned in this chapter. Then, perhaps,
other PLG-like engines, platforms, and solutions will be designed, built,
and tested in the future by other researchers that will also help contribute to
improving the practice of education and overall learner knowledge acquisi-
tion through games and machine learning algorithms. I can only hope that
this book served as an inspiration for such an important undertaking.
Appendix
Game 489, Pre-Internship Seminar:
Personalized Learning Game Design
Document
1. Title Page
1.1. Pre-Internship Seminar Game: Time to Prepare for Your First Job!
1.2. Copyright Information
1.3. Version 1.0, Dr. Scott M. Martin, November 2020
2. Design History: V.1.1
3. Section I: – Game Overview: This is a personalized learning game
that teaches, demonstrates, and instills workplace professionalism, and
assists and guides learners to prepare for the required internship in the
Computer Game Design Program. This game will further teach and
guide students to create a professional resume and portfolio; cultivate a
professional demeanor, attitude; and finally to learn professional com-
munication and presentation skills.
3.1 Game Concept: Time to Prepare for Your First Job! is an exploration
and adventure 2D game where a character explores four level maps
and chooses one of several minigames on each level representing
Unit course content to play and win/complete each assignment.
NPC characters confronted on each level function as competitors,
distractors, and overall arch-nemeses to try to cause the learner-
player to fail. Minigames consist of Unit 1 course content self-
exploration puzzle games to learn about personal and professional
traits and values, Unit 2 narrative/story game to learn how to design
a portfolio website and resume, Unit 3 strategy game to prepare for
the interview process, and Unit 4 role-playing/simulation game to
rehearse and provide a final presentation.
3.2 Feature Set: a) Primary 2D exploration and adventure game with

four levels: Level 1 – Home Bedroom, Level 2 – Coffee Shop,
Level 3 – Corporate Office, Level 4 – Small Stage.
b) Primary Game Modes: Exploration and Adventure
Four Minigames: Puzzle, Narrative/Story, Strategy, and Role-
play/Sim.
c) Level Objectives:
Level 1: Learner-player navigates to their bedroom learn
about their positive and negative personal and professional
traits. Various level of success generates ‘internship’ points.
Next quest is to write a personal values statement, help is
found in a desk drawer. Internship points provides a key. Vari-
ous level of success generates ‘internship’ points.
Level 2: Learner-player navigates to a coffee shop to learn
about and to write a professional resume and create and post
a portfolio. Exploring the coffee shop provides resume exam-
ples/templates, and using internship points allows the learner-
player to get a coupon from an NPC barista to learn about
portfolio creation and see examples/templates. Various level
of success generates ‘internship’ and ‘relationship’ points.
Level 3: Learner-player navigates a corporate office waiting
room. For a few ‘internship’ points and ‘relationship points’
the receptionists will put you through a mock interview before
your main interview with the boss. When the learner-player
passes an ‘internship’ points threshold, they can open the door
to the boss’s office for the primary internship interview.
Level 4: Learner-player navigates to a theater stage ‘green-
room,’ and rehearses and prepares their final presentation. For
a few ‘internship’ and ‘relationship’ points, the stagehand in
the greenroom will provide a few tips and examples of great
presentation to try to emulate. When ready, the learner-player
will try to enter the main stage to give their final presentation.
However, if they arrive at the door without enough ‘intern-
ship’ and ‘relationship’ points, the stage door scanner won’t
recognize their biometric thumbprint, and they can’t give
their final presentation. In which case, they need to go back
to previous levels and earn enough points.
d) Three NPC Enemies: Bob the Backstabber, Tina the Talker,
and Jose the Joker. They try to trip up the learner-player during
game play and force the learner-player to lose ‘internship’

points by using weapons. Three Support NPCs: Barbara the
Barista, Rick the Receptionist, and Svetlana the Stagehand.
e) Collectables: Relationship points are earned through polite
and appropriate interaction with support NPCs. Internship
points are earned through successfully learning tasks on each
game level.
f ) Store/Shop: Bedroom Desk Drawer Key, Coffee Shop Cou-
pon, Corporate Office Elevator Code, Presentation Stage
Door Scan
g) Weapons: Eye laser stare stream and hand blast, both used to
push away enemy NPCs, and both cost relationship or intern-
ship points to use.
3.3 Genre: 2D Exploration and Adventure, mixed quest minigames.
3.4 Target Audience: Upper-level undergraduate learner preparing
for an internship. Adult learners preparing for job interviews.
3.5 Game Flow Summary: Learner-player character walks, runs, and
can sit down in the game when navigating through a level and to
and from locations. Frame is birds’ eye and first-person. Learner-
player transitions between levels by entering each location’s bath-
room after learning tasks are completed and ‘internship’ and if
applicable, ‘relationship’ points are earned. Enemy NPCs annoy,
bug, and distract the learner-player throughout the game on each
level, during each learning task, at each location. Support NPC
can help achieve learning tasks.
3.6 Look and Feel – 2D Vector Art (The Banner Saga).
Algorithmic polygons, dots, lines, and color datasets.
3.7 Project Scope – 2D top down exploration and adventure game
3.7.1 Number of Locations: Four
3.7.2 Number of Levels: Four
3.7.3 Number of NPCs: Six (three enemy and three helpful)
3.7.4 Number of Weapons: Two
3.7.5 Number of Sounds: Two Weapon, 25 Ambient
3.7.6 Number of Soundtracks: Ten (one opener, one for each
level, one for each location, one for end game)
3.7.7 Number of Voice Tracks: Six (for NPCs) and one for the
learner player accomplished through a test-to-voice text box
3.7.8 Number of Machine-Intelligence Algorithms: Three clas-
sifiers (one for PED, one for NLP text-to-voice, and one
for computer vision), two inference algorithms (learning
tasks and navigation/interaction)
4. Section II Game Play and Mechanics

4.1 Game play
4.1.2 Game Progression: Learner-player must complete Learn-
ing Tasks 1 (traits) and 2 (personal vision statement) in
Level 1, location one, and earn 10 ‘internship’ points to
progress to Level 2.
Learner-player must complete Tasks 3 (resume) and 4
(portfolio) on Level 2 location two and earn 10 internship
points and 5 ‘relationship’ points to progress to Level 3.
Learner-player must complete Tasks 5 (mock interview
one) and 6 (mock interview two) on Level 3, location
three, and earn 10 ‘internship’ points and 5 ‘relationship’
points, to progress to Level 4.
Learner-player must complete Task 7 (Final Presentation)
on Level 4, location four, and earn 10 ‘internship’ points
and 5 ‘relationship’ points, to complete the game.
4.1.3 Mission/Challenge Structure: By researching, completing,
and submitting a personal and professional traits assign-
ments in Level 1, location one, the learner-player earns 10
‘internship’ points that can be used to hand blast and eye
stare laser away enemy NPCs, and solicit supporting NPC
help in future levels. Submission of assignments are parsed
by NLP algorithm to match learning goals.
By researching, completing, and submitting a resume and
portfolio assignments in Level 2, location two, the learner-
player earns 10 ‘internship’ points and potentially 5 ‘rela-
tionship’ points that can be used to hand blast and eye stare
laser away enemy NPCs, and solicit supporting NPC help
in future levels. Submission of assignments are parsed by
NLP algorithm to match resume learning goals, and com-
puter vision algorithm for portfolio assessment.
By researching, practicing and completing a mock inter-
view and boss interview in Level 3, location three, the
learner-player earns 10 ‘internship’ points and potentially
5 ‘relationship’ points that can be used to hand blast and
eye stare laser away enemy NPCs, and solicit supporting
NPC help in level 4.
By practicing and completing a mock interview and boss
interview in Level 4, location four, the learner-player earns
10 ‘internship’ points and potentially 5 ‘relationship’ points

that can be used to hand blast and eye stare laser away
enemy NPCs before their final presentation, and solicit
NPC Svetlana’s help to practice and prepare, and to open
the stage door for the final presentation.
4.1.4 Puzzle Structure: Completing each level task produces 10
‘internship’ points, and except for the first level tasks, 5
‘relationship’ points (for cultivating professional relation-
ships with supportive NPCs). Learner-players can in total
earn 60 ‘internship’ points and 25 ‘relationship’ points in
the game.
It requires 8 ‘internship’ points to access location one’s
desk drawer. It requires 6 internship and 3 relationship
points to buy the coffee shop coupon and receive advice
about creating great portfolios. It requires 6 ‘internship’
and 3 ‘relationship’ points to access the corporate elevator
building code to go up to the learner-player interviews,
and 5 ‘relationship’ points to secure the first mock inter-
view with the receptionist. It requires 6 ‘internship’ and 3
‘relationship’ points to access the biometric scan to enter
the stage to provide the final presentation.
It requires 4 ‘internship’ points to use the eye stare laser
to push away enemy NPCs. To use the open hand blaster
to eliminate an enemy NPC from a level it requires either
both 5 ‘internship’ points and 2 ‘relationship’ points, or
just 6 ‘relationship’ points.
4.1.5 Game Objectives/Learning Outcomes: Learners will have
an online portfolio that reflects their skills, knowledge,
talents, professional interests, and a professional resume.
Learners will know how to dress professionally, write and
speak in a manner that is common in a professional work-
place, and be prepared for future job interviews. Lastly,
learners will know how to prepare for and provide public
presentations.
4.1.6 Play Flow: Learner-player navigates by walking and run-
ning through each level (House, Town Street, Corporate
Office Building, and Theater Building) and locations
(Bedroom, Coffee Shop, Boss’s Office, Greenroom).
‘Internship’ and ‘relationships’ points can be earned by
along the way by accomplishing learning content tasks,
and proper interaction with supportive NPCs respectively.
Points can be used to provide access to helpful material

to complete tasks, and to progress through each level to
complete tasks, and to avoid/eliminate enemy NPCs.
4.2 Mechanics: The game is un-clocked, so learner-player can com-
plete the game over any amount of time. However, a course profes-
sor may assign levels tasks to be completed within a set timeframe.
If a learner-player runs out or doesn’t earn enough points within
or between levels, and they can’t progress through the game, they
must repeat a past level and perform the tasks over again. Learner-
player must perform each task correctly to earn the full amount of
potential points, and use the points judiciously in order to progress
through the game. Earning ‘relationship’ points is more ambigu-
ous, and learner-players must pay attention to what they say/type,
where they stand or sit, and how they interact with supportive
NPCs to gauge how points are accumulated. Moreover, enemy
NPC may interact with supportive NPCs at the same time the
learner-player does, creating a major distraction. Enemy NPCs
must be managed prior to interacting and soliciting help from
supportive NPCs, or ‘relationship’ points won’t be earned. On the
other hand, pushing away or eliminating annoying enemy NPCs
for no reason and/or too early in a map may cause the learner-
player to spend too many points, when they may be needed later
in the level or the next.
4.2.1 Physics: Environment Newtonian, 2D soft-body learner-
player character. Semi-ragdoll for enemy NPC characters.
4.2.2 Movement
4.2.2.1 General Movement: General 2D top-down
8 way and click and move movement for each
level, camera follows learner-player character,
stand, walk, run, sit. Locations stand, walk, run,
and sit third and first person.
4.2.2.2 Other Movement: NPCs stand, walk, run, and
sit in level locations.
4.2.3 Objects: Bedroom Desk, Coffee House Table and Order
Counter, Boss’s Reception Chair and Desk, Boss’s Office
Chairs and Desk, Greenroom Chair and Desk, Theater
Stage.
4.2.3.1 Picking Up Objects: Location 1 – book with
Traits List examples, and paper stack with Personal
Values Statement examples. Location 2 – paper
stack with resume template, and computer tablet

with portfolio templates. Location 3 – paper stack
with potential interview questions. Location 4 –
book with final presentation hints and suggestions.
4.2.3.2 Moving Objects: Location 1 – desk drawer, desk
chair, bedroom door. Location 2 – coffee house
door, table chair, coupon, coffee cup, and com-
puter tablet. Location 3 – front office building
door, elevator door, office door, desk chair, boss’s
office door. Location 4 – greenroom door, desk
chair, stage door.
4.2.4 Actions: opening desk drawer, pulling open chairs from
desk and table, pushing open doors (no doorknob turns).
4.2.4.1 Switches and Buttons: Elevator call and floor
buttons.
4.2.4.2 Picking Up, Carrying, and Dropping: Two
books, two stacks of papers, coffee cup, coupon,
computer tablet.
4.2.4.3 Talking: The tutorial has a prerecorded introduc-
tion narrative track and interventions triggered
by navigation and mechanics mistakes. NPCs
each have a prerecorded dialog tree for questions
and answers triggered by speech-to-text parsed
NLP content (or typed in a dialog box on the
UI) from the learner-player character.
4.2.5 Combat: Enemy NPCs have no weapons, and can only
get in your way and continually harass the learner-player
character. Eye stare laser pushes them away, or open hand
blaster eliminates them from the game level, but they may
return in the next level.
4.2.6 Economy: Accumulate and spend ‘internship’ and ‘rela-
tionship’ points to progress through the game.
4.3 Screen Flow: Tutorial screen provides a demo of the second and
third level screens and helps the learner-player character to navi-
gate to level screen locations. Main screen displays learner-player
level environment, and then switches to level locations where tasks
are completed, supporter NPC are engaged, and enemy NPC are
confronted.
4.3.1 Screen Descriptions: Tutorial screen displays a top-down
Level 2 city street with stores and shops represented by
icons/names on each side of the street. Learner character
navigates to the one shop open by triggering a green high-

lighted door, and then proceeds to push open the door to
a coffee shop.
4.3.1.1 Main Menu Screen: The main screen displays a
2D top-down view of each 2D level the learner-
player navigates to one door that highlights
green. The main screen transitions to a door that
the learner-player must push open. The screen
transitions to one of four 2D level click-and-
move locations described earlier.
4.3.1.2 Options Screen: Learner-player can click on
HUD Score mini-window to expand it and see
tasks completed, tasks-to-be completed, and
number of ‘internship’ and ‘relationship’ points
earned, spent, lost, and available to be earned.
4.4 Replaying and Saving: If the learner-player can’t open a door,
or progress to the next level/location task, they must replay the
previous level. All learner-players can replay any level once. After
each level is completed, the results of tasks completed, and points
earned are saved. Learner-player can use the save button in the
HUD to save their status at any point in the game.
4.5 Cheats and Easter Eggs: If the learner-player clicks on a time piece
(watch, clock) in any level location, they are awarded 10 ‘intern-
ship’ points with a ‘ka-ching’ sound. If the learner-player click on
the menu board in the coffee shop they receive 5 extra relationship
points. If the learner-player click on the coffee maker in the office
reception room, any enemy NPC goes away.
5. Section III Story, Setting and Character
5.1 Story and Narrative: Learner-player can select one of five poten-
tial characters: visually depicting two males, two females, and one
androgynous. All the primary characters are in their 20s, and are
anxious about their future job prospects.
5.1.1 Backstory: All the primary characters choices have a
mixed academic record, so are insecure about their skills
and abilities. They also are unsure how to improve their
professional preparation skills like resume writing and
interviewing, and how to improve their soft skills like time
management, persistence, and communication abilities.
5.1.2 Plot Elements: The enemy NPCs are analogous to real-life
people that try and tempt learner-player away from profes-
sional goals. They also function as metaphors for real-life
options that may distract the learner-player from success-

fully completing the tasks in the game.
5.1.3 Game Progression: Learner-player transitions from each
level opening map, by selecting the correct location and
completing location learning goals tasks, accumulating
points, soliciting help from supporter NPC, and avoiding
and eliminating enemy NPCs.
5.2 Game World
5.2.1 General Look and Feel of World: Technical 2D Vector Art
(The Banner Saga). Algorithmic polygons, dots, lines, and
color datasets. Placed in a modern-day detached home,
coffee shop, corporate office, and theater stage.
5.2.2 Location #1: Bedroom in a modern-day detached house.
5.2.2.1 General Description: Small, modern single
bed, desk with modern laptop on top, game
console on top, and with one drawer in the
middle and three large drawers on the right
(on top of each other). Modern desk chair,
bookcase, two-door closet with one door
open showing hanging clothes. Clothes, shoes,
books, and papers are on the floor rug. Pic-
tures of bands and actresses on the wall along
with one hanging wall clock. Walls are light
blue; rug is light pink/red. Bed blankets are
striped red, yellow, blue. Soft level of 80s pop
music is playing. Bathroom door.
5.2.2.2 Levels that Use Area: Level 1
5.2.3 Location #2: Coffee shop off an old town street.
5.2.3.1 General Description: Modern, sharp aluminum
corner glass display case. Starbucks-type order
counter. Four green tables, with four tan chairs
around each. Flowers atop each table. Pattern
black and white tile floor. Order board and clock
on wall behind counter. Supporter NPC Rick
the Receptionist stand behind the counter.
Framed pictures of city images on the other wall,
and a bathroom door is visible. Small square
wall shop, two floor-to-ceiling windows. Color
scheme is soft tan, light brown, red. Ceiling is
white with two fans slowly turning. Soft level of
American classical jazz music is playing. Barbara

the Barista is behind the counter.
5.2.3.2 Levels that use area: Level 2
5.2.4 Location #3: Corporate reception room and boss’s office
5.2.4.1 General Description: Corporate modern chic . . .
brush aluminum, angled lines against the curved
wooden framed front reception desk. Chair
with supporter NPC Rick the Receptionist
sits in a black tech chair behind reception desk.
Floor is striped red and black carpet. Ceiling is
white with track lights around the edges. Black
couch and one red chair in the waiting area,
with brush aluminum end tables. Boss’s office
has three floor to ceiling glass windows looking
across to other high-rise buildings, and down
to a street scape. One desk is at the back of the
office and the chair is facing the back window.
The learner-player just see the top of the boss’s
head as she faces the window looking away.
Learner-player never sees the boss, just hears
her voice. The one backwall of the boss’s office,
with the entrance door, is grain wood. The desk
is black with a desktop computer, notepad, pen
holder, and one desk sculpture. The floor is gray
and black carpet. Ceiling has LED track lights.
Soft rap is playing in the reception area. No
music is played in the boss’s office. Next to the
boss’s entrance door is a private bathroom door.
5.2.4.2 Levels that use area: Level 3
5.2.5 Location #4: Greenroom and theater stage
5.2.5.1. General Description: Greenroom is small with
four walls painted green with one brown desk
under a huge mirror. One small chair is at the
desk, and another small folding chair is in the
corner where supporter NPC Svetlana the Stage-
hand sits. Floor carpet is dark green, and ceiling is
white with one small ceiling fan moving slowly.
Performing groups and theater companies’ post-
ers framed are on the walls. One wall has a call
speaker/button for announcements. Outside of
the greenroom door is the stage door with a
biosensor reader near the doorknob. The theater

stage floor is curved on the left, edges barely vis-
ible, light gray floor surrounded by very bright
lights. A microphone on a stand (with a cable
running down the front of the stage edge) is the
only object seen. Learner-player can’t see any-
thing else expect bright lights from all directions.
Classical string quartet music is playing softly in
the background.
5.2.5.2 Levels that use area: 4
5.3 Primary Character Options: Learner-player can select one of five
potential characters: visually depicting two males, two females, and
one androgynous character, all in their 20s, and are anxious about
their future job prospects. Male 1 has short hair and is dressed in a
suit; Male 2 has glasses, longer hair and is dressed in a sports jacket
and pants. Female 1 has short hair and is dressed in a suit; Female
2 has glasses, long hair, and wears a jacket and dress. The androgy-
nous character has glasses, short hair, and wears a sports jacket and
pants. All the primary character choices have a mixed academic
record, so are insecure about their skills and abilities. They also
are unsure how to improve their professional preparation skills
like resume writing and interviewing, and how to improve their
soft skills like time management, persistence, and communication
abilities. Animation is walk/run hands and legs cycle, and standing
right hands up for enemy NPC blast.
5.3.1 NPC Enemy Character #1: Bob the Backstabber
5.3.1.1 Backstory: He tries to distract the learner-player
character with invitations to lunch, dinner, con-
cert tickets, etc., but is only trying to slow the
game progression and prevent the primary char-
acter from finishing tasks.
5.3.1.2 Personality: Used car salesman type. Pushy,
aggressive, confident along with lots of false
promises.
5.3.1.3 Look: White collar shirt, khaki pants, blue blazer.
5.3.1.3.1 Physical characteristics: male, Caucasian,
early 30s, slightly overweight, short.
5.3.1.3.2 Animations: 2D, stand and sit, and
simple arm-leg walk and run cycle.
Head-neck up/down/left right. Fixed
facial expression of happy. Lips move
when talking, but not synced to word

pronunciation.
5.3.1.4 Special Abilities: None
5.3.1.5 Relevance to game story: Functions as analo-
gous to a person in a friend circle that tries and
tempts the learner-player away from professional
goals. Also functions as metaphor for real-life fun
activities that may distract the learner-player from
successfully completing the tasks in the game.
5.3.1.6 Relationship to other characters: None
5.3.1.7 Statistics: 4 ‘internship’ points to use the eye stare
laser to push away enemy NPCs. To use the open
hand blaster to eliminate an enemy NPC from
a level requires either both 5 ‘internship’ points
and 2 ‘relationship’ points, or just 6 ‘relationship’
points.
5.3.2 NPC Enemy Character #2: Tina the Talker
5.3.2.1 Backstory: She tries to build a strong friend-
ship with learner-player by calling, texting, and
through social media postings. Innocent, but
slows the game progression and distracts the
learner-player character from finishing tasks.
5.3.2.2 Personality: Sassy, stylish, confident, but sensitive.
5.3.2.3 Look: Bright pantsuit, running shoes, stylish hat,
and glasses.
5.3.2.3.1 Physical characteristics: Female, Asian,
early 20s, thin, semi-tall.
pronunciation.
5.3.2.5 Relevance to game story: Functions as analogous
to a person in a friend circle that tries and tempts
the learner-player away from professional goals.
Also functions as analogous to real-life time some
friends demand and how social media may dis-
tract from successfully completing the tasks in the
game.

5.3.2.7 Statistics: 4 ‘internship’ points to use the eye stare
laser to push away enemy NPCs. To use the open
points.
5.3.3 NPC Enemy Character #3: Jose the Joker
5.3.3.1 Backstory: He tries to build a friendship with
the learner-player character by telling bad jokes,
stand-up comedy, and silly pranks. Purposely
tries to slow the progression of the game and pre-
vent finishing tasks.
5.3.3.2 Personality: Loud, boisterous, confident, but
insecure and sensitive.
5.3.3.3 Look: Hipster clothes, jeans, t-shirt, hoodie,
Nike sneakers untied.
5.3.3.3.1 Physical characteristics: Male, His-
panic, late 20s, tall and thin.
pronunciation.
5.3.3.5 Relevance to game story: Analogous to a person
in a friend circle that tries too hard to be a close
friend and time commitment distracts away from
professional goals.
5.3.3.7 Four ‘internship’ points to use the eye stare laser
to push away enemy NPCs. To use the open
points.
5.3.4. Supportive NPC Character #1: Barbara the Barista
5.3.4.1 Backstory: Wise and knowledgeable about pre-
paring materials for job applications. Had several
previous careers. Is she the owner of the coffee

shop?
5.3.4.2 Personality: Mature, calm, caring, speaks slowly
and carefully.
5.3.4.3 Look: Coffee shop uniform, necklace, rings.
5.3.4.3.1 Physical characteristics: Female,
Kenyan, late 40s, medium height,
and average weight.
pronunciation.
5.3.4.5 Relevance to game story: Analogous to a mentor
that helps advise our learner-player about where
to find professional resume help and providing
portfolio template examples.
5.3.4.7 Statistics: it costs 6 ‘internship’ and 3 ‘relation-
ship’ points to buy the coffee shop coupon and
receive advice from Barbara about creating great
portfolios.
5.3.5 Supportive NPC Character #2: Rick the Receptionist
5.3.5.1 Backstory: Wise and funny, light-hearted, but
comforting. Has had several professional careers.
5.3.5.2 Personality: Mature and relaxed, witty and kind.
5.3.5.3 Look: Pinstriped suit and tie.
5.3.5.3.1 Physical characteristics: Male, Cauca-
sian, late 40s, short and trim.
5.3.5.3.2 Animation, 2D, stand and sit, and
pronunciation.
5.3.5.5 Relevance to game story: Analogous to an
older friend that helps provide a practice ‘mock’
interview, and critiques that interview prior to

the boss interview.
5.3.5.7 Statistics: It costs 5 ‘relationship’ points to secure
the first mock interview with the receptionist
(6 ‘internship’ and 3 ‘relationship’ points to access
the corporate elevator building code to go up to
the interviews).
5.3.6 Supportive NPC Character #3: Svetlana the Stagehand
5.3.6.1 Backstory: Tired, nervous, anxious. Doesn’t
make much eye contact. Has struggled in the
theater industry working in several countries.
Not happy with her job as stagehand.
5.3.6.2 Personality: Moves from serious and dark to bub-
bly and optimistic.
5.3.6.3 Look: Sweatpants, t-shirt, black sneakers, hair
pulled back.
5.3.6.3.1 Physical characteristics: Female, East-
ern European, early 30s, tall and thin.
pronunciation.
5.3.6.5 Relevance to game story: Functions as a close friend
to provide insight and advice from your ‘Traits’
exercise. What you should expect and prepare for
to give your best final presentation performance.
5.3.6.7 Statistics: Her advice is free, but it will cost 6
‘internship’ and 3 ‘relationship’ points to access
the biometric scan to enter the stage to provide
the final presentation.
6. Section V Interface
6.1 Visual System
6.1.1 HUD: Top right of UI is the HUD Score mini-window
Score box, which indicates points earned and spent.
Clicking on HUD Score mini-window expands it to see

tasks completed; tasks-to-be completed; and number of
‘internship’ and ‘relationship’ points earned, spent, lost,
and available to be earned. Also, the HUD contains cur-
rent level, location, and Save, Pause, Start, and Restart
buttons, a Help button, and Tutorial button.
6.1.2 Rendering System: Cloud-based OpenGL GPU with
eight programable vector shaders.
6.1.3 Camera: Levels are 2D top-down. Locations are isometric,
third and first person.
6.1.4 Lighting Models: Real-time, mixed, and baked.
6.2 Control System: Keyboard WASD to move. Mouse left-click for
right-hand blast, Right-click for eye laser stare. Shift to run. Ctrl
for sit. Arrow key can also be used for movement.
6.3 Audio: Eight different stereo music tracks. Six voice tracks to
match characters as described in NPCs earlier.
6.4 Music:
Level 1: 80s Dance Music
Level 2: 80s Heavy Metal
Level 3: Italian Opera Arias
Level 4: Classical String Quartet
Location 1: 80s Dance Music
Location 2: Classical Jazz
Location 3: 90s Rap
Location 4: Classical String Quartet
6.5 Sound Effects: 16 different sounds – Eye stare laser sound. Hand
Blast sound, Easter egg sound. Footsteps (walk and run), chair legs
scraping floor (coffee shop), elevator arrive ding sound, elevator
door open and close movement sound, location door open and
close (3), stage audience applause sound.
6.6 Help System: Brings up Control System, navigation hints, point
collection hints, tasks submission hints.
7. Section VI Artificial Intelligence
7.1 Personalized Learning Machine-Intelligence AI Engine: Cloud-
based Bayesian learning forward and backward chaining algo-
rithms that use past game play ingested datasets and superimposes
these upon the new dataset variable uncertainty to adjust model
weights to offer probabilistic inference and reasoning of these new
datasets produced by learner-player game play to improve out-
put accuracy and prediction. The Bayesian learning inference and
reasoning algorithms are built on top of the TensorFlow Probabil-

ity library, built on top of the Tensorflow Framework (see Chapter
7 for more detail).
7.2 Enemy NPCs: Based on the task learning outcomes/score of the
learner-player, the Bayesian algorithmic model adjusts the inten-
sity higher or lower of the enemy NPC interference scale during
progress of the game and during task work sessions.
7.3 Supportive NPCs: Based on the task learning outcomes/score
of the learner-player, the Bayesian algorithmic model adjusts
the amount of support scale higher or lower (guidance, advice,
answers) the supporter NPCs provide during location interaction
and during tasks work sessions.
7.4 Support AI
7.4.1 Player and Collision Detection: The cloud-based PLG
Engine has Sort and Sweep and Dynamic Bounding Vol-
ume Tree collision detection built in its physics engine.
7.4.2 Pathfinding: NavMesh Algorithms, Steering and String-
pulling Algorithms
8. Section VII Technical
8.1 Target Hardware: Cloud-based streaming to any desktop com-
puter or ‘thin’ hardware device.
8.2 Game Engine: Proprietary cloud-based Personalized Learning
Game (PLG) Engine
8.3 Network: Full HD requires a stable and consistent bit rate in the
ranges of 7–10 Mbps at 60 frames per second, and Ultra-High
4K requires a minimum transfer bit rate of rate if 60–80 Mbps
for a resolution of 60 FPS. If transfer rates drop based on capacity
limits, usage gates, or network damage the H264 standard drops
the bitrate and/or frame rate to stream at a lower resolution, and
bumps the rates higher as bandwidth becomes available or net-
work repairs are made.
8.4 Scripting Language: C++, Python
Notes
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4
Staying Connected
Gamification and Social Media
KEY TERMS
• Digital Games
• Game-Based Learning
• Game Design
• Game Play
• Gamification
• Instructional Design
• Player Types
• Privacy
• Social Media
Introduction
Klopfer (2008) defines games as “purposeful, goal-orientated, rule-based activ-
ity that the players perceive as fun” (p. 11). Games are great tools for learning
content because they create authentic opportunities for 21st-century learners
to build on previous knowledge and develop in-depth knowledge and skills.
Games are highly engaging, interactive, and in order for a game to be effective
in the learning environment it must be used effectively. Today’s online learn-
ers desire interactive learning experiences and it is vital that through research,
educators explore the possibilities of using emerging digital media technologies
like games in the learning environment.
Game-based learning and social media technologies have the potential to
actively engage online learners. Educators cannot just change lesson plans
to create such an environment as there must be entire shifts in the way edu-
cators teach. Gamification and social media are unique because they create
an immersive learning environment; something that traditional classroom
methods do not do. There needs to be some vehicle, which transports an
online classroom from the recorded lecture to a more interactive and richer
environment. Gaming and play are considered great teaching tools for an
active learner. Digital gaming presents the opportunity for students to learn
53
54 • Staying Connected
through the direct experience of playing a role or becoming a character and

infusing oneself into a virtual situation. This affords the learner an increased
understanding for using new knowledge within the gaming context in which
individuals play games in different ways, using different gaming strategies
and decision-making skills.
Game-based learning not only cultivates learner development, but also
enhances skills needed in education; such as trouble-shooting, trial and error,
team building skills, problem solving, lateral thinking, concentration, memori-
zation, information gathering, analysis, developing and testing solutions (Gros,
2007). Game-based learning is most prevalent in the K-12 environment where
the value of teaching learners in a risk-free environment provides an interac-
tive atmosphere that incorporates all of the design elements in which learners
can interact with games in a meaningful way (Hew & Brush, 2007). We are now
seeing the potential benefits for game-based learning as a way to actively engage
learners in post-secondary course content and higher education institutions
are starting to engage in quality game-based learning for undergraduate and
professional learners’ online learning programs.
Learning Through Game Play

The concept of play, particularly in the context of learning, is complex and mul-
tifaceted, but a commonly accepted definition is “free movement” (Vygotsky,
1979, para. IV) which relates directly to learning in different ways based on
students’ intellect, developmental level, and past experiences. However, the
learning process is constrained by rigid structures such as the “correct” answers
and processes for the subject.
Play has always been considered a source of learning and can be used as a
vehicle to communicate how new knowledge and ideas can be transferred in
the classroom. Early philosophers, like Plato, believed that “play in childhood
is preparation for future career” (Huang & Plass, 2009, p. 53). Therefore, see-
ing that play is an already accepted mechanism for learning and recognizing
that play exists in many forms of participatory culture gives rise to the notion
that participatory culture is shaping the development of learning. Yet, the real
learning challenge lies in connecting knowledge with decisions in the context
of our everyday situations. As depicted in Figure 4.1, game-based learning pro-
vides opportunities for students to improve course outcomes by engaging in
digital game-based content that automatically addresses whether students can
apply what they have learned. According to Snow (2016), game-based learn-
ing is more effective when designed to supplement with other instructional
content. In addition, game-based learning allows learners to develop a growth
mindset when introduced to new concept areas and skills that they can practice
in a non-traditional learning environment that could also meet online learners’
needs.
Staying Connected • 55
Figure 4.1 Benefits of game-based learning for non-traditional students

Source: From The Potential for Game-based Learning to Improve Outcomes for Nontradi-
tional Students, Bert Snow, Muzzy Lane, 2016
Play as a learning tool can be implemented in the learning environment.

In game play, rules can be established to govern the learning content, but
learners are free to experience the content in their own unique ways. Through
playful activities, learners are motivated by the end-goal of the learning task,
although the exact rules for achieving the learning goal are not known or
shared with learners. In this example, we see that play can be transforma-
tive. In fact, transformative play, in the context of learning, is optimal for
maximizing the zone of proximal development, as outlined by Vygotsky
(1979). This is because changing the rigid structure of play in response to
the participants’ progress would effectively change the potential for effective
interaction with the environment and instructors. A fitting example of this
would be a computer adaptive learning tool that alters the learning frame-
work based on the learners’ previous answers. Maximizing learning for the
learner would require the tool to recognize a pattern of answering and to
develop an assistance module to effectively aid the user when answering sub-
sequent questions. Using games within simulated virtual worlds to explore
is yet another way that transformative play is shaping the evolution of a new
learning landscape.
Game Play Styles and Player Types

Game researchers believe that player styles can be viewed as fluid. Players tend
to move from one play style to another and engage in a wide variety of play
styles at various times, and in different contexts. Let’s review the five player
types of learning games classified by the studies of Richard Bartle (2004) and
Nick Yee (2004) which include:
• Achievers: Achievers play games quickly and naturally focus on doing

well or finding ways to achieve mastery. They require strict goals and
increasing challenges and would strive on playing games that offer
specific point goals and performance measurements, which in turn,
offers them some sort of in-game reward.
• Explorers: Explorers are slow players that tend to enjoy game mechanics
rather than following game guidelines. They do not necessarily need chal-
lenges during game play but tend to enjoy testing hypotheses and studying
the game-world through customization and free access to more content.
• Self-validators: Self-validators are players that do not like failing. They
desire easy game play with levels that are not challenging, easy to navigate
and have the ability to quickly receive high scores. Self-validators also need
games that offer them game play hints and clues, provide practice ses-
sions, avoid negative feedback, and allow them to hide bad performances.
• Careless: Careless players play games quickly. They tend to be very
spontaneous, lack motivation to progress to the next level and make
mistakes while doing so.
• Lost: Lost players, like explorers, play games slowly; however, they
make many errors and tend not to enjoy the gaming-based learning
experience. They like easy challenges where the game adapts to their
skills along the way.
Play styles coupled with motivation are what ultimately drive players to choose
their game strategy. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in games have implica-
tions for play styles and learning. Thus, Achievers are motivated by extrinsic
achievement goals like winning and approval. Explorers are motivated by intrin-
sic goals, taking an interest in the content of games. They also enjoy exploring
ideas, role-playing, and game mechanics more than earning top scores (Heeter,
2009). Self-validators appear to be motivated by rewards, such as achieving the
highest score, and desire easy game successes.
Role of Motivation in Game Play

Motivation, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, can increase learning and engage-
ment through the use of games. Games can facilitate choices in learning and
have the ability to offer feedback about the effectiveness of the choice being
made. Some games can present the learner with different scenarios where they
have to make decisions about what to do. The most useful thing is that play-
ers get to see how the decisions they make affect others in the game by using
real-life situations. Secondly, games can help with supporting the learner, pro-
viding helpful cues to enhance self-directed learning. Games can be used to
help learners understand what is relevant to the learning activity before having
to complete the assignment. Games tend to focus on certain topics and infor-
mation for learning. They can encourage learners to be active learners.
Games can be used to increase motivation and active participation is through
the use of virtual environments. In virtual environments, educators can allow
learners to meet virtually, and create learning activities that allow the learners
to explore the virtual world in real time (Dede, 2007). It is through this virtual
environment that instructors can promote a different learning perspective that
evaluates learner performance, monitors the interaction between classmates
(peer learning), and fosters intellectual discussions or reflections online.
Implications for Game Design and Curriculum Design

Instructional design and game design deal with motivation, challenges, indi-
vidual differences, and social interaction. Learning outcomes and goals set
by teachers are closely related to the goals presented in digital games. Game
designers must consider the player types and learning styles they want to
accommodate and encourage in their game and design games accordingly. The
game designer will try to focus on pleasing a certain player type and learning
style, rather than trying to please them all.
Educators create instructional strategies based on learner needs and interests.
Learner motivation also plays a huge role in education. Teachers utilize learner
motivation, both extrinsic and intrinsic, in the online classroom. When using
educational games in the online classroom, teachers must consider not only the
content and orientation of a game, but also, the individual characteristics like
motivation of the learners, or in this case the player types. Characteristics like
motivation, competition, social interaction and learning styles must be evalu-
ated prior to introducing games in the classroom. Motivational principles for
empowering learners include the “ability to grant power, autonomy, and chal-
lenge at a player’s level and implications for learners’ identity” (Foster & Mishra,
2011, p. 37). Learning styles detail learners’ strengths and weaknesses, which
must be understood when incorporating not only games in the curriculum, but
also any instructional approach. According to Heeter (2009), “because educa-
tional games have learning as well as entertainment goals, learning game player
types need to incorporate player-learner characteristics such as learning styles,
abilities, and achievement orientation” (p. 3).
Digital games not only cultivate learner development, but also enhance skills
needed in education, like troubleshooting, trial and error, team building skills,
problem solving, lateral thinking, concentration, memorization, information

gathering, analysis, developing and testing solutions. Characteristics of digital
games, like competition, challenge, exploration, fantasy, goals, interaction, outcomes,
people, rules, and safety, relate to the educational process. Learners can develop a
deeper comprehension of content by using trouble-shooting and problem-solving
skills while playing games (Wagner, 2012). Motivation, whether intrinsic or extrinsic,
can increase learning and engagement through the use of games in the classroom.
Thus, when games are closely tied to desired learning outcomes, learners are able to
transform practical experiences into the online classroom environment.
Implementing Games in the Online Learning Environment

Game-based learning applications, coupled with e-learning platforms, have cre-
ated many possibilities for sharing and transferring knowledge and information
to learners. This provides a potentially large cohort with games and simulation
technologies that can be used more for engaging and supporting practices, as
well as moving learning into informal domains, including knowledge manage-
ment and performance support. Gaming applications that integrate learning
and technology foster communication, problem-solving, and critical think-
ing skills, and can be used especially in the online environment to meet the
required learning performance goals and standards.
Game-based research is used to study learning environments, which are designed
and systematically changed by the researcher (Squire, 2006). We believe that utiliz-
ing game-based learning to analyze and understand a particular learning concept
is beneficial not only to obtain results but also because it provides the ability to
modify the curriculum and to understand how game-based learning can enhance
the learning environment. Here are several ideas of how to implement game-based
elements in the online classroom using progress indicators, leaderboards, and polls.
Progress Indicators
Progress indicators are used as a learning metric that can motivate students to
complete course activities and assignments. They are typically not only used to
reward students for the successful accomplishment of specific learning activi-
ties but to also provide continuous and immediate feedback on the student’s
progress (Werbach & Hunter, 2015). Instructors can determine whether this
tracking is automatic by using the LMS to grade the activity as complete once
the student participates or manually allowing students to indicate completion
by tracking themselves. Helping clarify student progress can serve as both a
reminder and a motivator keeping students connected not only to the online
classroom environment but also to the course material.
Leaderboards
Another way of gamifying the classroom is to introduce leaderboards. Lead-
erboards rank players according to their relative success, measuring them
against a certain success criterion (Costa, Wehbe, Robb, & Nacke, 2013) and
are indicators of progress that allow students to see how they are performing
relative to others in the same course. Leaderboards can be used to motivate
learners, to reach the next level or milestone. This also allows instructors to
quickly review the status of their students at any given time (Costa, Wehne,
Robb, & Nacke, 2013) and is especially helpful for identifying students who
may be at risk of falling behind.
Polls
Polls provide visual representations of student accomplishments of learning
outcomes or objectives (Hamari, 2013). Polling students during the online
course is very engaging and can be used as a quick checkpoint to get a pulse
on how students are understanding the course material and achieving the stu-
dent learning outcomes. For example, instructors can use Slido to create polls
to gather student feedback and see the results in real time. All polls can also
receive submissions through different devices. Students can text message or
submit their responses online with a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or computer
(Hamari, 2013).
Games are great tools for learning content because they create authen-
tic opportunities for 21st-century learners to build on previous content
and develop in-depth knowledge and skills. It is through gamification that
the motivational power of games can be applied to real-world problems
such as, in this case, engaging online learners. Understanding the role of
gamification in education, therefore, means understanding under what cir-
cumstances game elements can drive learning behavior. Making use of the
game-based learning framework, we can better break down the impact of
gamification. Gamification can change the rules, but it also affects learners’
emotional experiences, their sense of identity and their social positioning.
This game-based approach to learning is supported by Leblanc’s (2004)
intrinsic motivation theory in which learners can change their identities
as learners based on how motivated they are to learn the content. You may
decide to use gamification tools and strategies to actively engage learners
in your online course. Table 4.1 provides some examples of games that can
be implemented.
Table 4.1 Examples of games that have been implemented in the learning environment
Game Description
Digital Breakout/Escape Learners complete missions or mini activities testing their

Rooms knowledge (created by the instructor) to allow them to
break out once they reach a certain performance level.
Foldit Learners problem-solve through playing protein-folding
games to help researchers under their functions in diseases
like AIDS, cancer, and COVID-19.
IEEE: Try Engineering Learners are provided with the specific requirements and
data in order to design or test their prototype.
Innov8 Learners participate in a business process management
mission and work with a virtual team to optimize the
company’s business processes.
Minecraft Learners can practice vital skills related to the subject-area
and produce a final product that can be used to assess their
mastery.
United Nations Learners have the opportunity to prevent global disasters
Challenges and contribute to ending hunger and climate concerns.
The Role of Social Media in Learning

Learning in the 21st century now requires classrooms to be more participa-
tory and collaborative, allowing learners to use social media technologies to
network and to transfer material. Social media has allowed learners of differing
perspectives to enter into a platform where every learner has a voice, and access
to a learning community where:
• They believe that their contributions to the content matter.

• They feel more socially connected with one another and the instructor.
• They appreciate the feedback and responses they receive that shapes
their learning perspectives.
Cognitive development through participatory culture has a great advantage

over traditional learning methods. Social media is becoming more widely
accepted by educators. These tools are effectively incorporated into the learning
environment to engage learners through social positions and highlight com-
munity contexts. Today, most social media tools or applications are being used
to build a stronger connection between the instructor and learners, especially
having increased access to course materials outside of the classroom.
A growing number of schools and instructors are utilizing social media in the
remote classroom to further engage students in the learning process. Figure 4.2
provides a graphical representation of four types of social media applications.
Figure 4.2 A graphical representation of the types of social media applications

used for learning
Source: Image used with permission of Shutterstock, Inc.
Social media is a tool that instructors can use to make their classroom more
engaging, relevant, and culturally diverse. There are two key benefits of using
social media in an online classroom: the sense of community it fosters among
students, and the ability for students and instructors to share information with
each other.
Examples of Use:
• Students can use social media tools to critique and comment on each
other’s assignments, collaborate in teams to create content and can
easily connect with each other and the instructor with questions when
needed.
• Many colleges and universities use social media tools like Twitter and
Instagram to communicate with students, and students use social
media to promote events for their clubs or organizations to the campus
community.
• Social media can also connect students to other courses promoting
creativity, collaboration, and practicing communication skills.
• Instructors can ask students to use their mobile devices or computers

to respond to polls and quizzes created by social media technologies.
For example, students taking an online math course can post prob-
lems to a digital and interactive whiteboard, where a struggling student
could work with classmates to solve it.
Building Community and Inclusivity With Social Media

Social media platforms provide a collaborative learning environment in which
students are able to share information with each other but also connect and
communicate with others globally.
• Example: When it comes to building community, LinkedIn is a great

social media tool. Colleges and universities typically maintain a pres-
ence on LinkedIn, and there are numerous LinkedIn groups geared
towards smaller groups within the larger community. LinkedIn groups
are devoted to building community among alumni, veterans, colleges,
departments, and student led organizations throughout the college or
university. Instructors can use LinkedIn Learning as an active learn-
ing technique to provide students with content-specific resources
developed by experts in the field to meet learning outcomes.
Wages (2021) states, “the collaborative environment and open forum that
social media encourages, along with the rapid pace of information sharing that it
facilitates, means that students can accelerate the development of their creative,
critical thinking, and communication processes in certain ways when they use it”
(p. ix). In online classrooms, social media can help instructors present relevant
course materials that promote deeper learner engagement through active discus-
sions that lead to a high level of student awareness, reflection, and success. Using
social media tools such as Edmodo and Piazza appropriately can also foster inclu-
sive online communities to enhance student learning. Thus, social media allows
students more freedom to connect and collaborate beyond the traditional class-
room; all students, no matter their geographical location, can start to experience
the globally connected world long before they enter the workforce (Wages, 2021).
Table 4.2 Types of social media tools and uses in the online classroom
Tool Description
Edmodo Allows instructors to build a community where they can share their
content, distribute quizzes, assignments, and manage communication.
Instagram An image capturing tool that learners can use to showcase their projects/
sample work as well as post images from a city or local exploration.
(Continued)
Tool Description
Piazza An online discussion area where learners can post questions and
answers in real time. Mostly computer science and engineering
learners like this tool because it includes LaTeX editor to allow coding
and computations.
Pinterest A bookmarking tool that allows learners to create and document their
ideas visually using images.
Snapchat Allows learners to engage with each other and the instructor on class-
related topics. It can be used to humanize the course for instructors to
host virtual office hours and Q&A sessions with students.
Twitter Allows learners to interact and share ideas, post images, and
communicate with each other in real time.
Strategies to Protect Student Privacy When Using Social Media

in the Classroom
One benefit of social media is that it is free and accessible to everyone. The
challenge with social media is that not all students are careful about what they
post. Since students can choose to make their settings private or public there is
a good chance that other students may be featured in a video or image without
their permission. Given that social media content can go viral very quickly,
this becomes a huge privacy concern for everyone, including the instructor,
students, and perhaps the institution.
We’ve already explored some of the possibilities of including social media
within the online classroom to promote collaboration and engagement among
students however, instructors should be careful not to require students to use
social media in order to participate in the learning experience. We recommend
that instructors should always have an alternative way that students can con-
tribute to the learning activity. Some students may not be comfortable with
creating a social media account or sharing information about their learning on
these public platforms. One example is to have students work in pairs or small
groups where some students are comfortable with sharing while the other stu-
dents can still contribute to the learning without being required to post.
In an online classroom environment, it is important to establish netiquette
expectations, protect students’ personal identifiable information, and follow
student data privacy guidelines for how to incorporate social media into the
learning experience. Please review these helpful strategies:
• Review your institution’s acceptable use policy. This would include

social media guidelines that your school has in place. You and the stu-
dents may want to consider creating separate accounts for educational
needs and professional use.
• Consider having student consent/opt-out forms. If you plan to

share any activities in your online classroom, make sure to get students’
consent.
• Review privacy settings on your social media accounts. For exam-
ple, you can set your Instagram account to “Private” so only those who
follow you can view your stories or images.
• Explain to students the purpose of using a social media platform
for learning. Let students know ahead of time what, when, and how
they will be using social media, and review both the benefits and the
risks. Encourage your students to talk to you privately if they have
concerns about their pictures, videos, or personal information being
shared.
• Use the LMS. Consider using your institution’s LMS to create a course
site where students can access course materials, including videos, docu-
ments, and web resources, in a protected digital environment. Students
can upload files, share documents, and use built-in social tools such as
notifications, discussion forums, and audio/video features to connect
and communicate with you and their peers.
• Make sure to review any photo or video before posting to a social
media platform. It is good netiquette to take a moment to review all
images or videos closely prior to uploading online. You and your stu-
dents may be unaware of privacy implications or data security risks
when revealing information such as location, ID numbers, and profile
details. Consider cropping or blurring your background, documents
that may contain sensitive material, and people’s faces, especially if
you did not ask for their permission.
• Review data collection and user analytics guidelines. It is impor-
tant to understand how your information will be collected, stored, and
used on social media platforms. Instructors should research and be
aware how student information will be used. Most social media tools
provide this information per request and it’s helpful for instructors
to always provide students clear guidelines of how their engage-
ment will be tracked and monitored to evaluate their overall learning
performance.
Summary
Implementing gamification and social media in higher education is changing
how courses are being designed and developed, especially with the rise in the
use of mobile technologies. Learners more than ever have the opportunity to
engage not only with the course material (within the online classroom environ-
ment), but they are also able to create, collaborate, and articulate their practical
experiences (outside the online classroom environment). In this form of active

learning, the roles of the instructor and student can be defined as either learn-
ing designers or players in which they are tasked to use game-based elements
and social media to make decisions on how to use the course materials to dem-
onstrate their learning in meaningful ways. In the next chapter, we will focus on
strategies on how to build and establish social presence through participatory
and peer-learning opportunities in online courses.
Chapter 4 Technology and Online Resources

The following list includes all of the technology and online resources with
corresponding links mentioned throughout Chapter 4, in alphabetical
order.
Name of Tool URL
Digital Breakout/Escape Room https://sites.google.com/site/digitalbreakoutjb/

sandbox
Edmodo https://new.edmodo.com/
Foldit http://fold.it/portal/info/science
Genially www.genial.ly/
IEEE: Try Engineering http://tryengineering.org/play-games
Innov8 www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-bpm-
innov8/
Instagram www.instagram.com/
Minecraft https://minecraft.net
Piazza https://piazza.com/
Pinterest www.pinterest.com/
Slido www.sli.do/
Snapchat www.snapchat.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/
United Nations Games https://unric.org/en/category/united-nations-
digital-engagement-hub/united-nations-video-
games/
YouTube www.youtube.com/
Discipline-Specific Examples
To better help you situate an idea from this chapter into your discipline, we
provide a wide range of discipline-specific examples in the following table that
you can easily reference.
Discipline Description of what students will be required to do
Cultural Anthropology Have students search for cultural images and digital
artifacts using Pinterest for their final project presentations.
Foreign Affairs After learning that world hunger is a global issue,
students can participate in the United Nations World
Hunger virtual game challenge to gain skills on how to
advocate for this cause.
Interior Design Challenge students to create an infographic or
interactive image of their design assignments using
Genially. Students can also post updates and reply to
peers on their progress on their design plans.
Physical Therapy Students can use Snapchat to demonstrate movements and
create instructional video postings for potential clients.
All Disciplines To successfully complete the digital escape classroom,
students complete short activities to answer or provide
solutions based on the weekly topics covered. If they
get the correct answer, they receive a code/clue to
“unlock” the next level and so on until the last level is
unlocked where they “break out” and escape the digital
classroom showing mastery of key concepts.
Planning Template
For this chapter, we have developed a planning template that includes an example of
an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor using a social media application to
improve writing and vocabulary skills in an online course. In particular, the instructor
will create a discussion prompt which will allow students to practice using a vocabu-
lary list to respond to one another through the class Twitter channel. The first column
in the following table is filled out completely as a model for your course planning.
Chapter 4 Planning Template

Type of Experiential and Active Learning Social Media
Strategy Academic Discipline: ESL/Language
Topic Develop writing skills and learn new
(A few words description) vocabulary terms.
Learning Objective(s) Students will be able to:
(What learners should be able to do/ • Write correct form of vocabulary
understand after participating in the terms when posting to social media.
learning activities?) • Summarize and respond to social
media comments.
(Continued)
Chapter 4 Planning Template

Type of Experiential and Active Learning Social Media
Strategy Academic Discipline: ESL/Language
Description of Activity Using the class Twitter channel
(What learners will be “doing”) (hashtag) created by the instructor,
students will use Twitter to tweet and
respond to each other using English
and different languages to practice
conversations and sharing ideas.
• Resources may include a vocabulary
list, assigning students a prompt or
interesting topic (e.g. current events,
personal experiences, etc.).
• Also, if you want the students
to practice longer phases and
paragraphs, Instagram would be a
better option.
Deliverables Students can show evidence of their
(What learners will “turn in” for feedback tweets in the following ways:
and grading?) • Add the class hashtag.
• Include individual names
(@twitternames).
• Upload a screenshot/image of tweet.
Assessment Written posts will be based on:
(The grading criteria the instructor will • Vocabulary and word choice.
use. Add a link to grading rubric where • Contribution to responses.
available) • Grammar and spelling.
• Relevance to topic.
Completion Time 30–40 minutes
(Estimated amount of time the activity Note: Instructors may need additional
will take to complete) time to set-up and adjust Twitter settings.
Required Tech Tools Twitter or Instagram
(Technology tools required to carry out Note: Instructors and students will need
and complete learning activity) to create an account and make sure to
follow each other for this activity.
Now, take a moment to reflect on your course. We have provided a blank

planning template as an organizational tool as you start to plan how to
include gamification and social media in your online courses. This tem-
plate is also available for download on the book’s resources webpage. We
encourage you to include some of the technology and online resources men-
tioned throughout this chapter, as well as the discipline-specific examples
mentioned earlier.
Chapter 4 Planning Template (Blank)

Type of Social Media Digital Games/ Polling/Progress
Experiential and Academic Apps for Learning Indicators
Active Learning Discipline: Academic Academic
Strategy Discipline: Discipline:
Topic
(A few words
description)
Learning
Objective(s)
(What learners
should be able to
do/understand after
participating in the
learning activities?)
Description of
Activity
(What learners will
be “doing”)
Deliverables
(What learners
will “turn in” for
feedback and
grading?)
Assessment
(The grading
criteria the
instructor will
use. Add a link to
grading rubric)
Completion Time
(Estimated amount
of time the activity
will take to
complete)
Required Tech
Tools
(Technology tools
required to carry
out and complete
learning activity)
4 Academic Games
Description
Games have a long history, with some scholars suggesting they existed as
far back as the Stone Age (Perla, 1990). While many games, both present
and past, are played just for fun, some historical games were “serious
games” designed with educational or training goals in mind. For example,
many early “serious games” were developed for military and warfare pur-
poses and taught strategy and tactics to those who participated—an his-
torical legacy of games echoed by the preponderance of war games today
(Perla, 1990). Hays (2005) formally defines games as an “artificially con-
structed, competitive activity with a specific goal, a set of rules and con-
straints that is located in a specific context” (p. 15). In higher education
environments, early games were also influenced by warfare. Spacewar, for
example, was one of the first digital computer games introduced into an
academic learning environment during the 1960s. A graduate student in
computer science created the game, in part, to learn how to use the new
machine that would revolutionize computing (Herz, 2002). Other early
games in collegiate environments included the McClintic Theater Mode at
the Army War College and the Naval War Gaming System at the Naval
War College (Allen, 1987).
Over time, educators became more interested in gaming technology.
Oregon Trail was released in 1971 and was soon followed by Math Blaster,
Reader Rabbit, Microsoft Flight Simulator, America’s Army, the New
Manager Roadmap Challenge. By the mid-1980s, educational games began
to seek a more engaging student-learning environment (McCall, 2016) and
educators greatly increased their interest in games as the Internet became a
tool to discover new and creative ways to learn (Forsyth, 2014).
In academic games, students play, compete, and learn as they seek to
achieve a goal. In addition to making instruction more enjoyable for
learners (Garris, Ahlers, & Driskell, 2002), games also foster creativity,
promote teamwork, and create memorable classroom moments. Games
are also enjoyable for some instructors as well, who appreciate interacting
with students in a way aside from the typical classroom dynamic.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003038290-4
150 Academic Games
Whether games take place in class or online, they have the ability to pique
student interest and serve many purposes for the college classroom.
Purposes of Academic Games

Academic games are a form of experiential learning (Svinicki & McKea-
chie, 2013), and as such they have a particular potential benefit to higher
education. Experiential learning provides learners with the opportunity
to use course content and skills in a context other than the traditional
classroom, “experiencing” the knowledge they have gained through direct
application. As a type of experiential learning, games thus provide a unique
learning experience for students. Students learn while playing, building
strong connections to course content that can later aid information recall
and retrieval.
Educational games have the potential to help students reach impor-
tant educational goals such as acquiring foundational knowledge (Bel-
lotti, Kapralos, Lee, Moreno-Ger, & Berta, 2013). As learners move
through gameplay, they may be expected to process more and more
information as they complete additional goals and higher-level tasks.
Typically, games provide students with stimulation and reinforcement
for learning basic content. When games are at the appropriate level of
challenge, students are required to exert significant mental effort or
work together with classmates to complete them, which improves
learning.
Games also have the potential to help students to develop higher-order
thinking skills (Hertel & Millis, 2002; Rice, 2007). Games often require
the learner to move from simple to more complex environments during
gameplay, analyze rules using critical thinking skills, and develop strate-
gies for success. Games also often provide students with the opportunity
to solve problems. Finally, for games that put students into teams or
require them to work together, students build communication skills as
they develop complex strategies for communicating with team members
(Nilson, 2010).
Some games additionally help students develop affective skills and
appropriate dispositions. Some games’ entertainment value and challenge
also increases student motivation for learning (Huang, Johnson, & Han,
2013; Plass et al., 2013; Wronwoski et al., 2020). Games also have the
advantage of competition, which is also helpful in engaging some students.
Indeed, games promote holistic learning by encouraging students to engage
different modalities such as cognitive, affective, and kinesthetic learning
(Barkley, Cross, & Major, 2014).
Games may be used to improve memory of terms and facts, reinforce
materials and improve mentor transfer (Sugar, 1998), review of relevant
course concepts, or explore issues and ideas more deeply (Kaupins, 2005;
Ritterfeld, Cody, & Vorderer, 2009).
Academic Games 151
Hays (2005, p. 17) identifies several potential uses for academic games:
assess entry-level performance

measure criterion performance
aid in formative and summative evaluations of instructional approa-
ches and programs
provide instructional information on specific knowledge and skills
help change attitudes
organize knowledge and content prior to other forms of instruction
replace alternate forms of instruction to transmit facts, teach skills,
and provide insights
serve as a means for drill and practice
help integrate and maintain skills
illustrate the dynamics or abstract principles of a task.
Types of Academic Games

There are many different types of games used in college and university
classrooms. We have grouped games into five categories based on the
underlying learning framework they employ. Most games may be done
either face to face or online. Indeed, some of the latter categories of
games are particularly effective when enacted in online courses.
Puzzles are normally designed such that missing information must be

identified and used in a strategic way in order to reach some over-
arching goal or understand a central concept. Clues are typically
given for puzzles, with clue level and type influencing the difficulty of
the puzzle. These clues may be obvious and involve direct recall of
basic information or ill-defined and complex in determining the rela-
tionship of the clue to the puzzle strategy or solution. Our IDEA #36
Crossword Puzzles is an example of this category of game.
Guessing games typically have a single answer or concept that the
player must identify. These games are often heavily dependent on
verbal communication. This category of game typically offers a set of
questions or clues that students must use to deduce the answer to a
prompt. For instance, Taboo, where a player provides one-word
clues in order to elicit guesses from their teammates, is an example of
a game in this category.
Trivia games require the student to answer specific content ques-
tions. With respect to use in the classroom, these games are typically
adaptations of games from television, where participants have to
compete to accumulate points in order to win. Our IDEA #40 Trivia
is an example in this category.
Role plays are games in which students assume identities that are dif-
ferent from their own and engage with each other in a predetermined
152 Academic Games
way. This category of game relies on students recalling information
relative to their role and then engaging that information in a way that is
consistent with the given scenario. The Role Play, IDEA #44, is an
example of a game in this category.
Simulations involve setting up alternate worlds or situations in which
students may practice their skills and knowledge in a safe environ-
ment. They often require more extensive preparation than some of
the other categories of games. Simulations have been used extensively
in health professions since the early 1960s (Brown & Tortorella,
2020); with ready availability and reduced cost of technology, they
have been increasingly used as an online learning tool (e.g., Everquest
or Sims). Increasingly, due to advancements in technology that make
programming easier for those without specific training, instructors
are designing their own simulation games according to their specific
and particular educational objectives (Lean, Moizer, Towler, &
Abbey, 2006).
Elements of Academic Games

Given the wide variety of games, there is no one pattern of organization
or way to sequence game activities. There are, however, several key ele-
ments that should be present within an academic game (Barkley et al.,
2014; Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011):
Goals—Academic games begin with the instructor establishing well-

defined learning goals and objectives. Learning objectives and goals
primarily address what the instructor wants students to learn by
engaging in the gaming process. Goals also likely correspond with a
particular module of content.
Student preparation—An important aspect of using academic
games is to consider the students, their needs, and their level of
readiness when selecting or creating a game. In any game, it is
beneficial to prepare students for appropriate play by providing
rules and ensuring student understanding to achieve the desired
outcomes.
Tools—This element includes any necessary implements to play the
game. Gathering or creating the tools necessary for students’ participa-
tion results in increased engagement levels and better learning out-
comes. With respect to educational games, tools include handouts,
materials, and required equipment. While some games have quite
involved materials, this need not be the case as simple office supplies or
technology solutions are sufficient.
Activity—This phase involves the gameplay itself: how the activity is
initiated, how it unfolds, how players participate and find meaning,
and how the game will end.
Academic Games 153
Monitoring—While students play a game, instructors should
observe students’ performance and intervene when necessary to keep
the game on track. The extent to and ways in which an instructor
may intervene vary based on the game’s setup and scriptedness (e.g.,
we can imagine that an instructor utilizing role play games may need
to intervene more frequently than during a straightforward trivia
game). For ill-defined games that emphasize creativity and problem
solving, it is helpful to let students know how much and when
intervention by the instructor might occur.
Assessments—While playing academic games, students’ performance
directly reflects their mastery of target knowledge and skills. As a result,
it is possible to assess students in real time and to give constructive
feedback immediately. Having guidelines for how the students’ learning
outcomes will be measured will assist students in being successful at the
gaming experience. Many games have a built-in method of assessment
such as through a scoring system (Barkley et al., 2014). Although there
may be secondary components such as communication or teamwork as
elements of the game, many academic games focus on the learning
objective and feedback rather than these additional elements.
Closure—Debriefing and system feedback play an important role
in the gaming process. Three different forms of closure typically
used include postgame assessment, postgame debriefing or evalua-
tion, or in-game assessment (van Staalduinen & de Freitas, 2011).
A postgame assessment occurs when the instructor facilitates an oral
or written examination after the game is over. A postgame debriefing
or evaluation consists of an evaluation session between the instructor
and students in which they discuss possible postgame learning out-
comes (Peters & Vissers, 2004). An in-game assessment measures the
learning outcome of the student players by calculating scores
obtained within the game (Juul, 2005; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004;
Wilson et al., 2009).
Beyond the basic structures, five game characteristics play a prominent

role in improving learning (Malone, 1981; Nilson, 2010; van Staalduinen
& de Freitas, 2011):
Challenge—The level of difficulty needed to keep the learner’s inter-

est high. If the level of challenge is too low, the activity will be
boring; if it is too high, the game will be frustrating.
Control—The student’s freedom to make choices that may have
desirable rewards or detrimental consequences. Allowing control will
increase creativity and problem solving. However, having too many
choices may well lead to disagreement or confusion as to how the
game “should” be played.
154 Academic Games
Curiosity—The learner’s interest in new information or rules for
reaching goals associated with the game. Games do not exist in a
vacuum, and instructors should pique students’ curiosity about
game content (or simply the game itself) before settling into
gameplay.
Fantasy—The setup or imaginary world that holds the student’s
attention for more effective learning. Though fantasy is not a key part
of many more basic games (e.g., trivia, guessing games), the idea of
“winning” the game can contribute to a setup that holds students’
interest and motivation.
Collaboration and competition—Games are often thought of as
presenting opportunities for competition, but with academic games,
collaboration can also be incorporated by running the game with a
team component. That is, teams compete with each other; indivi-
duals on teams collaborate with each other. Educational games allow
for collaborative learning because they bring students together to
work as a team and increase students’ interaction with their peers.
Learners interact with others during gameplay, during which they
acquire new knowledge from each other and develop skills from
social interaction. As Barkley et al. (2014) note, instructional games
offer “strong networking and bonding opportunities among team
members” (p. 331).
Advantages and Challenges of Academic Games for Instructors

One of the chief advantages for instructors who use games is that they
make teaching and learning fun. Thus, games can be highly rewarding and
break up the routine of teaching the same classes each semester. Games
also provide an opportunity for instructors to examine course content in
new and interesting ways. When creating an academic game, instructors
have to think through content, embed it within a gaming scenario, and
consider how students will learn through gameplay. This exercise pre-
sents a valuable way for instructors to evaluate their instructional
approach and strategies.
Of course, there are challenges to games as well. It can be difficult at
times for instructors to match games with instructional goals, and a
poor fit will hamper learning. Games can be time consuming in their
creation and implementation, which places high demands on design
and instructional time. Academic games can require special or costly
materials, or they may necessitate special facilities to which instructors
do not have ready access. While some students thrive on competition,
it can be off-putting or unsettling for others. Finally, games can have a
trivializing effect on instruction, making the teaching and learning
process seem less important and more about entertainment than
education.
Academic Games 155
What Research Tells Us About the General Effectiveness of
Academic Games
A few recent meta-analyses (Girard, Ecalle, & Magnan, 2013) on the use
of academic games have found generally positive effects of a variety of
game types:
In a meta-analysis of serious games (defined in their study as video

games intended to serve a useful purpose), Girard, Ecalle, and
Magnan (2013) found that some games resulted in improved learning
while others had no effect; another meta-analysis comparing serious
games to conventional instruction methods suggested that serious
games lead to more effective learning and retention but not student
motivation (Wouters, van Nimwegen, van Oostendorp, & van der
Spek, 2013).
A meta-analysis of computer gaming and interactive simulations
(Vogel et al., 2006) revealed that these types of games led to cognitive
gains but these effects were significantly moderated by student gender,
student-led versus instructor-led simulations, and other factors.
Yet another meta-analysis of digital games suggested that these games
represented improved learning conditions over non-game conditions
and that augmented games did even more so than basic games (Clark,
Tanner-Smith, & Killingsword, 2016).
A systematic literature review by Brown and Tortorella (2020) noted
that in certain training scenarios, hybrid simulation is at times as
effective as expensive high-fidelity simulators. These hybrid simula-
tions resulted in enhanced patient caregiver interactions.
More recent studies reveal more positive findings. One of the most
extensive meta-analyses to date found overall positive results from games
(Clark, Tanner-Smith, Killingsword, & Bellamy, 2013). This analysis
focused on digital games in particular and examined results from studies
investigating K-12 and postsecondary education. The authors began
with a sample of 61,887 studies and screened them for focus and
quality. Eighty articles, published between the years 2000 and 2012,
ultimately comprised their study. The largest grouping of studies the
authors found compared games to other instructional intervention.
The authors concluded that:
Compared with nongame instruction, digital games can enhance stu-

dent learning as measured by cognitive competencies and some
intrapersonal competencies. Furthermore, there was no evidence in
any of the analyses that digital games were associated with statistically
significant adverse outcomes (i.e., worse learning outcomes).
(Clark et al., 2013, p. 10)
156 Academic Games
The findings from this study are supplemented by other research that
indicates that students simply like games and they find them effective
for their learning. Students seem willing to spend significant amounts of
time playing academic games. In one study examining the effects of the
game called Nuclear Mayhem, Pløhn (2014) found that students played
the game even outside of required lab times and that it became a per-
vasive part of students’ lives. Moreover, interviews with students sug-
gested that they found the game to be exciting and fun. Brinker et al.
(2014) used the Game of Late Life and found that it helped students
improve their attitudes about aging and that they also found the game
interesting and engaging. Similarly, Grimley et al. (2012) found that
students believed games to be more challenging than the lecture
method. Overall, this work reveals that an increased liking of games can
lead to students’ increased motivation and time studying, which in turn
can have positive influences on learning.
A more recent study by Raleigh et al. (2018) compared instructional
methods of lecture, engaged learning, and simulation based on the same
content. These researchers found that participants in the engaged learning
and simulations groups demonstrated learning gains that were not sig-
nificantly different from one another, yet both groups demonstrated
more learning than did the participants in the lecture groups. This study
sheds light on the value of engagement in general, including game-based
learning relative to a lecture.
What Research Tells Us About How to Improve Student

Learning in Courses That Use Games
From research that compares different courses using games, we can draw
several important conclusions for how to maximize the effectiveness of
academic games.
Research Finding #1: Instructional Support and Scaffolding Can Improve

Student Performance in Games
Few research studies examine games used in lieu of traditional instruction.
Instead, most focus on games used in tandem with direct instructional
methods such as readings or lectures. Some of these studies have explored
traditional instruction supplemented with games, and recent studies tend
generally to suggest that games are a good supplement. For example, Arena
and Schwartz (2014) used games in a statistics course. The researchers
hypothesized that games would provide students with an alternate set of
experiences. They used a game called Stats Invaders!, a variant of the
videogame Space Invaders. In Stats Invaders!, the locations of descending
alien invaders follow probability distributions, and players needed to infer
the shape of the distributions to play well. The researchers examined
Academic Games 157
whether the game helped students’ intuitions about the structure of
random events, thereby preparing them for future learning from a sub-
sequent written passage on probability distributions. Community college
students who played the game and then read the passage learned more
than students who only read the passage.
Other studies have examined how students do within game environ-
ments and have found that scaffolding is helpful there, as well. In a study
on secondary learners in Taiwan, Tsai and colleagues found that students
provided with scaffolding activities prior to gameplay spent more time
reading during the game and did not enjoy the game any less than stu-
dents who were provided with no scaffolding.
The meta-analysis by Clark et al. (2013) that we described in the general
effectiveness section of this research review also compared different fea-
tures of games. The researchers found that games that incorporated scaf-
folding (specifically, supports for players within the game or game features
that adapted to the needs or actions of the player) led to more positive
effects of game participation on players’ cognitive processes and strategies
as well as on their knowledge-related outcomes. The positive effects corre-
sponding with scaffolding were even higher than positive effects stemming
from enhancements to the game’s interface or to players’ social arrange-
ments (e.g., whether a game was played individually, as part of a team, or
some combination of these formats). This finding suggests that player
support and in-game interventions can improve game effectiveness even
more than other types of game improvement. Studies examining the effec-
tiveness of instructor-provided support such as pictures (Mayer, Mautone,
& Prothero, 2002) or physical (i.e., real-world, non-virtual) elements of
gameplay (Melero & Hernandez-Leo, 2014) suggest that these types of
instructional support and scaffolding can enhance learning in games.
Research Finding #2: Collaboration Improves the Student Experience

Whether students play games individually or collaboratively is up to the
instructor and should be determined based on the goals of the activity.
However, research suggests that collaboration can have a positive effect on
student perceptions of games. Lavega, Alonso, Etxebeste, Lagardera, and
March (2014) examined different social structures and their influences on
the emotional experiences of 556 students studying in Spanish universities.
Using a Games and Emotions Questionnaire, researchers found significant
differences in student responses. Students felt more intense positive emo-
tions in cooperative games than when they played individually.
Research Finding #3: Non-competitive Games Mean There Are No Losers

Lavega and colleagues, who conducted the research at Spanish uni-
versities described above, found that winning games gave students the
158 Academic Games
highest intensity ratings for positive emotions (Lavega et al., 2014). On
the other hand, losing produced the highest intensity ratings for nega-
tive emotions. In non-competitive games, when students were not
defeated by another team or individual, the researchers found that
intensity ratings for negative emotions were lower. Thus, although
competition can serve students who win positively, instructors who use
competitive games need to consider the potential consequences of doing
so for students who do not win.
Research Finding #4: Feedback Is Critical in Game Activities

Feedback is the single most commonly mentioned success factor for games
to improve student learning. The empirical research on the role of feedback
in academic games (C. I. Johnson, Bailey, & van Buskirk, 2017) suggests that
process feedback may be more beneficial than outcome feedback, feedback
can effectively occur in multiple modalities, and immediate feedback may be
more effective than more time-delayed. Response styles of feedback may
vary in effectiveness by student characteristics (Guralnick, 2009). Overall,
however, the researchers concluded that feedback and instructional support
is a key component of effective games.
Tips for Using Games Online

If you’ve ever spent hours on your cell phone or computer sorting playing
cards, avoiding mines, or exploding pieces of candy, you know that
digital games can be engaging—perhaps even addicting. Games are
increasingly popular with college-aged students and have simultaneously
become more popular as an instructional approach. When used in edu-
cational settings, academic games can provide students with a fun and
enriching learning experience. In online and blended courses, games
provide another avenue for engagement. The following tips on using
games in your online courses are designed to increase learning and
enhance the educational experience for your students.
Constraints for You and Your Students

When implementing games online, consider the constraints under
which you and your students will be working. For example, you will
likely be using an LMS. Does your campus LMS support games? Can
you embed identified games in this environment? Will you have to link
to an external provider? Does that external provider provide students
with sufficient safety? It is also important to use the technology that
you and students have access to within the normal course structure. A
crossword puzzle or scavenger hunt may work really well in an asyn-
chronous LMS, whereas Hollywood Squares and role plays would likely
Academic Games 159
work better in synchronous videoconference sessions. Always be

mindful of your students’ access to high-speed Internet and other
technologies. Some students may work from home and have little more
than a smartphone or limited Internet access; indeed, they may have to
travel to a different location to have Internet access at all. It is important
to plan for the students you have and the resources they have. In the
case of many students without reliable access to the Internet, gaming
options that do not require specific hardware or software may ultimately
be the best decision.
Connect Learning to Prior Experiences

We all know that students are more motivated when they are able to
connect new learning to prior experiences or prior knowledge. You
may be able to draw on students’ past experiences watching game
shows or playing games. Using familiar games is typically good
practice as they produce less cognitive load for students. Also, con-
sider beginning the game by offering a warm-up with review questions
or activities from previous lessons or modules prior to moving to new
content or skills.
Maximize Collaboration
A stereotype of lone teenagers gaming in basements exists but is not the
typical gaming experience for students today. Multi-player Internet-
based games allow students to connect with each other across the
globe. Collaboration in games provides students with the opportunity to
learn actively and at their own pace, which likewise provides them with a
safe space to take risks in their learning. Paired or team games are
wonderful for this when technology allows.
Make It a Real Game
Some instructors attempt to turn a quiz or test into a “game” simply by

making responses public and identifying winners and losers. And while
some games do resemble quizzes (e.g., Jeopardy and Hollywood
Squares), students will recognize these not-really-games for what they
are—basic review. In most cases, it is best to avoid dressing up a
worksheet as a game, as students will likely see through this attempt.
Such attempts could have negative consequences for their learning. It’s
important to find the balance between creating a fun game, an activity
that motivates students to learn, and achieving desired learning
outcomes.
160 Academic Games
Collaborate to Define Student Expectations During Gameplay

If the game you desire to implement does not have a set of clear
instructions, ask students to draft a set of “ground rules” that will govern
gameplay. You can also ask students to adapt pre-set gaming instruc-
tions to better meet your specific class needs, available resources, and
desired outcomes. Collaboratively created rules can hold students
accountable for their actions, and students typically have higher buy-in
when they have helped create them. Instructors, of course, can always
include non-negotiables within the rule-creating process. Here are some
ideas students might include in a set of ground rules to increase the
effectiveness of games and to produce a more positive experience:
Identify what constitutes cheating—this clarifies what is creating

thinking to get around a gaming obstacle and cheating to eliminate
that obstacle. It is important to eliminate the temptation to take the
easy way or to simply play for points for the “win.”
Determine expected amount of on-task behavior—this keeps students
focused on the game for an appropriate amount of time, particularly
during a synchronous video session.
Appropriate language—no explanation should be needed. Creating an
educational game means students should communicate with each
other the same way they would do so appropriately in the classroom.
Ground rules like these can encourage accountability by also defining

consequences for breaking rules. If two students are off-task and disrupting
the learning of their peers, for example, they may be disqualified from
winning or lose a turn, which could hurt their chances.
Balance Challenge with Skill
It is important to know the knowledge and skill level of your students prior
to introducing an educational game. If you don’t have a real sense of what
students know relative to the structure of the game or the information to be
learned, you might try a “background knowledge probe” in which you pro-
vide students with a short formative assessment, whether some short
answer questions, multiple-choice, or a short essay. The goal is to target
students’ zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978): the difference
between what a learner is able to do without assistance and what they can
achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. Thus, the
term “proximal” refers to those skills that the learner is “close” to mastering.
Consider giving students the ability to select their own level of chal-
lenge (easy, medium, or difficult). Alternately, consider embedding easy
and difficult challenges into a single round or level, or introducing
Academic Games 161
increasingly difficult challenges as levels progress enables all students to

enjoy and learn. This approach also preserves the game’s shelf life and
usability because students can learn something new each time they play.
Build in Assessment
One of the wonderful things about games is that assessment is often built into
the design. And it’s often pretty easy. You can simply count the number of
correct answers to trivia questions or number of interactions in synchronous
games. Such data can provide insight into the extent to which your students
engaged in the game and learned. It can also help you to communicate the
effectiveness of the game with students and during faculty review periods.
Academic games have the potential to infuse your courses with fun while
students demonstrate their achievement of learning goals. As with any new
instructional strategy, there is a learning curve, but the benefit often is worth
the challenge. Creating good games for use online will take time and
energy. It’s important to plan ahead, and carefully, in order to ensure that
you provide a good educational activity for students. Academic games
have the potential to break up a dull routine for you and your students by
infusing student learning with energy and enthusiasm.
Using IDEAs to Improve Learning in Academic Games

In the following section of this chapter, we provide detailed descriptions
of 14 intentionally designed educational activities (IDEAs) that correlate
with the research findings we presented above. We suggest that these 14
activities correlate with these key research findings as we indicate in
Table 4.1. Following the table are detailed descriptions for how to
implement these techniques in the classroom.
IDEA #36: Crossword Puzzles
Overview
When challenged at the appropriate level and given quick feedback, a
person is motivated to complete a task. That is a primary draw of the daily
crossword puzzle. The Crossword Puzzles IDEA serves as a teaching tech-
nique that allows students to demonstrate an understanding and recall of
key concepts, terminology, and definitions. It also provides quick feedback
and, if done at the correct level, challenges students. The strategy involves
the instructor creating a puzzle to reinforce key course material. Crossword
Puzzles have been shown to lead to positive results, particularly when used
in class as a method for review (Weisskirch, 2006).
162 Academic Games
Table 4.1 Game IDEAs and Research Findings
Game IDEAs Description Links to Research Findings
Crossword Puzzles The instructor creates a cross- Instructional Support
word puzzle using key facts, (Research Finding #1);
definitions, and terminology. Non-competitive Game
(Research Finding #3);
Built-In Feedback
(Research Finding #4)
Scavenger Hunt Students participate in a sca- Instructional Support
venger hunt game that (Research Finding #1);
requires them to answer ques- Collaboration (Research
tions relating to course Finding #2)
content.
Who Am I? Students use their content Instructional Support
knowledge to determine the (Research Finding #1);
identity of a significant person Built-In Feedback
or idea. The activity often (Research Finding #4)
involves a famous or sig-
nificant person, place, or
object related to course con-
tent. Students have to ask
questions to try to guess the
answer in a manner similar to
the Twenty Questions game.
Pictionary Similar to the common ver- Collaboration (Research
sion of the game, a student Finding #2)
selects a card with a course
idea, fact, or person on it. The
student draws pictures to
illustrate the idea while team-
mates try to guess the word
on the card.
Trivia Trivia is useful for reviewing Instructional Support
recent lessons or in preparing (Research Finding #1);
for exams. Students recall Collaboration (Research
course ideas and receive Finding #2);
immediate feedback on whether Built-In Feedback
an answer is right or wrong. (Research Finding #4)
Hollywood Squares Following the model of the Instructional Support
classic TV show, students play (Research Finding #1);
X’s and O’s answering course- Built-In Feedback
related questions. (Research Finding #4)
Houston, We Have The instructor provides a Collaboration (Research
a Problem problem and a set of items to Finding #2);
students. Students have to Non-competitive
come up with a solution using (Research Finding #3)
the items provided, like the
NASA engineers during the
Apollo 13 mission.
(Continued)
Academic Games 163
Table 4.1 (Cont.)
Game IDEAs Description Links to Research Findings
Escape Room Based on the popular physical Instructional Support
escape rooms, this game can (Research Finding #1);
be used for reviewing con- Collaboration (Research
cepts, exam preparation, cri- Finding #2);
tical thinking, and applying Built-In Feedback
class material to different con- (Research Finding #4)
texts. Specifically, escape
rooms can help make course
content more accessible by
providing a vehicle for appli-
cation through gameplay.
Role Play Students assume different per- Collaboration (Research
sonas and act out problems Finding #2);
and solutions in class. Non-competitive Game
(Research Finding #3)
Taboo A player receives a card and Collaboration (Research
has to provide clues to part- Finding #2);
ners without using the word Built-In Feedback
or up to five additional words (Research Finding #4)
listed on the card. The play-
ers’ partners have to guess the
word.
Icebreakers Students “break the ice” by Collaboration (Research
playing a game in which stu- Finding #2)
dents interact, meet each
other, and build community.
Top 10 Students generate a list of Instructional Support
ten items related to course (Research Finding #1);
content. The structure allows Collaboration (Research
students to consider either Finding #2);
their prior knowledge or what Non-competitive Game
they gained through the (Research Finding #3)
course to create a Top 10 list.
Pic of the Day Students capture key aspects Instructional Support
of the course in pictures and (Research Finding #1)
present them to the class.
Webquest Students follow a series of clues Instructional Support
and prompts from the instruc- (Research Finding #1);
tor to help find information Collaboration (Research
online. This game helps stu- Finding #2)
dents develop research skills
and better understand resour-
ces (library, etc.).
In addition to improving students’ motivation to learn and an

increased retention of content, students report enjoying the activity
(Crossman & Crossman, 1983). A significant advantage of Crossword
164 Academic Games
Puzzles is that the activity receives consistently high marks from students
in a variety of empirical studies (Franklin, Peat, & Lewis, 2003). The
game also allows students to test their knowledge.
Guiding Principles
Crossword Puzzles allow students to actively engage with course concepts
and work to better understand course material. The use of games helps
students practice recalling course information, solve problems, and receive
prompt feedback. This combination builds upon and helps establish rele-
vance and application through the completion of the puzzle.
In order to improve students’ learning of important vocabulary and ter-
minology, the learner needs practice at retrieval (Karpicke & Roediger,
2008). The active engagement of Crossword Puzzles helps provide another
approach to retrieve and produce course-related vocabulary. The use of
games and puzzles serves as an additional vehicle to improve not only
mastery but also the speed with which students gain this understanding
(Jaramillo, Losada, & Fekula, 2012).
Preparation
Most of the work for this technique involves developing the vocabulary
list and the corresponding clues. Although instructors using Crossword
Puzzles in the past spent significant time creating the layout of the puzzle,
software has now made that task easy. A quick web search for free
crossword puzzle makers will provide you with several options. When
possible, it is helpful for you or a colleague or teaching assistant or even a
former student to test the puzzle before using it with class. These testers
can ensure the clues are easy to understand and at the correct level of
difficulty, and they can help to identify any potential problems with the
layout of the puzzle or specific clues. Finally, decide ahead of time whe-
ther this will be a task to be used independently as a review or an in-class
activity to be done in groups and whether open versus closed book/notes.
Process
Simply pass out the puzzle or share the web address if the activity
will be completed online.
Inform the students of any rules for the activity. Will they complete
it individually or in a small group? Will the task be graded? Are they
to identify the theme of the puzzle?
As you deem appropriate, serve as a resource for students with
questions or the need for additional clarification on a topic included
in the puzzle. One technique when using Crossword Puzzles as a
group activity in class is to allow each group to ask you for one hint.
Academic Games 165
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: One option in a synchronous online course is to have stu-
dents work in groups to create the list of words/clues for a crossword
puzzle. Most crossword puzzle generators ask for a list with each line
comprised of a word (which will be put into the puzzle), then a comma,
followed by the clue. Identify a class period that is at the end of a chapter
unit. Set aside some time in the class for students to work on vocabulary
in the upcoming chapter. This will help them to be more familiar with the
material as it is presented and discussed in an upcoming class. Note the
number of pages in the next chapter or block of material. Put students into
breakout rooms of three to four students in each room. Assign each
breakout room a portion of the chapter. If there are thirty pages in the
next chapter and you have 10 breakout rooms, each group is assigned
three pages from which to secure their vocabulary words and clues.
Determine the number of words each group is to generate. Let the groups
know that although they should focus on vocabulary words, if there are
not enough content-specific vocabulary words on their pages, they are
allowed to use other words from those pages. When complete, a good
crossword puzzle will have 25–40 words. Tell the groups to return from
their breakout rooms to the main videoconference room when they have
the number of words/clue pairs you assigned for each group completed.
When they return, have them paste their list onto a Google document or
some other collaborative site. At this point, review the list quickly and let
them know if they need to change any clues to be more accurate regarding
the vocabulary words. Let all breakout rooms know that as soon as you
approve their list they are done for the day. At that time also remind them
of when you will email the composite crossword puzzle from the class and
by what time they need to complete the composite crossword puzzle. After
all groups have completed their lists, cut and paste the list into a crossword
puzzle site, and then email your students the crossword puzzle. Having
students complete the crossword puzzle prior to class will help them to
become familiar with the vocabulary words in the next chapter.
Asynchronous: A similar process could be followed for an asynchronous
class. Assign each student one or more pages in an upcoming block of
material. It will work fine to assign more than one student per page if that
is necessary to get 25 to 40 words and clues. Give students a day and time
by which they are to turn in a list of one to three words, with each line a
vocabulary word, followed by a comma, followed by a definition or clue.
Give a maximum length for the clue, such as 10 words, but let them
know that shorter clues are acceptable. It is best to assign more words
than you will use and then select the best word/clue sets to include in the
puzzle. Students will be excited to see that their words/clue sets were
used. Once you have created the puzzle, send it to the students and let
them know by what day and time it must be completed.
166 Academic Games
Pro Tips
There are many free online sources for creating crossword puzzles.
Some of these sites let you create online or print versions. Sites have
advantages and disadvantages, so experiment with a few different ones
before determining which one best suits your needs.
Vocabulary words are often listed at the end of the chapter or in
course support software. It is helpful to have a variation of long and
short words. Long words have plenty of letter options to use when
arranging the puzzle, whereas short words are effective for connecting
longer words together. You may also want to use some non-course-specific
terms to provide additional word options and to show how the course
material is related to other areas. Additionally, it is fun to periodically use
campus landmarks or traditions to offer more words for the program to
use when creating the puzzle and to demonstrate that you created the
puzzle for them.
An alternative is to have the students make adjustments to a puzzle
you create that they feel would benefit the puzzle. These “corrections”
can be used to make future crossword puzzles.
A final option is to have the students create a crossword puzzle.
Divide the class into groups and give each group a vocabulary list of a
given number of words. Have the students create the clues. This varia-
tion helps students to better learn the content by creating the clues.
Asking questions to generate a given response is a powerful learning
technique in itself.
IDEA #37: Scavenger Hunt
Overview
In this IDEA, the teacher prepares a list of clues related to items or tasks
for students to find or complete. The information may be located within
course materials, around campus, in the community, or on the web.
Scavenger Hunts have been used effectively for decades to generate
excitement and deeper thinking about course content (Dodge, 1991;
Gaskill, McNulty, & Brooks, 2006). Depending on the intended out-
comes for the activity, students may be asked to work individually or in
teams. The items on the list can be given a point value (based on diffi-
culty to complete), or students can try to complete as many as possible
within a set time limit.
The goal of this activity is to facilitate student learning through the
completion of the items as part of the Scavenger Hunt. The game is
intended to enhance and develop cooperation, creativity, and engage-
ment. In addition, the Scavenger Hunt IDEA can get students to engage
with course concepts outside of the four walls of the classroom.
Academic Games 167
Guiding Principles
An underlying principle of Scavenger Hunts is the notion of inquiry-
based learning. The goal of this type of learning is to involve students in
the learning process by forcing them to seek answers to questions and
develop new knowledge (Brickman, Gormally, Armstrong, & Hallar,
2009). In order to complete the list, students have to complete tasks and
solve questions, often creatively. This process engages students in the
learning process through a specific set of instructor-designed tasks (the
clue or task list).
Scavenger Hunts also have students engage in experiential learning,
where students gain knowledge from direct experiences (Kolb, 1984).
The game allows students to experience information rather than pas-
sively listening. For example, students in a botany class may have to
search around campus for specific plants and identify aspects of the
plant. Similarly, students in a sociology class may search the campus for
areas in which individuals cluster. The Scavenger Hunt requires stu-
dents to actively experience course content as they solve clues to find
the next item.
Preparation
Scavenger Hunts require some initial setup work. First, identify a list of
tasks for students to complete or items for them to gather. Give con-
sideration to the amount of time allotted to this activity (even if done
outside of the regular class period) and whether a point structure will be
used. Also develop any rules for the hunt. Scavenger Hunts encourage
competitiveness, and clear rules can help use this to your advantage.
Well-defined rules will focus the activity on locating specific items or
concepts, whereas ill-defined rules will focus the activity on creativity
and problem solving. Finally, decide whether you will give a specific list
or clues for items.
Process
Pass out the Scavenger Hunt task list and break students into groups
(or tell students to work individually).
Go over the rules, ask for questions, and provide clarification where
needed.
Have the students work on the Scavenger Hunt list until completed
or the set time elapses.
Depending upon the goal of the hunt, you may want to debrief
regarding items that students struggled with or observations made
during the game.
168 Academic Games
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: One of the best places to send online students on a sca-
venger hunt is their own homes. For an online synchronous class, first
create a list of items that pertain to the learning outcomes of the sec-
tion of material that might be found in the person’s home. For
example, in a communications course, items might pertain to product
labels, warning information on mattress tags, or anything else in the
house pertaining to consumer information communication strategies.
To create the list, think of your discipline and learning outcomes and
then what may be found in nearly any house. It may work best to
provide a category. For example, “Locate an item in your house with
a warning label.” Another example for a physics course might be to,
“Find something you use in your house that uses a spring in order to
be functional.” In class, explain the learning outcomes for the day,
why the scavenger hunt is being done, and that as soon as they com-
plete the list of scavenger hunt items, they are to return from the
breakout room to the main videoconference room. It is also important
that everyone in the group be able to explain how each item on the
list met the criteria for what was asked. This is to ensure all students
participate in the learning experience. Next send students into break-
out rooms of three to five students each. Provide the scavenger hunt
list to students either in the chatbox or by posting it on a collabora-
tive site, such as Padlet or a Google document. When the first group
returns to the main room, ask them a few questions as to what they
found for various items on the list to check for understanding. One
option is to have them post their list of found items on the colla-
borative learning site. Other groups that are stuck could look to those
lists for assistance and as the group that has posted it is already done,
this means those looking at the list for assistance cannot “beat” the
group providing potential items. As groups emerge in the main
videoconference room, time can be filled by a discussion of items
found and rationale for those items being included on the list.
Asynchronous: For an asynchronous online course, the activity could
be similar. The primary difference is that the scavenger hunt would
need to be opened on an announced day and time with a due date by
when the list must be completed. The time-sensitive nature of the task
would be removed. Students could be asked to work in groups or
individually. Have individual students or groups of students email
their completed lists to you. Once all lists have been received, they
could all be posted in a collaborative space. From the multiple lists on
that space, you could host an online asynchronous discussion about
the examples of everyday items and how they influence life in one’s
home.
Academic Games 169
Pro Tips
Many students will engage with this activity competitively. This excitement
will improve participation. You may foster excitement by providing a
small reward. You can offer extra credit points or simply some candy for
the winning group. Not all students will be comfortable with high levels of
competition, however. If your class tends to have students who do not like
team competition, structure the activity for individual achievement of the
tasks, and keep the results private.
This activity can be effective when students work with a partner or small
group. Working together, they will share their ideas and opinions with
their partner. Scavenger Hunts also provide an opportunity for students to
get to know each other more informally, which can improve interactions
within the course.
Scavenger Hunts can be an innovative way to make effective use of
technology in the classroom. One option is to have students work in
small groups and have each group create a single Scavenger Hunt item.
At a given time, all groups share their items, and other groups are chal-
lenged to find as many of the collegially developed items as possible in a
given amount of time.
One of the most common uses of this IDEA is the library Sca-
venger Hunt. In this version of the game, students receive a Scavenger
Hunt list that requires them to locate and use a range of library
resources (Glasberg, Harwood, Hawkes, & Martinsek, 1990; Marcus
& Beck, 2003). Often, students have to write down how they found a
resource, which can serve as a reminder when using the library later
for assignments.
IDEA #38: Who Am I?
Overview
The Who Am I? IDEA is a game that provides students the opportunity
to use their content knowledge to identify a significant person or idea.
The activity often involves a famous or significant person, place, or
object related to course content. Students have to ask questions to try to
solve the answer in a manner similar to the Twenty Questions game
(Siegler, 1977).
This activity requires students to develop an understanding of course
content and think through key concepts by asking questions. Specifically,
Who Am I? encourages students to consider foundational elements of
material in order to ask questions to uncover the mystery. This practice
in asking questions and thinking about elements of course material can
help students’ comprehension.
170 Academic Games
Guiding Principles
The use of Who Am I? is supported by the benefits of the generation
effect. Student learning improves when they have to generate answers
versus simply recognizing the correct answer (Butler & Roediger, 2007).
By encouraging students to ask questions to come up with the answer,
Who Am I? improves student learning and recall of course material.
Related to the benefits of generating an answer, student learning is
enhanced by organizing information. Students use additional effort when
acquisition and recall promote the development of multiple retrieval paths
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1985; Bjork, 1988). Although this process slows
initial learning, it has been shown repeatedly to aid long-term recall. Who
Am I? allows students to organize and recall information through the
course of the game, which can aid student learning and retention.
Preparation
Prior to using Who Am I?, identify a list of people, places, or objects from
course content. It is helpful to include information or items used in prior
material to help students to integrate information. Write down the names
of objects on index cards that students can draw. It is also helpful to think
through why you are using this activity and share that information with
students. Learning is generally better facilitated when learners understand
the rationale behind the strategies being used.
Process
Select a student (or group of students) to draw a card with a name,
place, or object on it.
Allow a couple of minutes for selected students to reference readings
or other materials to prepare to answer questions.
Students in class ask questions to the selected student in order to
determine who or what was on the card selected. The questions must
be phrased to allow for only a “yes or no” response.
After each question, the student or group of students asking the
question may guess or pass.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: A fun way to play the Who Am I? IDEA is to have all stu-
dents’ names on a set of cards and listed alphabetically before class
videoconference begins. Remove names of students who are absent for
that class session and shuffle the cards. Select a card and hold it up so the
class can see you are randomly selecting student names. That student
then asks a yes or no question and at the same time types it into the chat
Academic Games 171
window. Including the question in the chat allows students who guess
later to review what has been asked thus far. You then type “yes” or
“no” in the chat window. At this time the student makes a guess and
types that guess into the chat for later reference. If the guess is incorrect,
another card with a student name is randomly drawn. This continues
until a student makes a correct guess.
Asynchronous: It is fun to play the Who Am I? IDEA on a Padlet.
Select a Timeline pad within Padlet, as it will keep the questions in the
order they are received. Send students the link to the timeline pad. Tell
students that you will check in on the pad several times a day and
answer the most recent question. After each question is answered,
someone may make a guess (it does not have to be the person asking the
question) as to who you are. It is helpful to tell students that once they
ask a question, they must wait for at least five (or whatever number you
choose) other students to respond before they may ask another ques-
tion. Likewise, after formulating a guess as to who you are the student
must wait for at least five other guesses before guessing again. The goal
is to get as many students participating as possible. You could set up
the game such that each student gets only one question and one guess
per game. If you wish to give a clue, you can post images, links, videos,
or even areal maps. Once a correct guess is made, ask students to find
one piece of information about the individual or concept you were
portraying and post it on the Padlet pad. Students may post text,
images, videos, and links.
Pro Tips
A useful variation of this activity is to have several games happening
simultaneously. For example, you might select three students who will
be three famous playwrights or scientists. Students can ask questions to
any of the three until reaching a set number or until they guess the
person. Using this variation can facilitate comparisons between people,
places, or ideas.
If enthusiasm is lagging for the activity, you may want to add compe-
titive elements. You can divide students into teams, and each gets to ask a
question until one team solves the answer. Also, you might add a point
system where a team gets 19 points if they guess the answer after one
question, 18 points after two questions, and so on.
Rather than selecting students to respond to questions, you may decide
to play this role. You know the material and may be in a better position
to answer questions. If using the technique on material that students may
not fully comprehend yet, when you answer the questions, it opens up
additional possibilities for the game’s use (e.g., as a warm-up activity
before discussing a topic).
172 Academic Games
IDEA #39: Pictionary
Overview
The Pictionary technique is based on the guessing game popularized
by the game of the same name as well as the television game show
Win, Lose, or Draw. Similar to those versions of the game, a student
selects a card with a course idea, fact, or person on it. The student
draws pictures to illustrate the idea while teammates try to guess the
word or phrase on the card.
This technique is easy to implement using the materials found in virtually
any classroom. Students can draw on the board or on an easel pad. The
activity encourages students to participate and use their understanding of
material in playing the game. Pictionary requires students to think about
how to draw a course concept, which encourages application and synthesis
of material.
As with other games and competitions in the classroom, winning
results in a release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which increases
motivation and has a positive influence on learning (Wise, 2004).
Guiding Principles
Pictionary encourages creativity, which in turn can help develop evi-
dence-based reasoning and problem-solving skills (DeHaan, 2009). By
fostering creativity, instructors help students make connections,
better understand relationships, and apply new knowledge. The abil-
ity to transfer knowledge benefits students and helps them use infor-
mation in new and different contexts (Mestre, 2005). The process of
figuring out what to draw, how to draw it, and responding to team-
mates’ guesses in Pictionary can stimulate this learning process for
students.
One of the primary purposes of Pictionary is to use what some
researchers call stealth learning (Sharp, 2012). This idea suggests using
clever and nontraditional approaches to learning that engage students
in fun. As a result, students have fun, better motivation, and better
learning outcomes. Pictionary allows students to have fun with course
content, which keeps them engaged and reinforces new knowledge.
Preparation
Prior to the use of Pictionary, create a list of concepts, people, objects,
and terms significant to the course or lesson for the day. Ideally, this list
will include some questions of varying difficulty. You may also want to
categorize the cards as a hint to players depending on the difficulty of the
terms to be drawn.
Academic Games 173
Process
Explain the rules and have a stack of cards with course content
words and phrases from which students will select.
Divide students into teams.
Taking turns, have each team send a person to draw the word(s) on
the card. A team has 30–60 seconds to guess the answer.
If the team is not able to guess the answer, allow another team the
chance to guess the answer and gain a point.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: The Pictionary IDEA can be completed on any collaborative
board. For example, set up a board on Conceptboard.com. There are
many drawing tools and when a person is drawing their name shows up on
the board for those who are viewing. Simply create the cards as noted in
the instructions above and post the link to the board in the chatbox or
show the QR code on your screen. Share your screen and show the con-
cept board, keeping in mind all students will have access to the board on
their devices as well. Identify teams of three to five students each. To start
a round, identify who will be drawing and remind the class that only team
members may guess. Type the concept in a private chat for the person
who is drawing. Tell the student when to start and time the session.
Asynchronous: The Pictionary game can be adapted to work asynchro-
nously. Using Goformative.com, create a starting image, such as a
circle, triangle, or large X. Randomly select 25 % of the students in the
class as “drawers.” Ask students to draw for up to 5 minutes on the
starting image and provide a day and time by which this must be com-
pleted. This will create a different image for each student. Tell students
what day and time the drawings will be posted. Following the posting of
the images, students who were not drawers are to email you their gues-
ses and why they guessed what they did. After the student guesses have
been received you can post the answer for the class. At this point you
can also post a photo or professional image on Goformative.com to
illustrate the answer.
Pro Tips
Creating the items to go on the cards that students will draw is critical for
this activity to work well. Key terms from lectures and textbooks are
great for drawing ideas. Additionally, terms that have varying degrees of
difficulty can keep enthusiasm high by providing different challenges and
encouraging teams to steal points away.
Near the end of the activity, you may want to institute a lightning
round. Each team has 2 minutes, and a series of students take turns,
174 Academic Games
each drawing one card. Within the allotted time, whichever team gets
more cards correct wins.
Until you learn how long it takes teams to go through a series of cards,
you may want to make sure you have plenty of extra cards for gameplay.
Additionally, you may want to create some particularly easy or difficult
cards to substitute into the card stack as needed.
Another option is to have students create the cards across several class
periods. You then sort the cards and find those that would work best for
the game. This approach will make the task easier for you and also help
the students to better learn the concepts.
IDEA #40: Trivia
Overview
The Trivia technique is a game that increases the students’ ability to recall
course content. Most frequently, this activity is designed for testing spe-
cific course ideas, concepts, and facts. The technique is easy to use and
requires little setup or design. Many versions of Trivia exist, and the game
can be made more elaborate through the use of teams, points, and timers.
Similar to the game show Jeopardy or the board game Trivial Pursuit,
Trivia asks students a short question that they answer individually or in
teams. This activity works particularly well in reviewing recent lessons or
in preparing for exams. The game provides students an opportunity to
recall course ideas along with the provision of immediate feedback of
whether an answer is right or wrong.
Guiding Principles
Practice at retrieval of information is a powerful way to increase long-
term retention of information (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008). Retrieving
information helps to create pathways to the selected information that
makes it easier to recall at a later time. A second foundational element
of the use of Trivia is in the use of classroom assessments, more speci-
fically formative assessments (Angelo & Cross, 1993). The primary
purpose of formative assessment is the improvement of students’
understanding and learning rather than grading or evaluating students.
Through the use of Trivia questions, instructors are better able to con-
sider how well students comprehend important class content. As a
result, Trivia focuses on student learning rather than the instructional
process.
Answering Trivia questions as a learning tool is powerful as it gives
immediate feedback for students. In order to provide effective feedback,
instructors have to help students improve their comprehension, and stu-
dents have to be open to hearing the response. Feedback that is specific,
Academic Games 175
timely, clear, focused, and expressed in an appropriate way helps students
advance their work (Brown, Bull, & Pendlebury, 1997).
Preparation
The primary requirement for the Trivia technique is to generate good
questions related to course content. If exams and quizzes have been
given back to students in prior semesters, then questions from those
assessments are an ideal place to draw your Trivia questions. Ques-
tions from the textbook or other textbooks in the course content area
are other places from which you may generate Trivia items. One
option is to spontaneously ask questions and seek student answers
throughout the class period. However, you may benefit from compil-
ing a list of questions prior to class that address key class objectives
for the day and having students work in groups at the beginning of
the class period to identify answers as quickly as possible. If you wish
to have a more involved game, you can come up with additional rules,
rewards, and structure. The goal of the Trivia questions in most cases
is to entice students to recall significant course content quickly and
accurately.
Process
Pose a question to a student or groups of students. After an answer
is given, explain whether the answer is correct. In some cases, it will
be helpful to explain why the question was chosen and why the
answer is important.
If desired, award points for correct answers, have students play or
pass the question to another group, or incorporate other aspects of
gameplay.
For incorrect answers, it is helpful to give hints to the class to
prompt the correct response. It is also beneficial to create a culture in
the classroom where incorrect responses are seen as learning oppor-
tunities and as a class work through why an incorrect response may
have been given and what it reveals about the way one thinks about
the content.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: An engaging way to play a trivia game in a synchronous
online course is to use Kahoot.com. Kahoot is free to use for up to 50
students. If you have more than 50 student players at one time, it is
possible to pay for more seats. The questions should be loaded into
Kahoot! prior to the class period. You will have the options of
including images, photos, and text in your questions. Options also
176 Academic Games
exist to change the point value of questions and set the time limit to
answer a question from 5 seconds to 4 minutes. The faster students
respond, the more points they can earn. After each question, Kahoot!
will list the leader board. Some individuals find the music a bit taxing,
but options exist for music from a sound library, and it can also be
turned off. If you are using Kahoot! for the first time, search the Web
for tips in setting up this trivia game. It is popular, so there are many
sites that give excellent advice on designing a fun and informative
experience for your students. To play Kahoot! in your synchronous
online course share your screen on your videoconference platform
and display the Kahoot! PIN or web address for your students. Stu-
dents simply log into Kahoot.com and enter the code. It is an easy
process and students do not need to sign up for anything.
Asynchronous: Kahoot! challenge is a feature that allows students to play
anytime and at their own pace. This feature works well for an asynchro-
nous online class. You can turn off the timing function to allow students
to answer questions at their own pace. Let your students know when
Kahoot! will be opened and by what day and time it must be completed.
Copy and email students, or post in your LMS, the game link or PIN for
the game. Results are stored in a file for you to review whenever you
desire.
Pro Tips
Adding a timing element or other competitive aspects may get students
more into the activity, increase energy level of the class, and provide
extra incentive for faster recall.
Small rewards may increase student interest. These rewards could be as
simple as a piece of candy. Depending on the students, the reward could
also be a sticker. This depends upon your comfort level with rewards and
the culture developed in the classroom. At times, university students will
work hard to earn a sticker. Anything that adds an element of fun can
help improve student participation in the activity.
Students can benefit from playing Trivia in pairs or small groups. The
brief discussions that occur in determining an answer can result in peer
teaching, content synthesis, and better student interaction. The act of
coming up with a shared team answer can prove as useful to student
learning as the recall of the answer itself.
One option is to create groups of students and have the groups
develop Trivia questions to be answered by other groups. A combination
prize can be given for the most questions answered by a given group and
the least number of questions other groups are able to answer from a
group’s questions. This helps to encourage groups to write challenging
questions.
Academic Games 177
IDEA #41: Hollywood Squares
Overview
The Hollywood Squares IDEA utilizes the format of a well-known television
game show that ran for 36 seasons from 1966 to 2004. Although the show
has been “off the air” for over 10 years, it is based on the timeless game of
tic-tac-toe and provides a format for a classroom activity. In this show, a
host asked celebrities sitting in the nine tic-tac-toe boxes questions. The
celebrities answered the questions, and then the contestants either agreed
that the answer was correct or disagreed, indicating they did not feel the
answer was correct. As with using any television game show format, you can
adapt: modify with class content, rules, and number of participants (Yaman
& Covington, 2006).
One of the primary benefits of Hollywood Squares is that it involves
multiple students. Similar to the TV game, nine students serve as the
roles played by celebrities in the television show, with two students (or
teams of students) as the contestants. You serve as the host of the show
and ask the questions. Often without students even realizing it, the use of
Hollywood Squares allows students to demonstrate their mastery of
course content and ideas. The activity can be used for a variety of pur-
poses but works particularly well in reviewing key course concepts, pre-
paring for exams, and applying key ideas. Hollywood Squares is an easy
method for encouraging student participation as it provides a low-stakes
avenue for students to join in the class.
Guiding Principles
Hollywood Squares builds upon active learning that engages students as
participants in their own learning. The activity helps students analyze and
synthesize course material through the course of gameplay (Sarason &
Banbury, 2004). By using the popularity of television game shows,
instructors are easily able to include active learning in class. In addition,
this game works for classes with a variety of levels, as the “contestants”
simply have to agree or disagree with the response provided by the
person in the square. It is important to emphasize to the person in the
square that it is not necessary to know the answers to all questions, but
the people providing the response should always act as if they know the
answer. Squares are won not by the accuracy of the response but by the
ability of the contestant (or contestant groups) to correctly agree or dis-
agree as to the correctness of the response. A person on team X “wins” a
square by either agreeing or disagreeing accurately or having the Team O
incorrectly responding when it is their turn.
An underlying principle of the Hollywood Squares technique is offer-
ing students feedback. Within the low-stakes environment of the game,
178 Academic Games
students or teams answer questions related to course content. Students
receive immediate feedback through the game show format, which can
help students fix their errors, improve recall, and enhance test perfor-
mance (Butler & Roediger, 2007).
Preparation
Hollywood Squares requires some setup prior to use in class. You will
need to identify questions to ask the celebrity students. Depending on
how many rounds of the game you play, you’ll need six to nine questions
per round. You can simply draw a tic-tac-toe board on the board and
mark X’s and O’s as needed, create a game board, or have the celebrity
students sit in seats that are arranged three rows across and three rows
deep. Each student should have a paper with an “X” on one side and an
“O” on the other side to note who won the square.
Process
Explain the game to the class. Select nine students and assign each as
the celebrity for a corresponding square on the 3 3 board.
Have two students as contestants. One will be assigned X and
another O.
Taking turns, the contestants will select a square. You (as host) will
ask a course content question to the celebrity who will answer (again
it is important that the celebrities always look as if they are giving the
correct answer). The student contestant will agree or disagree with
the student celebrity’s answer. If the contestant is correct, the student
gets the square. If incorrect, the opponent gets the square.
There are variations to consider. First, the student has to get the
correct answer to get three in a row and win the game, rather than
the opponent missing an answer. Second, to avoid draws, the student
with five squares wins.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: A fun way to play the Hollywood Squares IDEA in an
online synchronous course is to use the free Google Jamboard app. Open
Jamboard in your Gmail account. Create nine sticky pads numbered one
through nine, and arrange them in tic-tac-toe 3 3 design. Next, make
nine sticky cards, and place them behind the nine numbered notes. That
is done by placing the sticky note with the question directly over one of
the numbered sticky notes. Then, select the note with the question and
hover over the top right corner. From there you can select order and
send the note to the back. This approach results in the numbered notes
covering the question notes.
Academic Games 179
In your synchronous videoconference, to begin the game, identify nine
students who will be responsible for answering when the card with their
corresponding number is called. You can have two additional students
play at the “contestants” and the rest of the class observing. Share your
screen so everyone can see and send the link to the Jamboard to the two
contestants. You can manipulate the sticky notes and add the tic-tac-toe
game pieces, but it is more fun to let the students do this part. At this
point, the game is played in the way the process is described above. The
only small adaptation is that there are no X’s in Jamboard, so it may be
necessary to play with circles and squares.
Asynchronous: One way to play the Hollywood Squares IDEA in an
asynchronous course is to set up an Edpuzzle of a video of you explain-
ing nine concepts in question and answer form. Use your phone to make
the recording. Start by asking a common question about the concept.
Then explain a response. The response should be correct some of the
time and incorrect some of the time. One strategy is to flip a coin nine
times as you set up the questions and answers and for each item if the
coin lands heads up give a correct answer and if tails up then give an
incorrect answer. In making the video, state: “Welcome to the Holly-
wood Squares. Here is question number 1. This is for the first contest-
ant.” At this point, read a question and insert pause number one of a few
seconds. And then state the answer, which again, may be correct or
incorrect. Insert a second pause, and then explain if the answer you gave
was, in fact, true or false. If it was false, explain what the correct answer is.
Repeat until you have asked a total of nine questions, given nine respon-
ses, and then said for each response whether it was true or not, along with
the correct answer if the response was not true. For example, “Time for
question #3. In statistics, what is a positive correlation?” Pause number 1,
and then “a ‘positive correlation’ is a correlation that you are certain
about. As in, I know positively that those two variables are related.” Pause
number two, which is where the Edpuzzle will stop and ask whether this is
true or false. The student responds, and Edpuzzle says whether the choice
was correct or not. If the answer you gave was incorrect, explain on the
video the correct response before going to the next question. Then, move
on to the next question. Once the video is created, upload it to Edpuzzle.
com. In Edpuzzle, insert questions into the video. Insert a true or false
question at the second pause for each item. Students then indicate in their
responses whether they believe you or not.
To play the game in an asynchronous online class, students will need
to pair up with one other student. The two students will agree to play
the game at an agreed-on time and place. When they are ready to play,
they log onto the Edpuzzle by following a link that you provide for
the class, along with a stern warning they are on their honor to not
look at the video until they are playing the game with someone in the
class. Students play the game in the same process described for the
180 Academic Games
onsite class as described above. One option is to tell the students that
once the game is over the pair are to work on five additional questions
and answers that could be used in a future game, ensuring that none of
the concepts used in the game are used for the five additional items.
Create three “true” responses and two “false” responses in the same
format as was used in the Edpuzzle video. The students can either create
a video and load into Edpuzzle or submit the information as an attached
Word document.
Pro Tips
This activity can provide students with a gauge of what material students
comprehend and where they are struggling. As Simkin (2013) found, the
indirect feedback of game shows demonstrated that students had more
difficulty with what he considered easy questions while they understood
the more difficult concepts. This information can prove useful for helping
students improve deficiencies in their understanding.
Many instructors may feel the need to have elaborate props or other
materials to play the game. While prompts can be fun for both instructor
and student, they are unnecessary. For the purposes of the technique,
drawing X’s and O’s on the board or having students sit in a 3 3 grid
and hold up paper X’s and O’s are as useful as electronic versions of a
Hollywood Squares board.
Typically, it is best for you to serve as game show host. This role helps
both logistically in terms of playing the game and allows you to interject
quick facts or remind students of course material during the course of
gameplay. Student learning occurs primarily through playing the game,
but these short insertions can help immediately clarify points for
students.
IDEA #42: Houston, We Have a Problem
Overview
In the popular movie Apollo 13, the astronauts are trapped with their
oxygen running out. In a classic scene, all of the NASA engineers gather in a
room with all of the stuff in the spacecraft and have to figure out how to
make a square air filter fit a hole made for a round filter. Literally, the engi-
neers had to make a square peg fit in a round hole. In the Houston, We
Have a Problem IDEA, students are given a collection of items or informa-
tion that they must use to solve a problem presented by the instructor.
The game is designed to encourage class participation, creativity, and
problem solving. The structure allows the opportunity for students to
work together to think of innovative ways to use a set collection of items
to solve a problem. Students may understand basic concepts related to
Academic Games 181
class but have a difficult time integrating and applying course material to
new situations. Houston, We Have a Problem can be a fun activity that
forces students to think through various issues, hypothesize solutions,
and use knowledge gained in the course.
Guiding Principles
Research from cognitive theory suggests that skills and knowledge are not
learned separately and abstractly. Rather, instructional environments that
organize learning and skills practice within the context of application of
knowledge improve motivation and learning (Resnick, 1989). Houston,
We Have a Problem provides a useful structure and construct to apply
and create knowledge within the classroom environment.
This IDEA also builds upon the benefits of cooperative learning to teach
problem-solving abilities. Using cooperative learning proves an effective
method of helping students learn complex skills while effectively managing
the demands on instructors (Heller, Keith, & Anderson, 1992). During the
Houston, We Have a Problem activity, students can learn from each other
about how to approach problems, use course content, and develop solutions.
Preparation
The first step to prepare for Houston, We Have a Problem is to identify
the problem for students to solve. The problem should be related to an
application of course content and preferably (although not necessarily)
one with multiple paths to a solution. Next, you will need to collect items
or information for students to use to solve the problem. You might lit-
erally put the items on a table or provide a list. The items might be
objects (e.g., lab equipment) or information (e.g., equation or formula)
that can be used to figure out a solution. It is also useful to provide red
herring items that likely will not be useful but will require students to
think about their possible use.
Process
Divide the students into groups and present the problem to be
solved. The problem should be presented clearly but avoid any sug-
gestion of possible solutions. Provide the groups with the items
available for use in solving the problem.
Have the students work on creating a solution. Answer questions from
the groups seeking clarification about the problem but do not provide
examples of how to use the items or ways to come up with a solution.
After each group is finished, ask each to briefly report on their
solution. Time permitting, you can also ask each group to explain the
process they used.
182 Academic Games
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: To use the Houston, We Have a Problem IDEA online,
provide a list of current terms from one or more chapters in the course
that is being discussed along with a challenge in the community. The list
can be provided in the LMS in a common space or emailed to the entire
class. During the synchronous class session, put the students into break-
out rooms, and provide a link to a Google Slide deck with the same
number of blank slides as there are breakout rooms. Have students in
each breakout room work on the slide number that corresponds to their
breakout room number. Give students enough time to really get into
the problem, perhaps 30 to 45 minutes. Make sure to let the group
know they will need to nominate one spokesperson to explain the
solution of the group and that the spokesperson will have one minute
to explain their findings. When the group time has expired, bring all
students back to the main videoconferencing room. At this point, share
your screen and open the Google Slide deck. Students will see the wide
variety of ways in which a community problem may be addressed given
the course material.
Asynchronous: For an asynchronous course, one option is to use a col-
laborative space, such as a Google Jamboard, Padlet.com, or Concept-
board.com. Assign students into groups of five to ten members. Create a
board for each group. On the board, place concepts from a section of the
course and a challenge in the community. The task is to use the concepts
to show how the community challenge might be met using the knowledge
provided. Tell the students in the asynchronous course what day and
time the task will open and what day and time it will close. Just after the
task closes, take a screenshot of each product and post all of the results
together in one space. Students will see there are many ways to approach
a challenge given the same resources.
Pro Tips
Particularly at the beginning of the game, groups may struggle with how
to get started or approach the problem. They may ask for help or seek
direction, but you should avoid the temptation to assist. The best
learning during Houston, We Have a Problem is when students are
forced to figure out an approach. Mental challenges may be difficult and
uncomfortable for some groups, but it is a necessary part of learning
how to problem solve.
While the students are completing the activity, wander around from
group to group. Your presence will lead to questions but, again, only
answer those about the problem. As you move between groups, listen for
how students are working through the process of problem solving so you
can ask process-related questions at the conclusion of the activity.
Academic Games 183
Although the problems identified can be many different types, the best
problems present details that the students can use when using the items
to create solutions. In addition, the students do not necessarily need to
build something from the items to complete this activity. The students
may have to identify the lab equipment and the order of how to use it in
order to complete an experiment. Alternatively, students might have to
use various class concepts and formulas to determine an answer to the
problem. The goal is to have students solve a problem by selecting what
and how to use the items available.
IDEA #43: Escape Room
Overview
This technique is a variation of the well-known collaborative game
Escape Room. Escape rooms fall under the general category of live-
action rooms. In this game, players are “locked” in a room and must
solve puzzles and gather clues to find the way out of the room as
quickly as possible. Bartlett & Anderson (2019) noted that at the writ-
ing of their article there were over 2,300 physical escape rooms located
in remodeled houses and malls throughout the United States. Escape
Room works well in a variety of different formats and at different levels
of learners. It can be designed at a relatively easy introduction level or
an extremely demanding advanced level.
The benefit of this technique is in encouraging students to engage with
course concepts and to work collaboratively to solve a complex problem.
This technique can be used for reviewing concepts, exam preparation, or
applying class material to different contexts. Specifically, Escape Room
can help make course material more accessible for students by providing
a vehicle for application through gameplay.
Guiding Principles
At the foundational level, Escape Rooms are useful because the game pro-
vides students with a fun and engaging way to apply course material. More-
over, the game can teach course content through the skills needed to be
successful in this game such as communication, teamwork, negotiation, and
cooperation. For example, this game may be set up whereby each student is
given a clue, requiring that every student is involved in the eventual solution.
The ability to teach content and skills make Escape Room an effective learn-
ing strategy used in a variety of disciplines (Bartlett & Anderson, 2019; Eukel,
Frenzel, & Cernusca, 2017).
Escape Room, as with nearly all games, can fall into three categories:
collaborative, cooperative, or competitive (Zagal, Rick, & His, 2006).
Collaborative games force students to develop win–win scenarios;
184 Academic Games
competitive games require strategies that oppose other players. Coopera-
tive games fall into the middle of the spectrum. Escape Room can include
any of these, which allows the game to be versatile in classroom use. The
strategy behind the game not only provides a context for learning and
interaction but also can drive the engagement of students playing the
game. The standard way to play the game is for a team to work together
to “escape” the room, although in a higher education setting, the escape
room is figurative. Alternatively, it can be played such that the group gets
out when the puzzle is solved, but the ultimate winner is the person who
figures out the most clues, and figuratively escapes the room.
Preparation
You will need to write a compelling summary of the situation in which the
gamers find themselves. There are many examples that may be easily found
on the Internet. One option is to use a puzzle box instead of an actual room.
If you use a box instead of a room, you may write that the clock is ticking
down on a pandemic that is sweeping the nation and within the box are the
clues to the vaccine or that if they are able to open the box within 15 minutes
each student may use one copy of the index cards contained within on the
next exam. You will need to create a set of clues and images. There are many
options available. A good level to start with is seven to ten clues. Next you
will need locks. You can build a box with a variety of locks, such as a clasp
with a padlock on the exterior of a wooden box and a rope lock around the
box, both of which need to be unlocked. Inside the box you can place a
smaller box with a combination lock. You can also set up a series of files with
passwords to serve as the locks. In this case students would solve puzzles and
figure out clues to determine the passwords to get to the file. To get started,
check out one of the many YouTube videos on creating virtual escape rooms.
Process
Explain the concept of the escape room, locked box, or locked file.
Have the students form groups of an appropriate size for the game.
You can use almost any size group, but the larger the group the
easier it will be for some students to sit back and not participate.
Introduce the figurative “room” you have created, explaining the
terms for their “escape”; otherwise, provide groups with the locked
box or give them the URL to the locked file.
Provide the list of clues. Clues may be comprised of verbal puzzles,
videos, weblinks, or images. It is important for these clues to be
related to the content in the block of material being studied.
If appropriate, when stopping the game, discuss the key aspects of
the game as related to the course ideas.
Academic Games 185
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: Describe the scenario during the whole-class videoconference
time. Explain that there is a locked document with study strategies and tips
for an upcoming exam. The only catch is that the document containing the
information is password protected and that each group will need to solve
clues and puzzles. Each solution will be a letter, number, or special char-
acter (e.g., @ # $ % & *) of the overall password. Create a password with
seven to ten units in length, such as 3mt#Pr9@. Let the students know
how long they will have to figure out the password and retrieve the infor-
mation in the document. Send students to breakout rooms, provide the set
of clues, and set a timer. Clues should be related to the content in the
course and may be comprised of verbal puzzles, videos, images, or a web
link. Some students may solve the password problem quickly, in which
case it is helpful to have an additional task for the fastest groups or else
they will get bored waiting for the other groups. One option is to have the
group come up with new clues that could be used with this same game in
the future.
Asynchronous: The virtual escape room may be set up and the same as
for the synchronous class as a document with valuable information that
is password protected. The challenge is to crack the password. In the
asynchronous class version, students can be given individual clues and
then required to contact their group members to combine what they have
individually completed to assemble the overall solution. Be sure to note
when the play will begin and the deadline by when it must be completed.
Pro Tips
This technique requires fairly extensive preparation, particularly to
develop an effective physical escape room or locked box. You may find it
easiest, particularly the first time it is used in your class, to use a com-
puter file, such as a password-protected Google document with exam
preparation materials on the document. Make each number, letter, or
character of the password of a given clue or puzzle.
Determine a way to get all students involved. The escape room format,
particularly as it is a timed event, may set up a scenario where one or a
few students dominate the actions of the group. A student who tends to be
shy, introverted, or in need of extra cognitive time may well be devalued in
the process of quickly solving the challenge. One option is to give each
student clues that they must present to the group.
After you have played an Escape Room IDEA a few times, ask the
students to design a room. One valuable outcome can be for students to
design the setup, clues, and reward for a class the following semester.
This would give students an excellent opportunity to review concepts and
prepare for the final exam.
186 Academic Games
IDEA #44: Role Play
Overview
In Role Play, students act out a scenario or persona. This IDEA allows
students to gain more context for new information. Role playing can
include historical, contemporary, or artificial perspectives to encourage
students to consider alternative views and opinions. This technique is
often relatively unstructured; however, efforts to provide more real-life
experiences can include more structure.
An advantage of Role Play is allowing students to experience, react,
and reflect on course-related people and ideas (Bonwell & Eison, 1991).
Role Play encourages students to actively participate in class and use
course information relevant to their assumed persona. The technique can
provide a fun activity for students to engage with each other, apply
course knowledge, and practice communication skills (Nestel & Tierney,
2007). The Role Play technique has been used across a wide range of
disciplines from social sciences such as political science and economics to
math and science fields (Jackson, 2000).
Guiding Principles
This technique uses many of the aspects of cooperative learning into
group tasks, positive interdependence, and encouraging interpersonal
skill development (D. Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1994). The activity
provides a structure for interaction and group processing to facilitate
learning. The instructor’s role is to facilitate and intervene only when
necessary. As a result, students together are responsible for their own
learning.
Role Play allows students to assume a persona and consider the world
through the perspective of someone who experienced or even devel-
oped the concepts being discussed. This process helps students develop
empathy for people or their circumstances in addition to considering
their position. By “walking in the shoes” of a person or idea, students
are able to more fully consider the view and relate their own opinions
to those expressed in the Role Play.
Preparation
Prior to the Role Play, determine the goal and format of the activity.
Assign or determine how you want the roles or scenario to play out.
Prepare background information on the character or position each stu-
dent will play. Finally, determine what material students will read to
prepare for their roles.
Academic Games 187
Process
Give students background information on their roles by providing
specific details about the characters or the setting. Such information
can be shared just with the individual or the entire class.
Have the students engage in the Role Play based on the predetermined
format or setting.
After the conclusion of the Role Play, facilitate a discussion of the
activity, evaluate various characters’ positions, and relate the infor-
mation back to course content.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: For a synchronous online course, assign students to break-
out rooms. In the breakout rooms, students can assume their roles. Let
students know ahead of time that you will drop into breakout rooms and
that they are to continue with whatever they are doing. You are stopping
by each room simply to see how things are going with the role plays.
Asynchronous: The asynchronous class creates a specific challenge for
students as they often are not available to meet at the same time. To
conduct a Role Play IDEA, one option is to assign students to groups
and roles within those groups. Give the class a topic to discuss, assuming
the roles assigned during the discussion. The discussion can take place
through forum posts on a discussion board.
Pro Tips
Role Playing works best when students are required to use course information
as part of the activity. The characters and settings should encourage students
to make use of this knowledge to participate in the role play. As a result, stu-
dents synthesize and apply content directly, which facilitates learning.
One of the most difficult aspects of the Role Play IDEA is ensuring
everyone participates fully in the activity. As the instructor, it may be
helpful for you to move around and provide subtle hints and clues that
help stimulate the activity. For example, you may want to give a tip to a
group about an idea they had not considered or suggest a course of
action to spark a group that is struggling to get going. The key is to pro-
vide encouragement to get the students going but allow them to work
through the Role Play and relevant material for themselves.
Particularly creative students will often make up details and ideas
about their characters. Within reason, this behavior is evidence that stu-
dents are making sense of course material. However, be sure these
assumptions are reasonable within the confines of the Role Play. The
students will often look to you to serve as referee in these cases, so con-
sider how much leeway you are willing to offer.
188 Academic Games
IDEA #45: Taboo
Overview
This activity is modelled after the popular word guessing party game. To
play Taboo, a student tries to have another student or group of students
guess a word or concept on a card without using the word in question or
a list of additional “taboo” words typically associated with the word. The
structure of the activity helps students review course content as well as
increase class participation. Taboo encourages students to think outside the
box about key concepts and thus allows the instructor to gauge students’
level of understanding.
Taboo requires students to have a thorough grasp of course content.
Additionally, the activity asks students to think both critically and cre-
atively while playing. An instructor can use this light-hearted activity for
many different purposes, including reviewing key concepts and ideas
prior to exams or demonstrating comprehension of new terminology.
Guiding Principles
Taboo facilitates students’ developing critical-thinking and problem-solving
skills. Instruction geared toward critical thinking builds on how students
think about an idea by changing their “default” understanding of a key
concept (Halpern, 1999). By asking students to describe a course concept
without using the terms or details of which they are most familiar, Taboo
forces students to draw connections with other ideas from within and
outside of class.
This IDEA builds upon word associations, which form the basis for
many aspects of recall and recognition (De Deyne, Navarro, & Storms,
2012). The relationship between words and building networks of con-
necting words form the basis of human knowledge and language. By
building on the advantages of word associations, Taboo encourages stu-
dents to think about the connections between key course concepts as
well as prior knowledge. Moreover, by creating “taboo” words that stu-
dents are not allowed to use during the game, the activity forces students
to build additional networks and associations that can help deepen their
understanding.
Preparation
Before playing Taboo in class, decide on the core purpose of the activ-
ity. If the goal is to review course concepts, you may want to involve the
students in the development of the cards for play. To do so, you may
want to provide the students with a list of words or short phrases
relating to course content and have them come up with details that
Academic Games 189
relate to that topic to be considered “unmentionable” words during
gameplay. These cards will need to be prepared ahead of time or earlier
in class prior to play.
Process
Provide students with a set of cards for the activity. Each card has a
keyword as well as a list of “unmentionable” words or short phrases
on it.
The students are divided into two teams, and a representative from
each team takes turns drawing a card and trying to get their team-
mates to guess the keyword on the card without using any of the
other listed forbidden words.
Play continues until each student has played a card, the cards run
out, or a set score or time limit is reached.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: For a synchronous online class, identify five students who
will be guessing, and let everyone else know they will be providing
clues. First, send the five guessing students to a breakout room so that
you can give the word or quickly explain the concept to those who
will be providing clues. Next, ask students who are to provide clues to
use the Join Code you will provide them and make a short video of a
clue, being careful to not use the name of the concept in the clue.
Provide students an amount of time to complete this task. Most
should be able to make the video on their phone and post it to Flip-
grid within a few minutes. Let students know the clues should be
challenging to make the game more interesting. While the students are
making the Flipgrid cues, recall the students who will be guessing
from their breakout room. For the contest, have the first student
select any one of the videos and watch it. All students should be able
to see the video as it is played. The student then provides a guess. If
the guess is incorrect the next student selects a video. This continues
until a correct guess is made. Students can then be given the next
word or concept and make the next video set.
Asynchronous: Set up a threaded discussion for each concept. Let
students know that it is important to check the thread regularly as
clues will be posted multiple times each day. In this case, you provide
clues and students are to guess as to what you are describing. Let
students know that once they have identified the word or concept,
they can help you to provide clues, but they are not to engage in any
more guessing. This gives more students an opportunity to participate,
but also keeps those students who had made correct guesses to con-
tinue to be included.
190 Academic Games
Pro Tips
Taboo requires students to have a fairly thorough knowledge of the
course material in order to play the game. As a result, the IDEA often
works best later in a class so students have had the opportunity to grasp
many course concepts that they may use to successfully play the game.
When asking students to develop their own cards, be sure that the
concepts are clear and distinct from one another to ensure a breadth of
review while both developing and playing the game. You can have stu-
dents seek your approval of their keywords before preparing their cards.
This safeguard also helps prevent duplication of keywords.
During the activity, encourage all students to participate in guessing.
Watch to see if certain questions or concepts are tripping students up (e.g.,
they are unable to adequately describe the word presented, or teammates
are unable to guess the word in play). These types of struggles may be an
indicator that additional review of that topic is necessary.
IDEA #46: Icebreakers
Overview
Icebreakers are used in a variety of formal and informal instructional
settings to build community and to illustrate expectations of participa-
tion. The goal is to “break the ice” by providing an activity to provide an
avenue for students to interact, meet each other, and build community.
Most frequently, Icebreakers are used at the beginning of the semester or
at the start of an individual class session to get students to talk to one
another and to get to know something about each other. The goal is to
help students build a comfort level and community in the class that can
improve discussions and other class activities.
As a popular strategy for decades, there are literally hundreds of
examples of Icebreaker activities designed for use in class, meetings,
workshops, or trainings (West, 1999). This technique is one of the
shortest and easiest ways to help students get to know one another. Stu-
dents are also acquainted with Icebreakers, as they are used frequently in
higher education.
Guiding Principles
Icebreakers help to foster a classroom that encourages students to work
together. More specifically, developing a classroom community helps
students learn more thoroughly and efficiently (Bruffee, 1998), build con-
nections to each other, and develop relationships with peers. The result-
ing community of learners is then able to collaborate and encourage one
another during later class discussions and activities (Zhao & Kuh, 2004).
Academic Games 191
Another value of Icebreakers is that they help prepare students to engage
in the university community as well as the class. Although particularly true
for first-year students, Icebreakers can engage students at any level in a fun
activity that helps establish initial knowledge of the course content. Ice-
breaker activities can introduce students into the learning environment both
with personal community engagement and content-specific interaction
(Kavanagh, Clark-Murphy, & Wood, 2011).
Preparation
Before looking at the wide variety of Icebreakers listed on the Internet,
consider your goal. Take into account class setting, content, and desire
for community when deciding which specific activity to use. For example,
your first goal may be to help students on the first day of class to learn
the names of classmates. Thus, you might use a name association ice-
breaker, such an adjective that starts with the first letter of your first
name that describes your personality, such as Active Anna, Brave Bonita,
or Creative Carlos. Alternatively, your goal in using an Icebreaker may
be to get students to start thinking of applications of the content to be
learned in the course. The one general rule is to be certain the Icebreaker
will accomplish something. Thus, you might ask students to share what
experiences they have related to course content. A fairly general con-
sensus is that class time is limited for every course, and most people
dislike Icebreakers that have no apparent purpose (Henslee, Burgess, &
Buskist, 2006).
Process
A quick Google search will elicit many different types of Icebreakers
that can be used. Based on the goals for the technique, pick an
option that best suits your needs.
Tell the class that the Icebreaker will take 5–7 minutes of class
time.
Briefly explain how the Icebreaker works, and have students com-
plete the activity. If appropriate, explain why you selected the specific
Icebreaker you selected and the overall outcome that you noticed.
Ask students to respond, round table fashion, to the Icebreaker
questions.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: Icebreaker activities are also a good time to show students
what to expect in a course. That is, if you intend to have students
speaking with one another in small groups frequently in the class, an
icebreaker activity that has them speaking with one another is helpful
192 Academic Games
both to get to know each other and get a feel for how the class will pro-
ceed. The first day of a synchronous online class is an excellent time to
break the ice and ensure students understand how breakout rooms work.
Put students into breakout rooms of about four students and give them a
few minutes to talk. Ask each student to explain one concept they are
interested in learning more about, given the content of the course. Let
the students know that when everyone returns to the main video-
conference room you will randomly select one person from each group
to summarize what the breakout room talked about. Also let students
know you will drop in on a few rooms to see how the conversation is
going. This activity will help students to get to know one another, ensure
they know what happens when breakout rooms are used, and that you
can drop in and out of rooms quickly and quietly.
Asynchronous: For an asynchronous online class, the Icebreaker activity
has to take into account that students are not on a fixed schedule to be
available for class. One way to do the Icebreaker IDEA in an asynchronous
class would be to use Padlet.com as a common space for students to upload
an image of something that represents their hometown. Ask students to
comment briefly on why they selected the image they selected. Provide
students with a link to the Padlet or a QR Code that is easily generated
through the “share” button on your Padlet. For this exercise, choose a
Canvas Padlet. That will allow students, or you, to move images around
on the Pad. Let students know when it is opened and by when they need
to upload their image.
Once all images and rationales are posted, have students in a discussion
post indicate what they learned about the members of the class from the
images and rationales posted.
Pro Tips
The primary advantage of this technique is that it builds up students’
comfort level in class and quickly begins to build a class community. As
a result, discussion-based classes or courses dealing with difficult (or
controversial) topics may especially benefit from the use of Icebreakers.
Although Icebreakers are typically used at the beginning of the
semester or the start of a class meeting, you can use them effectively at
many different points. Consider using an Icebreaker when transition-
ing between topics or when the energy in class is dwindling. Also
consider keeping a few good Icebreakers ready to use at any time
needed during the semester.
Remember that Icebreakers should be brief. Most types of Icebreakers
are only designed to be used for a few minutes and can cause disinterest
among students if continued for too long. If you are looking for a more
involved activity, another game IDEA would likely better suit your
needs.
Academic Games 193
Finally, be careful to ensure that Icebreakers will not cause dis-
comfort or bring about disharmony in the classroom. For example,
early in the semester may not a good time to share personal information
with one another.
IDEA #47: Top 10
Overview
Top 10 is a game that is deceptive in that it appears easy to generate a list,
but based on the topic or content, it may be challenging to find ten good
items. When used in an educational environment, the Top 10 activity
asks students to generate a list of ten items related to course content. The
structure may allow students to consider a combination of their prior
knowledge and what they gained through the course to create the list.
This IDEA helps students synthesize and recall important information.
These lists can be factual or speculative. For example, in a political sci-
ence class, students might list the ten states with the most votes in the
Electoral College, which is a factual list. Students might also be asked to
list ten states that are considered battleground or toss-up states. Although
there is some agreement on which states might be on this list, it is cer-
tainly a more speculative list. Even more speculative yet might be the ten
most controversial public policy challenges expected to be debated over
the next decade.
The goal of Top 10 is to have students identify the most significant or
relevant items according to a set of criteria (Sugar, 1998). This activity
encourages students to recall material, synthesize knowledge, and demon-
strate a mastery of content. When students are asked to work in teams to
complete the list, the activity also encourages discussion and peer learning.
Guiding Principles
Providing students with a problem to solve can serve as an effective
teaching method. Instructors can motivate and encourage the use of a
variety of knowledge bases through the use of problems (Barkley et al.,
2014). Cognitive theory suggests the generation of a Top 10 list builds up
knowledge by synthesis and application of previously learned concepts.
The result of this learning process is increased recall, application of
knowledge, and practice problem solving (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2013).
Learning increases when students are forced to create answers, which
forms a significant foundation of the use of Top 10. To create the list,
students must use a variety of information from the course as well as
other sources to generate answers. The act of generating list items
improves learning over the process of identifying the correct answer (e.g.,
multiple-choice exam) (Butler & Roediger, 2007).
194 Academic Games
Preparation
In order to use the Top 10 IDEA, gather sample list items to use in the
activity as examples. You may self-generate these or gather them from
reading materials such as trade publications, journal articles, textbooks,
or the Internet. Also, decide if you are going to use a scoring system and
if so, what the grading rubric might look like. Finally, decide whether
students will play multiple rounds or simply have them generate one list.
Process
Provide the topic or category of the list for students to create. Also
give any instructions and the time limit for creation of their list. At
this point, it may be helpful to give one or two sample items.
Have the students form groups of three to five and generate their list.
As an entire class, ask each group, in turn, to provide one item from
its list and the rationale for the items included. If you have a large
class, sample from different groups. The point here is to NOT have
an individual group read through their entire list before moving to
the next group. Doing so decreases the participation level of different
groups.
If you have a specific target list, reveal the correct answers and award
points (if applicable). If there is no target list, points may be allotted
for unique responses.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: For a synchronous online class session, have students first
list as many items as they are able. Then put students into groups of two
with the task of coming to a consensus as to a list of ten items. Let them
know the amount of time they have to complete this task which will vary,
depending on the cognitive complexity of what the list comprises. Factual
lists take much less time than do speculative lists. When time has
expired, everyone will return to the main videoconferencing room. Now
place students into groups of three with the goal of coming up with a list
of ten in order of importance. Again, the amount of time for this task
will depend on the lists formed. When this time expires and the groups
all return to the main room, have students report out. Ask group one
what item they had listed as number one on the list and why. Then ask
group two what they had listed as number two and why. Students will
have different lists and what is number one on one list might be number
four on another list. These all make great discussions.
Asynchronous: One option is to create a Google form and share the link
with your students. Ask all students to put one item on one of the lists
posted. Create as many lists as needed so that you have the same number
Academic Games 195
of slots as students, which means every student needs to post one item
each to complete the task. The lists could be variations on a theme. For
example, list one could be ten buildings on campus. List two could be ten
services available to students on campus. List three could be ten places
students tend to hang out on campus. List four could be ten popular
majors on campus. In this example, 40 students can participate and
although this is an online course, it can be a nice connection for online
students to better know the campus of the college or university they are
attending.
Pro Tips
Creating a point system can encourage students to consider the rank
order of the list. If students correctly guess the #1 item, they receive ten
points. If they guess #2, they get nine points, and so on.
Rather than having students generate the list items, provide a list and
have students identify the significance of the list. Depending on the
nature of the list, you may provide a list in ranked or random order to
increase the difficulty. Also, you can create of list of your own views on
the subject and ask students to guess your Top 10.
During the activity, students may struggle to generate ideas and may
ask for hints. They may also seek to use research materials to help come
up with ideas. A benefit of the Top 10 technique is forcing students to
think through creating their list. The first four or five items may come
easily, but the last few will be more difficult. Some of the best learning
can come from this challenge, so resist providing too much help and
support. You want to provide encouragement without providing the
answer quickly. Finally, a discussion of why the later items were difficult
is a powerful learning opportunity. Many individuals can generate a few
items in response to a prompt; experts are able to dig deeper.
IDEA #48: Pic of the Day
Overview
Pic of the Day asks students to capture key concepts or ideas from class in
photographs, newspaper clippings, or screen captures and then share these
images with class. The widespread availability of digital photography has
increased the quality and quantity of pictures. The Pic of the Day IDEA
builds on this trend by using photographs to illustrate course concepts.
Although any graphic image can be used, the ideal submission will be a
photograph that the student has taken. This activity encourages students
to look for aspects of a course in their daily lives. In addition, Pic of the
Day provides an outlet for students to use their creativity and share their
own perspectives regarding class content. The activity provides an
196 Academic Games
opportunity to gauge student comprehension of course concepts, parti-
cularly as the photographs demonstrate nuanced understanding of topics.
Examples of Pic of the Day include displays used in department stores to
discuss diversity and inclusion, street signs to illustrate communication,
or images of the campus to illustrate to what extent physical objects on
campus enhance a feeling of community among students.
Guiding Principles
Photographs provide a rich opportunity to share how someone views
something as they are taken from a particular perspective and point of view
(Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). Although photos that are selected are not as per-
sonal as those taken from the person’s point of view, the selection of spe-
cific photos from the mass quantity of images individuals are bombarded by
every day still holds information regarding the one identifying why a photo
was chosen. The use of images offers a window into how students view
topics that they may even have a hard time articulating for themselves
(Taylor, 2002). Pic of the Day builds on these principles by eliciting images
from students to demonstrate key components of the course.
Although this IDEA may be used for all students, it is particularly bene-
ficial in reaching reluctant or unmotivated students (Crozier, 2009). Tradi-
tional teaching approaches and certain types of content may not connect
directly with students. In those cases, alternative approaches such as Pic of
the Day provide a different way to reach students and engage them with the
content. It also provides creative students with an expressive outlet.
Preparation
Before assigning Pic of the Day, decide what aspects of class or content
the activity will cover. The parameters can be as broad or defined as you
see fit. You may want to allow room for a great deal of creativity and
perspective, or you may want students to seek out specific things to
photograph. In addition, the photographs might be limited to content to
be covered in the next class session or used as more of a review near the
end of a course. Finally, determine how the pictures will be presented.
Will the images be used as part of the class? Will students need to do
some type of writing to accompany the images?
Process
Provide a few short examples of the types of images students may
secure.
Assign the activity and provide the framework for Pic of the Day
including due dates, guidelines for what to photograph, how many
images, and in what final form they will be presented.
Academic Games 197
Students complete the activity outside of class.
When the students complete the activity, facilitate an opportunity
for students to share their work. This information share could be
completed as a class or with students working in small groups.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: There are many ways in which you might implement the Pic
of the Day IDEA in a synchronous online course. One method is to have
students take a photo with their phone or a screenshot on their computer
of something that illustrates a concept in class. Ask them to be ready to
share their image with classmates. During class, put students into breakout
rooms of three students each and let them know how long they have to
complete this task. While in the breakout room have students screenshare
and show their photo and explain why they either took or shared that
image, paying particular attention to the course-related concept it illus-
trates. Also ask them to drop their images onto a Google Jamboard or
some other collaborative space for which you have provided a link in the
chat window and to place their images next to each other, so it is clear they
are from the same triad of students. The idea here is that students can
share their images with just two colleagues before their image is displayed
to the entire class. Once the time has expired and everyone has returned to
the main videoconferencing room, call on a few groups to point out on the
Google Jamboard which images are theirs and what they talked about.
Asynchronous: For an asynchronous class, create a Google Jamboard or
some other online collaborative workspace and send the link to students
through the LMS or email everyone the link with instructions. Ask stu-
dents to post an image they either took on their phone or a screenshot of
something from the web that relates directly to a concept from a given
block of material. They should state briefly in a text box next to the
image why they chose that image. Be certain to note by what date photos
are to be posted. Once the due date has passed, ask students to look at
the Jamboard and reflect on what they see, paying particular attention to
anything that is a good example of a concept that illustrates the meaning
in a way they had not thought of before. Essentially, what surprised
them and added to their learning. Those reflections could be posted in a
discussion forum regarding the images.
Pro Tips
This activity works best when students are able to express their ideas and
perspective through photographs. As a result, complex, personal, and
even controversial topics provide great prompts for completing Pic of the
Day. Additionally, students respond well to taking pictures of their daily
events and relating these experiences to course content.
198 Academic Games
To add a competitive element to the activity, you could hold a contest
with winners for the best picture or other relevant criteria. Students can
serve as judges, which encourages them to critically review images from
classmates.
Taking photographs related to course content allows students to more
directly connect with the material presented. For example, Bagno, Eylon,
and Levy (2007) found that physics students who took pictures of physics
concepts responded more positively than through traditional teaching
approaches. This activity can help make difficult concepts more acces-
sible to students by allowing them to apply and interact with significant
course objectives.
IDEA #49: Webquest
Overview
The Webquest is an activity in which a portion if not all the information
students work with comes from Internet or digital-based resources
(March, 2004). Webquest builds on this foundation and incorporates the
notion of gameplay.
This activity requires students to search the Internet for answers to
clues or find specifically defined information and compete with one
another in the process. Participating in Webquest helps students develop
critical thinking skills as well as grow more informationally literate.
Guiding Principles
The use of Webquest allows students to develop their critical-thinking
skills. During the activity, students are tasked with a varying degree of
challenging problems designed to require students to apply, analyze,
synthesize, and evaluate information online, all of which require higher-
level or critical-thinking skills to solve (Bissell & Lemons, 2006).
Additionally, Webquest aids in students’ information literacy, specifically
digital information literacy. An information-literate person is able to recog-
nize when specific information is needed and have the ability to locate,
evaluate the value, and effectively use the new information (C. Brown,
Murphy, & Nanny, 2003). Information-literate students are able to navigate
the “data smog” produced by the massive amount of information readily
available (Shenk, 1997). Webquest supports this notion through the use of
guiding questions.
Preparation
Prior to using Webquest, decide on a scenario or a basic list of questions
to guide the activity. The context of the game needs to be related to both
Academic Games 199
course content and student learning outcomes, as well as to vary in difficulty.
Additionally, any questions should vary in purpose between asking for
direct answers and asking for the process of finding the information. A direct
answer question is one where one specific answer exists, for example, “What
are Newton’s three laws of motion?” A process question may have multiple
possible approaches to the answer, for instance, “Find and cite a journal
article that discusses Newton’s three laws of motion.” Finally, decide on the
point value of each phase of the question or each question relative to each
other and the level of difficulty. The number of questions will be dependent
on the desired length of the activity as well the difficulty of questions.
Process
Provide students with a list of questions they must complete for the
Webquest.
In pairs, students work through the provided questions.
At the conclusion of class, students receive points for each correctly
answered question, and the pair with the most points is declared the
winner.
Online Adaptations
Synchronous: One way to complete a Webquest in a synchronous class is
to develop a series of questions and put them into an Edpuzzle video.
First create a video using your computer or your phone. Simply ask the
series of questions with about a five second pause between each question.
Open Edpuzzle and upload your video. Within Edpuzzle you can ask
multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Simply insert the questions
during each pause between questions. During class, post the link to the
Edpuzzle in the chatbox and put individuals into small breakout rooms
of three to five students each and have one member of each breakout
room screenshare the Edpuzzle video. This will allow each group to work
through the questions at their own pace. When groups finish, they can
return to the main videoconference room where you can talk to them
about their experiences during the Webquest.
Asynchronous: One interesting way to do a Webquest in an asynchronous
course is to have students work in small groups to add information to a
Wikipedia site. You can assign different, but related, Wikipedia sites to
students in groups of five to ten students per site. These sites should be
directly related to the block of material being learned. Ensure students
know the start and end date for working on the site. You can take a
screenshot prior to their work and after, but you can also see changes made
to the site, which allows you to track your students’ progress. It is helpful
for students to know that they are becoming experts in an area and can
contribute to general information.
200 Academic Games
Pro Tips
Ensure that each question serves a learning purpose for the student. If
you want to develop multiple online research skills, develop multiple
questions for each to reinforce the concept.
Students will complete the activity at different paces. Plan on the
possibility that certain students may finish before the anticipated
completion time. You may plan to have a few spare extra-credit questions
available in the event this happens.
Decide whether the students will be required to answer the questions
in a specific order or if they are able to just answer as many as possible.
This decision will most likely influence students’ approaches toward
completing the activity. If students are allowed to choose which questions
and what order to answer them in, you may want to prescribe certain
specific parameters that ensure each question type is reviewed during the
students’ completion of the activity.
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12
GAMIFYING MICROLEARNING
ELEMENTS
Alexander Salas
Introduction
So far, it can be assumed that anyone who has been reading this book from the
beginning, now has a clear idea of the value of microlearning and its potential to
make learning and education programs effective. However, what if microlearning
strategies could be enhanced with the behavior-altering and motivational powers
of gamification? Sounds interesting, right? First, there is a need to define gamifi-
cation as a concept because it has been applied in several and diverse contexts.
Often, gamification is confused with game design and although these are very
interrelated concepts, they are not the same. In his book, The Gamification of
Learning and Instruction, Karl Kapp (2012) provides the following definition:
“Gamification is using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to
engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems” (p. 13).
Following Kapp’s definition, gamification applies the engaging, and sometimes
addicting, features of game design to get users to do something. A prime example
of the success of gamification strategies is marketing campaigns. The marketing
industry has been one of its main practitioners, such as in the use of reward sys-
tems where customers are encouraged to purchase a brand as they collect points
toward future purchases. But how does gamification apply in the context of
learning? In the book, Gamification in Learning and Education: Enjoy Learning Like
Gaming, Kim et. al. (2018, p. 27) define gamification for learning and education
as a “set of activities and processes to solve problems related to learning and
education by using or applying game mechanics.” What are game mechanics? The
simple answer is, game mechanics are the rules of the game. This chapter will get
into the finite details of game mechanics. Second, it is hard to ignore how
gamification influences our daily lives. As a customer, one may repeatedly use a
190 Alexander Salas
brand because of its loyalty rewards program in addition to the quality of its
products or services. For example, the Starbucks app grants customers points with
each purchase and allows them to redeem a free drink or meal once they have
met a set point quantity. According to a 2018 loyalty reward app case study
conducted by The Manifest, “48% of smartphone owners who regularly use restau-
rant loyalty apps, use the Starbucks app” (Panko, 2018, paras. 3–4). It is time to think
about the behavioral implications of the success of the Starbucks app. The more
customers who use it, the more revenue Starbucks gets, but whether they realize it or
not, customers are being conditioned to: (1) use the app, and (2) think of Starbucks as
the brand to use every time they want a coffee, tea, or tasty treat. Therefore, what if
an organization’s microlearning strategies could incite a sort of “learning loyalty” and
influence learner behavior through gamification? Implications of the gamification of
microlearning are discussed in this chapter, regarding learner engagement, game
mechanics, game dynamics, and aesthetics. These are all elements that would influ-
ence the design and delivery of gamified microlearning solutions. Additionally, sev-
eral gamification technologies and analytics tools are also discussed to reinforce the
attributes of real-time feedback and personalization, which are important for the
success of any gamification intervention.
Why Gamify Microlearning?

In most instances, the way microlearning is applied involves a very concise, highly
targeted, and packaged learning intervention. Regardless of its format and duration,
microlearning efforts may be met with the same lack of enthusiasm as a full-fledged
course or performance support initiative. The basics of effective instructional design
must be present, and gamification would only enhance the effects of good
learning design. Gamifying microlearning can help engage audiences by finding
the sweet balance between things that must be done and things that are fun to
do. In other words, gamification can make content and learning experiences
more enjoyable and therefore, increase learner retention. Gamification design
benefits from several creative outlets not often experienced in non-gamified
educational content. Storytelling, mission objectives, constant feedback, trial
and error opportunities, and real-world simulations are some of these creative
expressions often found in gamified learning experiences. “Gamification focuses
on engaging trainees in learning with same intensity that games engage players
on playing. The aim is to get people engaged in serious or important work with
the same intrinsic motivation than in games” (Gallego-Durán et al., 2019, p. 2).
Gamifying microlearning content can also help developers become more
attentive to the needs of the learner audience as gamification for gamification
sake can yield unsatisfactory results. The last thing designers want as part of their
learning strategy is to give learners a reason to disengage from their content. On
the flip side, a well-crafted set of game mechanics can keep learners engaged
and reinforce new desired behavioral patterns.
Gamifying Microlearning Elements 191
Gamification and Game Design Frameworks

Just as the proper design of learning experiences requires a foundational knowl-
edge of learning theories and design frameworks, gamification strategies are more
likely to achieve their goals by incorporating the basics of good game design. The
realm of game design and gamification for learning purposes is rapidly evolving
with its own guiding design frameworks. For instance, serious games, which are
“electronic/computer-access games that are not designed for commercial pur-
poses, but rather for training users on a specific skill set” (Annetta, 2010, p. 105),
tend to rely heavily on simulation-based approaches to design. Serious Educa-
tional Games or SEGs are more focused on academic settings and use models
such as the Identity, Immersion, Interactivity, Increasing Complexity, Informed Teaching,
and Instructional or six “I’s” model. According to Annetta (2010, p. 107), “this
model functions as a hierarchy with identity as the basic foundational element.
Yet, this model is different from other models with the inclusion of the idea of
informed learning.” The six “I’s” model seems to offer a sound set of structures to
develop educational games.
As Annetta (2010) also mentions, “[t]he six elements of the model are derived
from over a decade of developing and testing educational games and using
research from commercial video games to inform SEG research” (p. 106). It is fair
to say that the six “I’s” model may be the ideal choice for learning designers
looking to develop full functional educational games. However, microlearning
gamification calls for a simpler approach, a more manageable method that fits the
requirements of a microlearning experience. That approach may be a framework
known as the Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics or MDA framework. The MDA
framework is one of the most recognized frameworks in use by game developers
and gamification experts, and makes developers think about the essentials of any
effective game or gamification experience. Keep in mind that although the MDA
framework was selected for this chapter, the research in this field is very active as
of late. As such, there is a significant chance that there will be several other
influential frameworks worth looking into by the time this book is published.
The next section will take a deeper dive in each of the three stages of the MDA
framework (Game Mechanics, Game Dynamics, and Game Aesthetics) and how each
impacts the design of effective microlearning gamification.
Game Mechanics
The first stage of the MDA framework is Mechanics. Game mechanics are often
referred to as the rules of the game. If you think of it, all games have a set of
conventions by which the game is played. “Mechanics are the various actions,
behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context.
Together with the game’s content (levels, assets, and so on) the mechanics sup-
port overall gameplay dynamics” (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004, p. 3).
192 Alexander Salas
Examples of mechanics would be sport games like baseball or American football.

In baseball, a ball hit within the foul lines of a diamond-shaped field is a fair ball.
In American football, teams must get the ball across their opponent’s endzone to
score six points. The classic phrase “Collect $200 as you pass GO” is perhaps the
most famous mechanic pertaining to the board game of Monopoly, which
rewards each player by rolling dice with the sufficient number values to complete
a turn around the board. Game mechanics can also incentivize players to be
highly engaged by aligning to their player type needs. While researching Multi-
User Dungeon games or MUDs with virtual worlds, Richard Bartle identified
four player types: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. Bartle (1996, pp. 2–4)
described each player type as follows:
Achievers regard points-gathering and rising in levels as their main goal, and
all is ultimately subservient to this.
Explorers delight in having the game expose its internal machinations to
them.
Socializers are interested in people, and what they have to say. Inter-player
relationships are important to them.
Killers get their kicks from imposing themselves on others. Much more
commonly, people attack other players with a view to killing off their
personae.
Gamified microlearning can be designed with these player types in mind, espe-
cially when virtual world environments are involved. For example, gamification
mechanics for achiever-type players would include point collection, treasures,
badges, and any other symbol of achievement. Exploring game mechanics can be
supported with escape room-like situations where players must find clues and solve
problems by searching the gamified environment. Socializing gamification mechan-
ics should offer communication tools, inter-player interaction, and even the invol-
vement of social media channels. Killing gamification mechanics can be engaged
with competitive scenarios, leaderboards, and a clear definition of success over
others. By now, it should be clear that without mechanics there may not be much of
a gamified experience or at least the incentivizing of players to engage.
Game Dynamics
Once the game mechanics are in place, learning designers need to consider the
dynamics involved. Game Dynamics are the inherent effect certain mechanics have
on learners/players. “Dynamics in the MDA model are the game design principles
that create and support aesthetic experience. For example, time pressure and
opponent play are two game dynamics that create and support the aesthetic of
challenge” (Kim, 2015, p.19). The time pressure dynamic relates to time-sensitive
tasks. Time pressure may not be welcome by many learners but, there are
instances where a job or skill must be performed within time constraints. For time
pressure, think of drive-thru cashiers in fast-food restaurants whose performance is
measured by the duration of seconds spent per vehicle. This real-life scenario is a
good example where mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics transcend into real life
outcomes. In this example, consider the drive-thru cashier to be a player; he or she
wins by meeting the performance metric aka mechanics of dispatching of a customer
within 30 seconds. In this time pressure dynamic, the player will: (a) meet or not
meet the 30-second standard, and (b) find a way to beat the system. Customers
experience the latter when they are asked to pull forward out of the drive-thru to
have their meal hand-delivered a few minutes later. There are several other dynamics
that can be discerned from observing real life because dynamics are all about the
interaction between players and the mechanics involved.
Game Aesthetics
The last stage of the MDA framework is Aesthetics and it is perhaps one of the most
important parts of it all. Believe it or not, game aesthetics are not so much about
looks as they are about player emotions. “Aesthetics are the desirable emotional
responses evoked in the player when interacting with the game system” (Mora et al.,
2015, p. 101). Game elements like points and badges can incite the right emotions of
engagement in learners who enjoy the aesthetics of expression and challenge. “The
aesthetic of expression is created and supported by the dynamics that encourage
individual users to leave their mark, such as systems for purchasing, building, or
earning game items” (Kim, 2015, p.18). However, designers can run the risk of
creating superficial rewards thus disengaging learners. For example, consider the
implementation of badges with little to no meaning for those trying to attain them.
What is the point of earning the badge? What is the symbolism of the badge? Is there
an emotional connection to earning the badge? Organizations like the military and
the Boy Scouts of America have been using badging for decades and the reason why
badging is relevant in these organizations is because there is significant symbolism
behind each badge. Military ribbons and medals are awarded based on observed
achievements and real-life experiences. By looking at a military uniform, members of
that community can estimate how long a person has been in service, where have
they been, or whether he or she has experienced combat. So, whether you use lea-
derboards, narratives, badges, points or levels, considering the impact of gamification
mechanics on the dynamics and aesthetics needs to be paramount in the context of
relevancy to learners.
Ready. Set. Microplay.

Microlearning, as well as gamification, can be implemented at the authoring tool
and delivery-method level. Full-fledged games are best created using game engines
only because these software tools were designed to create gaming environments.
194 Alexander Salas
Although game engines are the most robust solution for games, gamification can be
achieved through easier-to-use applications and some custom designs in e-learning
authoring tools. “Gamification and microlearning have been used successfully in
several workplace environments with favorable results” (Orwoll et al., 2018;
Göschlberger & Bruck, 2017, p. 8). The following are some suggested strategies
combining MDA gamified approaches with microlearning.
Desktop Implementations
One scenario where the use of spaced repetition microlearning is combined with
gamification is that of desk-based employees. This type of worker can be best served
with specialized microlearning platforms that can provide daily challenges directly to
their computers via desktop notifications. Such an approach would not disrupt their
workflow as much as having to walk to a training center or stop working to log into
the organization’s Learning Management System (LMS). Microlearning technology
platforms vary from LMSs in that they often provide better web analytics with the
ability to indicate watch time on videos, click interactions engaged, and even the
device used. Some of these aspects may or may not be important for the organization
but, what is measured thoroughly depends on the project and the expected out-
comes. For example, in call centers, watch time metrics may be of high relevance
because personnel may not be making the best use of their allotted training time
causing potential monetary losses in make-up time during operational hours. Other
solutions that are not solely for microlearning may also be useful as in the case of
Freshdesk, a helpdesk software program that uses gamification for performance sup-
port. “The Freshdesk solution involves transforming customer inquiries (e.g., tele-
phone questions, comments posted on Twitter and Facebook) into virtual tickets
that are then randomly assigned to players (i.e., customer service employees)”
(Robson et al., 2016, p. 32). This is an innovating approach that combines social
mechanics and dynamics with real-world applications.
Desktop Design Considerations for Gamified Microlearning

There are various advantages and limitations to face according to the design
environment, screen size, and player interface involved in game play. Desktop
design considerations for microlearning games include keyboard navigation,
mouse movements, left or right-click interactions, multiple browser tab or screen
play. None of these would be feasible, or even an enjoyable experience, on
mobile devices. Also, desktop players can only be engaged in game interactions
while sitting at their desks. Therefore, as it does in anything else, context matters
in how the microlearning gamified experience is delivered. Once it has been
determined the microlearning experience will be desktop based, designers can
focus on maximizing the environmental, player interface, and navigation features
of desktop play.
Hotkeys
A desktop gamified experience that can take advantage of enabling keystroke
interactions known as hotkeys can align well with several of the aforementioned
player types such as explorers, achievers, and killers. By using hotkeys, a player
can perform a designated action by one, two or a combined set of keyboard
strokes. An explorer-type player is likely to find the act of discovering hotkey
interactions as rewarding. The use of hotkeys may be seen as an efficiency and
speed advantage by killer-type players and a symbol of skill attainment by achievers.
Although, hotkey interactions can align well with gamified desktop experiences,
there are some limitations and challenges to their use. Table 12.1 (see p. 000) shows
some of the limitations and the best practices to mitigate their impact.
Multiple Browser Tabs or Screens

Desktop users traditionally sit at a desk, but many users can have multiple screens,
and all have the ability to support multiple browser tabs. Designers also have to
consider laptop users as having some of the same capabilities as desktop users. This
will become a bit more challenging as many laptop devices offer a mobile or
tablet view of their operating systems. Therefore, if the gamified event is inten-
ded for desktop users and their intended play features, then, designers would need
to account for clear communication of game navigation and interaction to
account for devices that can display in mobile and desktop versions.
Mobile Design Considerations for Gamified Microlearning

Mobile microlearning can be expected to be more prevalent in the next few years
as most humans have adapted to the daily use of mobile devices. Microlearning
TABLE 12.1 Hotkey limitations and design mitigation best practices
Hotkey limitation Details Design best practice

Difficult to learn Grossman, Dragicevic, and Associate the use of hotkeys
Balakrishnan (2007) noted that with the action as it takes
each individual or combination place, i.e., display informa-
stroke requires memorization. tion about the hotkey when
the player performs the
action with the mouse Press
CTRL + to zoom in.
Lack of visibility Grossman, Dragicevic, and Include a side-by-side refer-
Balakrishnan (2007) suggest ence of the game action and
using marked menus can corresponding hotkey in
increase the likelihood of users menus and other player
adopting a hotkey option. information elements.
196 Alexander Salas
platforms offer their interactions on web-based responsive applications. The term

responsive applies to the automatic resizing of content to fit phone, tablet, and
desktop screens, thus providing a better viewing experience. Popular e-learning
authoring tools like Articulate Storyline 360 and Adobe Captivate already support
mobile viewing without the requirement of other dedicated applications. The
convenience of mobile learning cannot be overstated as learners can engage in
microlearning sessions of five to seven minutes anytime, anywhere. For example,
a microlearning game built for mobile first, allows players the autonomy of
playing while commuting to and from work. The use of mobile devices opens
some designs dynamics like text messaging and encouraging the aesthetics of
social players. The game Thug Life, developed by Chobolabs, LLC, is one of the
biggest successes of strategic marketing seen in the mobile game landscape. The
game leverages the use of Facebook profiles and the Facebook messenger app.
Players are rewarded with points when they promote the games to their Face-
book friends or connections. This game clearly appeals to killer-type players with
the tagline, “Build up your territory by attacking and raiding other players! Spin
to win big and grow your wealth. Will you be the next ultimate gang boss?”
(apps.apple.com, 2020). Mobile games like Thug Life can also benefit from the
multimedia features available in most smartphones today. For example, player
challenges can be based using geolocation and users can be encouraged to use
their cameras to snap pictures of landmarks in their worksite as an onboarding
game. Social dynamics have a major influence in game play when players are able
to communicate through in-game chats or know the proximity of other players
to their location. It is good to know that microlearning platforms also offer
quizzes, built-in games, and progress and ranking leaderboards, which enable
designers to align to various player types. Whenever possible, organizations
should strive to make their microlearning campaigns mobile ready by designing
for mobile first.
Foundational Design Elements of Gamified Microlearning

This section of the chapter assumes that the basics of sound instructional design have
taken place prior to developing a microlearning game. Primarily, that the designer
already knows: the target audience involved; a learning intervention is needed as part
of the business solution; and the delivery platform to use. There are foundational
design elements every game has that makes it engaging and contributes to its success.
These elements are personalization, feedback, and storytelling.
Personalization
Personalization is about giving the player agency in the game. Agency can be
easily provided with the autonomy of choice. Allowing players to choose their
name, their avatar, and their set of tools can support a player’s sense of control in
the game. “Gamification techniques should try to understand users, their personality,
feelings, behaviors and actions. Big data, behavioral insights and elements of psy-
chology can be used in gamification to provide a better end-user experience”
(Gonzalez, Toledo, & Muñoz, 2016, p. 535). Some basic practices of personalization
are capturing player data, like name and email address, and using it to interact with
the player. For example, a microlearning game interface may start by having a char-
acter welcome the players and ask for their names and job titles. Then, that character
can address the players by their names for the rest of the game. Personalization is the
aim to engage players as they create their identity within the game. Allowing the
player to have agency over the game and how it is played can contribute to higher
levels of engagement.
Feedback
Feedback is one of the main advantages game design offers as it often seems to be a
continual presence. Educational interventions often give the user corrective feedback
after the fact or as the result of an examination. However, most players encounter
feedback each time they interact daily with non-game objects like doorknobs,
computer screens, smart phones, etc. Games provide custom feedback through their
Heads Up Displays (HUDs), which show number of points, progress meters, health
levels, badges, time markers, and anything else players can use to stay informed about
how they are performing in the game. For example, when applying survival game
mechanics, a HUD may display a certain number of lives within the game signaling
the player the number of times mistakes are permitted before losing. Another good
example of feedback can be progress meters indicating to the players how close they
are from achieving the next level or end goal.
Storytelling
Storytelling is a foundational element of impactful games. “There are two per-
spectives on storytelling in games, the designer’s story and the player’s story”
(Rouse as cited in Winn, 2009). In an organizational context, the designer’s story
is closely related to what the organization needs the user to do or achieve, as a
result of the learning intervention. Winn (2009) explains the designer’s story as a
way to set the stage and purpose of the game for the player. The player’s story in
turn, is created as the player experiences the game. This dichotomy can be helpful
to quickly give learners context in gamified microlearning events. It is recom-
mended to remain relevant to the user’s role in the organization to prevent the
learner interaction from being gimmicky. Fantasy stories of unrelatable fiction
may deter busy professionals from engaging. For example, consider introducing
pirate stories in a setting of medical professionals who do not share this creative
affinity. It is recommended to quickly provide a relevant story setting which is
already familiar to the user. Referring to the previous example, present the
198 Alexander Salas
medical professional with a patient-related problem and ask him or her to solve it
with the tools provided in the game.
Summary and Next Steps

In summary, the gamification of microlearning shows substantial value as the
assumption of shorter content duration does not guarantee greater engagement.
Gamification has the power to engage learners because game mechanics have an
impact on learner interaction, and therefore, behavior. Bartle’s player types can
help designers align their game design and mechanics to engage players. There are
a growing number of game and gamification design frameworks, such as the six
“I’s” but, the most recognizable one is the MDA framework. Mechanics are often
thought of as the rules of the games and game elements affecting dynamics. Game
dynamics are categorized as design principles that support aesthetics. Time pres-
sure is a common example for dynamics, as well as opponent play. Game aes-
thetics is more related to player/learner emotions, as it is about the look of the
game. As a designer, it is critical to understand the interdependencies among the
three stages of the MDA framework. The use of gamification and microlearning
has been well documented with favorable results. The most robust game elements
are built with game engine software. However, platforms dedicated to micro-
learning offer many gamification elements that are also found in industry-specific
software like helpdesk support. The implementation of gamified microlearning
needs to consider the variances between desktop and mobile implementations.
Desktop-based experiences have certain advantages as designers can enable hotkey
navigation and learners can benefit from multiple screen use. Mobile designs can
maximize on social and exploration dynamics by enabling a device’s ability to
share location and messages. Foundational elements of game design, such as per-
sonalization, feedback, and storytelling, enrich gamified microlearning experi-
ences and therefore, user engagement. Personalization allows players to create
their identity and have agency in the game. Feedback in game design offers a
constant status check for users to identify their level of success in the game.
Storytelling quickly ramps users up into a specific situation, providing relevant
context and meaning. Finally, although the research continues to evolve,
instructional designers today can develop effective and engaging gamification
solutions with the implementation of appropriate microlearning platforms while
following the MDA framework.
Discussion Questions
1. How would you incorporate the MDA framework in the development of
your microlearning solutions? Please provide specific examples.
2. What barriers should be considered before deciding to gamify microlearning?
3. How can you ensure the mechanics of a game do not cause undesired dynamics?
4. What are at least three considerations designers should have about mobile vs.
desktop design of gamified microlearning?
5. What are the foundational design elements of gamified microlearning?
References
Annetta, L. A. (2010). The “I’s” have it: A framework for serious educational game design.
Review of General Psychology, 14(2), 105–113.
apps.apple.com (2020, August 7). Thug Life Game. Apple App Store. https://apps.apple.
com/us/app/thug-life-game/id1498408706?mt=8.
Bartle, R. (1996). Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs. Journal of
MUD research, 1(1), 19.
Gallego-Durán, F. J., Villagrá-Arnedo, C. J., Satorre-Cuerda, R., Compañ-Rosique, P.,
Molina-Carmona, R., & Llorens-Largo, F. (2019, December). A guide for game-
design-based gamification. Informatics, 6(4), 49. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing
Institute.
González, C. S., Toledo, P., & Muñoz, V. (2016). Enhancing the engagement of intelli-
gent tutorial systems through personalization of gamification. International Journal of
Engineering Education, 32(1), 532–541.
Göschlberger, B., & Bruck, P. A. (2017, December). Gamification in mobile and workplace
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mation Integration and Web-based Applications & Services (pp. 545–552). ACM.
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Kapp, K. M. (2012). The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-Based Methods and
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CH A P T ER SA M P L ER

Gam if ied Teach in g an d

3. Staying Connected: Gamification and

5. Gamifying Microlearning Elements

Request your free Inspection Copy and discover more of

Human Cognitive Capacity and Balance

As touched upon in the previous chapters, learning is a complicated bio-

Cognition = The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge

by looking at how complex learning outcomes and tasks are, instructional

Figure 4.1 Basic Biological Changes and Generic Learning

Intrinsic, as suggested by the name, is the measurement of factors based

Anxiety Flow Channel

Figure 4.2 Diagram of Flow18

Anxiety Flow Channel

Figure 4.3 Flow Diagram Combined with Cognitive Load Balance

Figure 4.4 shows a framework for visualizing this process.

Input Sensory Memory

Speech Long-Term Memory

Entertainment Game Appropriation: Motivation, Genre,

A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at some­

exploring, etc. As the types of games grew, genres expanded to accommodate

Figure 4.5 Best-Selling Video Game Super Genres26

Each of these genres can be broken down further into subcategories or

• Turns (Advance Wars)

Further defining mechanics, we can list some that determine or contribute

What’s interesting is that most games rely on a number of these mechanics

Figure 4.6 Framework of the Additive Nature of Examining Engagement in Games

Viewed in a diferent light, we can also look at engagement generated by

Figure 4.7 Alternative View of Framework Showing Interaction Between

competition, facilitated by the leaderboard mechanics, is a prime motivator

Abstract Motivation Description of Abstraction

Figure 4.8 Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types41

Type Sub-Type Description

Figure 4.9 Bartle’s Expanded Taxonomy of Player Types44

As research into games continued, researchers attempted to quantify

Action Social Mastery Achievement Immersion Creativity

Figure 4.10 Categories and Sub-Categories of Motivation in Gaming46

Whether classifying the motivations for players by Bartle or Yee or other

UI and UX Designs: Case Study

Type of UI What it Means Examples

Figure 4.11 Types of UI Elements

User experience, or UX, is a more comprehensive feld. According to

‘User experience’ encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction

Sadly, UI and UX have traditionally been the step-children of the games

Figure 4.12 UX Honeycomb by Peter Morville51

• Level of details in games

examining if a UI element is part of the 3D game space (versus a layer on

Super Mario Brothers

over environmental obstacles). No cutscenes or exposition were necessary.

Assessment Engines and Game-Based Learning

Figure 4.13 Bloom’s Taxonomy57

As education became more formalized, the ability to assess the transfer

Entertainment Game Quiz Educational Game Quiz

Load quiz questions Load quiz questions

Load question: x Load question: x

Display Correct Display Correct

Figure 4.14 Example Showing Entertainment Versus Educational Quiz Game

Thinking about it a diferent way, Figure 4.15 presents some questions a

Entertainment Game Serious Game

Figure 4.15 Design Questions for Hypothetical Quiz Game Comparison

As a fnal thought on the topic, following are a number of ways that

Ex. A trilogy of games that teach the Japanese language disguised

Principles of Designing Successful Learning Games

A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at some