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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
What motivates your students? Because what's motivating your students to want to learn and pursue those points or pursue those rewards that you offer as part of gamification is going to determine how well your effort is, I guess, stay rewarded.
Narrator:This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Doctor. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles chat with Dr. Daniel Singletary.
Ryan:Doctor. Singletary is a graduate of Boise State University with an Ed. D. In Educational Technology, and also serves on the Accessibility Committee with AECT. Thanks for joining us.
Jared:Well, Doctor. Daniel Singletary, first off, how does that feel to be referred to as doctor?
Daniel Singletary:That is very interesting. I have not been in the situation yet to where I went to see my medical doctor and was able to say, hi, doctor. I'm a doctor now, and I haven't been in the situation of of what's gonna happen there. But it is very interesting to do that. I think the first area that I applied that to is a change of address.
Daniel Singletary:I recently moved, and they asked for the, salutation. I put doctor on there, and
Jared:I thought That's that was pretty awesome. Congratulations, my friend. It is well deserved. I know you've worked hard and I'm sure it's a feels like it's a huge relief off of your shoulders for that to have that done. So I just want to say that.
Jared:I just want say congratulations for that. So you're going to help us with gamification and we're very thankful for that. When we talked early on, you had mentioned specifically that you wanted to help us differentiate between, gamification and game based learning. So we'll get to that in a second. But if you were to summarize gamification, what does it mean to you in the context of teaching and learning?
Daniel Singletary:So for gamification, in the context of teaching and learning, what it's really about is using the mechanics that are found in games to make your learning content fun for your learners, to make it engaging to where they want to learn more about it, and it's not just some boring content that they're having to, you know, go through in their their classroom and their day to day. And so there it will allude to there is a difference between gamification and game based learning. But the key is just using those things you find like a point system, a reward system, things like that that are found in games and just applying that in a different way to your learning content.
Jared:So now this naturally leads into the next question. I want you to differentiate between gamification and game based.
Daniel Singletary:So let's start with looking at the the game based learning part of it. So think about something like, a game such as Minecraft. There's a Minecraft for education version of that that teachers can use in their classrooms. And in that case, the students, the learners, they're actually in the game. They're learning things inside of that digital environment.
Daniel Singletary:And for gamification, you're kind of taking those mechanics that they have in that game outside of it. So this might look like, what many of us probably remember in the days in classrooms, of a long time ago was Jeopardy. Like, your teacher would decide, I'm gonna make things fun, and it was like, oh, great. What are we gonna do? And then she brings out the big Jeopardy stuff, and, you know, you have to spend the first twenty minutes trying to figure out, well, how do I answer the question?
Daniel Singletary:Right? And so later on, that's what you remember, in that experience is learning how to answer the question, not necessarily the content that the teacher was wanting you to learn. So that's kind of the difference. It's gamification. You're adding a point structure.
Daniel Singletary:You're adding rewards and things like that to make that content fun, but you're not in a game environment.
Jared:So you said Jeopardy. My Rob, I don't know if you had any review games that you played in in school.
Rob:They were mostly what I remember, it was more like almost like a chutes and ladders kinds of thing where you'd go and it'd be between you and a classmate. So you'd stand next to their seat.
Daniel Singletary:Mhmm.
Rob:And you get a question, and who could ever whoever answered it first moved on through the classroom.
Daniel Singletary:Mhmm.
Rob:So if you if you got it wrong
Jared:Yeah. I I I yeah. Remember this.
Rob:Sit down Yeah. In the person's seat. In that spot. Yep. And then yeah.
Rob:So it was kind of like So that one? We we did that several rounds, though. It wasn't like, you know, once and you're out kind of a thing.
Jared:Right.
Rob:It was just it was a great way, I think, of engaging students, especially at a young age because there was that competition, and you, like, always wanted to beat, you know
Jared:Sure. Your classmate. That that feels like gamification though, Daniel, would you say? Because that's not a specific game that that we know for sure. You know what I mean?
Jared:I feel like it's taking elements of Chutes and Ladder.
Daniel Singletary:Right. And that is kind of the the core part of what gamification is. It's it's kind of it doesn't have to be a game itself. It can simply just kind of relate to
Jared:Yeah.
Daniel Singletary:The game mechanics of a game to make it fun.
Jared:Like, my game of choice was trashketball, which I feel like is game, game based learning. Trashketball? I don't I have no idea what trashketball All right, here we go. You have a set of review questions. You have two teams and then you set your trash can somewhere in the classroom and you have a, we had, I had a ball that we kept using that was wrapped in duct tape.
Jared:So it was nice. I don't know. Yeah. About the size of a softball, maybe a little bit bigger.
Rob:Like a Nerf ball. Yeah.
Jared:Sure.
Rob:One of those little Nerf basketballs.
Jared:Right. So then you would take it and you'd ask a question that the team got it right. They get a point, and they had a chance to then shoot from various points in the classroom. The further away, the more points you got. Uh-huh.
Jared:And so some would risk it all every single time and always miss, but didn't get behind. Then you had some that were more consistent and wanted to do with that. So that was trashketball. But I feel like that is definitely game based because I'm literally just lifting the idea of basketball and adding a review question to it. What do you think?
Daniel Singletary:Gamification, game based. Terry? That would be gamification even though it's heavy on the game based side. Now what the key is
Rob:So we're both gamified.
Daniel Singletary:Remember well, do you when you're playing that game, do you remember more about the content that you had to go through, the learning content that that allowed you to to make that shot, or do you really just remember just playing the game?
Jared:I remember playing the game.
Daniel Singletary:So that's the key that teachers have to kind of work into how they do gamification, how they can dial in those components to where the the learners actually reflect on what they're doing. And and they do have a fun time doing it, but they do remember the content as well.
Jared:Helps to make the content stick is what you're what we're looking for.
Rob:Now that we've we've shown our ignorance Yeah. Doctor Singletary, tell us what is game based learning. How would how would we make that distinction? How would our listeners be able to make that distinction?
Daniel Singletary:So going back to, like, Minecraft, your game based learning is gonna be being in an actual game, a digital environment, pertaining to what they're learning. So in the case of, let's say, we're we're taking this into a higher education or even corporate setting, I worked with researchers who were in the health and nutrition field, and their job was to perform a systematic review. So they went out, They looked at a lot of different research, and they kind of refined those results down and then presented that. And so for them, it was important that they understood the whole process and the different components that were involved in a systematic review. And one way to do that would be to create in Minecraft a sort of like a village where they could be in the environment.
Daniel Singletary:Maybe they go into different, like, different houses and things that are set up for the different areas of a systematic review. And and in those areas, they're learning about that, and they're doing it within the game. Oh. Now it doesn't always have to be a digital game. Mhmm.
Daniel Singletary:You could look at this. There is a professor in North Carolina who is using a tabletop RPG for their classes to kind of teach about how to interact and, really do well if you're presenting or you're attending a conference. And so the game that they created was again, it's a physical, game, but it allows learners to reflect on what things they can do to just present better. And that's done through using a a 20 sided dice that they can throw down, and it it kind of gives that randomness to the game. And then at the end, they're able to look at that point.
Daniel Singletary:Now, of course, because of the randomness, they're gonna end up with different results. But that fosters this communication and a collaboration within the classroom to where they can ask their peers, well, what did you end up with? Or how did you you know, what kind of a a role did you get with the dice on that, and how did that impact your final score? So that would be more of game based learning.
Rob:Interesting. So almost and and doctor Singletary, please correct me again, but it I'm listening, and it sounds like what I'm hearing is game based learning is almost like a simulated abstraction of of sorts where you're simulating something in the two cases that you gave. So doing a systematic review, and then the other one was how to present at conferences in a better way. Mhmm. So is the game then a simulation of some sort to help you understand everything that would go on?
Rob:So he said die, and that's kind of randomness that
Jared:Right.
Rob:Ends up. So things can happen to you when you're presenting, and you don't see it coming, but you still have to deal with it.
Daniel Singletary:Oh, you're you're absolutely right with the simulation. I get a point. Now Get a point. Will say that it doesn't always have to be a simulation. There's one of the professors that we worked with at Boise State, Brett Shelton, doctor Shelton, early on was part of the esports program.
Daniel Singletary:Right? And and the conversations that I had with him were talking about how reflection can help improve performance, in a program like that. So in that case, though, the content that the learner or the player is engaging with isn't necessarily learning content. Right? They're actually playing a game just for the the sake of competition and playing that game and and getting better at it.
Daniel Singletary:However, adding in a reflective process, either within the game or by an instructor outside or coach outside of the game allows that to to be game based learning. Right? As opposed to you're just adding points and rewards to learning content or allowing, you know, you to to make a basketball shot because you answered a question correctly.
Rob:Interesting. So does it, at that point, become a metaphor then?
Jared:A metaphor for a game?
Rob:Well, a metaphor for learning. I mean,
Jared:for learning.
Rob:For reflection. I'm assuming that the reflection on the game is going to be transmitted to, something else. Is that correct?
Daniel Singletary:Well, it could be between the instructor and the coach to the player asking them, you know, we just played this game for a certain amount of time. What did you do that worked out well in the game? Or if you had any failures, how can we learn from those failures? You know, you could do this outside of a game environment, just in a classroom where you're asking students, well, how did you do well on this quiz or this test, and why do you think you did well on that? And so you're you're getting them to, you know, think in a metacognitive way about their performance and what they could do better.
Jared:You mentioned reflection, so I wanna go go down that path a bit. How do you see adding these game based elements, whether it's through gamification or game based learning, I like to hone in on gamification. How does it help stoke motivation for students? Like what, what is it that, or is it something, is it something that the instructor needs to be aware of about their students? But or is it just a motivating tool because it's a sense of competition, something like that?
Daniel Singletary:So many teachers will go into the practice of gamification simply because they've heard that it creates an engagement, that motivation for their students because they're gonna have a fun time. They're gonna enjoy their learning. However, that is a misconception that's out there, and that's because you really have to understand what motivates your students. Because what's motivating your students to wanna learn and pursue those points or pursue those rewards that you offer as part of gamification is going to determine how well your effort is, I guess, to stay rewarded. What you do as a teacher in one subject area for your class may not transfer well to, even the same subject across the hall to those students because they may have different factors that motivate them to want to, you know, be a part of that gamification effort.
Daniel Singletary:So perfect example, let's go back to that systematic review where we were looking at that inside of Minecraft. In a gamification, I guess, a schema, we might look at that as we're going to provide points or reward system that's not in a game environment, but we're gonna be teaching those different, levels and different ways to process through a systematic review for those students. Now the key would be for the instructor or the teacher to figure out what motivates their students. Mhmm. Now if these students are researchers and they're in a health and nutrition field, you can imagine that maybe rewarding them with processed food or candy or something like that's not gonna be a really great motivator
Jared:for them. I could see that.
Daniel Singletary:Right? So maybe what they look at, the instructor might instead provide something that allows them to maybe take an extra day off of work. Right? Like a a vacation, kind of like a a monopoly get out of jail free card, but it could be something else, something that's gonna motivate them. If they realize that their team has been really hard at work toward a project and everybody's kind of putting in overtime, that could be a great motivator, a great reward for that, for them to pursue.
Daniel Singletary:Or it could simply be something that in a health and nutrition space might be a, a discounted membership to a gym or or something else. So as a teacher instructor, you have to find out what motivates your students. And you also have to remember that not all of your students are gonna be motivated. Some of your students in your class, if they're not performing well, it's not that your gamification effort is not dialed in to what motivates them. It could be that they're dealing with things outside the classroom that's impacting their motivation.
Daniel Singletary:It's it's really important to keep that in mind and to be able to include some rewards that might help those students. So one might be that they receive, again, with this monopoly kind of get out of jail card idea would be they could drop their lowest grade for the semester. Right? And that might help in incentivize a student who is not performing well to want to learn the content and wanna be involved and engaged because they see this as helping them in a way that's going to be material to their success.
Jared:It goes all the way back to servant teaching and teaching the whole student and knowing you have to know your students beyond the surface level. You can't assume, ah, kids these days love candy. I'll just throw candy at them in class. Although, I shouldn't say that because Rob gives suckers to his students.
Rob:I give out dumb dumbs. Some take them.
Jared:Mean that as a slight
Rob:to you. You don't need to. Some take them and some don't. I just put it down front, and and you'll be surprised though. It it just comes like, I had a couple of students just in the middle of class.
Rob:I'm, you know, working on a particular topic and everybody's engaged. I know they are. And they just get up and they come down and they grab a couple suckers and they're like, I need some brain food. That's what I call it. You know, I said, if you ever need brain food, you feel free to just come down and get something.
Rob:And and, you know, I felt like that was a win.
Daniel Singletary:Yeah. Absolutely.
Rob:I mean, yeah, it's kinda kinda slight, but still.
Daniel Singletary:I think that's really good too to think about that. Yeah. Those external factors because if you happen to be a teacher or an instructor and you're teaching after lunch time, right, like, that could be a time when your students and people are not so attentive. And so if you're able to use something like candy or caffeine to kinda keep them awake, that can be a great motivator. And I had a colleague one time that used candy.
Daniel Singletary:He would choose only, like, three or four different types, and he would make each person in the in the class choose a type of candy. And that's how he was able to separate them into groups. Because once he had them separated into groups, now they had something to talk about that was in common because they everybody in that group chose a certain candy. So
Jared:That's cool. Let me ask you this, maybe on a personal level. Are you a gamer yourself?
Daniel Singletary:Absolutely.
Jared:Okay. Yes. Now I'm a gamer. You know, I feel like if you have gaming experience, and this could be a misconception and Doctor. Singletary, please correct me.
Jared:I feel like it's an easier lift for someone who's had that experience, but I assume that that's not always the case. Right? Or can people who don't have gaming experience still pick up and use gamification and have success with it?
Daniel Singletary:I think they absolutely can still have success with it, but it would help if they have that experience. Now you may think, well, I wanna do gamification in my classroom, but I don't have that experience or I'm not a gamer. That's fine. Like, I I think if you can find someone that is a gamer or someone that's in your your school or your your college that's using these things, they can help kind of guide you in that direction.
Jared:This makes me think of, as we talked about this in a previous episode about gamification, is that there are those gamifying elements in our day to day, like the old punch card, the Subway punch card. You put a sticker on there and after you buy 10 subs, you get a free one, right? Your eleventh one's free or Starbucks rewards or Chick fil A points and stuff like that. So maybe tapping into that as well is a good entry point for a faculty member who wants to try gamification.
Rob:Well, and I think on that topic, Doctor. Singletary, could you speak to some real easy entry points for those who are listening? Like, say they're wanting to try something and they just haven't. Or maybe they maybe they have and they just don't even know it. But can you provide maybe couple examples?
Daniel Singletary:Yeah. So I would start off with, first, avoid Jeopardy. I don't think anybody really finds that very fun in the classroom, but y'all have spoke to this in the past a lot about generative AI and its use for teachers and instructors. And I would say that that is a great way to get some good ideas for how you could do gamification in the classroom. Now I will preface that with depending on your college, your school, wherever you are, you need to check with your IT department to make sure that anything you're putting into GenAI for ideas for your classroom is gonna meet their standards or compliance for privacy and things like that.
Daniel Singletary:But if you do that, it can give you some really great ideas on how to structure a point system. You could tell a little bit about the subject matter you wanna teach and maybe some reward ideas it can provide as far as digital or physical rewards that would be more motivating for your students. So that might be something to check out for those that are aspiring to get into gamification, but they just haven't, gotten into it because they don't feel like they have a structure in place or any ideas to work from.
Jared:What else about generative AI, Doctor. Singletary? Where do you see, its usage? You said just kind of like drumming up some ideas, but could you actually like, in my head, I'm thinking about having it design some sort of, gamified lesson, using generative AI? What are your thoughts?
Jared:Like, what what should be we be aware of? Like, what would be good indicators as we evaluate the output of good gamification design?
Daniel Singletary:So for for good gamification design and what generative AI kind of produces for you is some ideas or an outline, you you really wanna make sure that it has a good, reward structure that your students are gonna be motivated to wanna learn the content. That could be involving a point structure to where they answer questions correctly or or things that lead up to a certain number of points, and then they redeem those points for those rewards. But a key factor would also be to make sure that the the output of of the generative AI is actually correct when it comes to the subject that you're teaching. Right? And so if you're not familiar with a particular subject because maybe it's your first semester, your first class kind of going into that subject, it would be great to grab someone else that's at your college or your your school to help you make sure that that output that AI is giving you is actually accurate before you implement that in your classroom.
Jared:Yeah. Ryan did a quick, he asked Generve AI about how to use Generve AI. I can see us using Generve AI to update classroom leaderboards, as a way of like assigning XP experience points. Yeah. And keeping track of that so the professor doesn't have to do that as much, assigning badges or achievements or have it design itself, like doing escape rooms, scavenger hunts, the board game idea like doctor Singletary was talking about.
Jared:Now I'm trying to think of how to put it in my literature class.
Rob:Well, think there's a lot of things out there, and and there's gonna be more as it develops. Right? Because once you start connecting LLMs through actions and giving the giving it an agentic framework, you can you could potentially do all sorts of things with games. Yep. Yeah.
Rob:I'm my head's now spinning thinking the different things I might be able to do. Like, just what you said, keeping track of someone's score. Like, I'm thinking of a bot that you would build directly for it, and you could start sessions with it. And it didn't matter which student came in. They'd have some sort of identifier, right, because they would log in and use the system, and then their interactions could somehow be
Jared:Wow. That's pushed, right, to
Rob:a leaderboard so that you could do simulations and content simulations. Okay. That is my idea. And if I find it on the Internet, anyone else after this time, then I want some money.
Jared:That's brilliant, actually. I I'm a big fan of that. Interesting.
Rob:So, yeah, I'm just maybe that's the looking ahead part we're we're starting to jump into here. Mhmm. That's what's spinning through my head. But doctor Singletary, I'm sure, some other ideas as well.
Jared:Yeah. What what do you see the future with generative AI and gamification?
Daniel Singletary:Well, it's moving at such a rapid pace that we kinda have to to hope that at some point, the instructor and teacher isn't replaced by the AI in certain situations. And I think that that could be a risk with homeschooling. Right? If you have parents that are creating instruction for their kids, but they're only using AI to provide that instruction without kind of having a a common core or some kind of knowledge base to work from that's been vetted, that can be an issue. But I I wanted to kinda go back to what you were talking about with using it to come up with sort of a scoring, like a leaderboard or something like that.
Daniel Singletary:And for those teachers or instructors who might be wanting to do gamification and they don't know where to start or they they create a point system or they create something like that, but maybe they feel like they're not graphic designers. They're gonna have a hard time coming up with these designs for micro credentials or badges that they can use for it. That's another great use for generative AI to create the designs for them. Mhmm. Now that does require some some work.
Daniel Singletary:You you might need to ask AI to kinda teach you about how to prompt engineer things so that it creates the output you're looking for. But you could ask it, let's say, to create some badges for a history class that have a Western theme to them or or a certain theme that connects your your grading system with the badges, with these other content or a PowerPoint slide or things like that to kinda help you create this entire system that you're then able to use for your gamification effort.
Jared:That's cool. Yeah. That's that was gonna be my next question. What's one small thing? Maybe it is the point system, but is there something, like, even smaller for those that especially that aren't gamers?
Jared:I know you already mentioned, let's talk to a colleague that you can probably identify who gamers are, I think. But what's something else? What's one small thing that they could try tomorrow to bring it into their practice?
Daniel Singletary:Well, if you're using generative AI, you could simply just ask it and say, like, I wanna use gamification to teach subject x, y, z. And you can provide maybe some of your slides or handouts or PDFs or something to it that you've already created.
Jared:Yeah.
Daniel Singletary:And then just tell it, make this fun. Right? Make this something that my students are gonna really enjoy and help me create that experience. But as you help me create it, I want you to help me understand what that along that process of that creation, so that I can learn as an instructor or teacher how to create these experiences.
Jared:That's that's really I love the idea of having it teach you as you develop it. I think that's that's super important as being a lifelong learner as an educator is, okay, this works, but tell me why it works. Let's just not take it at face. Right. Like the same thing we expect out of our students.
Daniel Singletary:Right?
Jared:We can't just expect them to we don't want them to spit out answers. Like Doctor. Oakley would say, being a guardian of knowledge. Yep. Right?
Jared:We need to be able to learn learn that process.
Rob:This has been a joy, sir, and your expertise in this area has been very, very welcomed. I know that, Jared and I have a better understanding, and I hope our listeners do as well Yeah. Between the difference between game based learning and gamification.
Jared:Yep. Thank you, doctor Singletary. You've been a tremendous help. Thank you, sir.
Daniel Singletary:Absolutely. Thank you all.
Ryan:Thanks for joining this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions about our conversation with doctor Singletary or any comments about gamification, we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to send us an email at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn. Finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog.
Ryan:Thanks for listening.