Gamified, Co-Created and Microlearned: A Recipe to Engage University Students?

This presentation shows a practical use case of NOLEJ, an AI-Powered Authoring tool that automatically turns any static document (text, audio, video) into multiple interactive learning activities. Saving thousands of euros, hundreds of hours and providing the industry with an automated authoring tool that can keep up with the rapidly changing business environment.

We will show how AI can generate microlearning at scale while enhancing the retention and engagement of the learners.

82% of content in boilerplate courses are irrelevant to the current needs of students, and because it's irrelevant, that learning is forgotten in weeks. With modularity, real-time content creation, and the generation of personalized maps of learning based on each learner's unique understanding and learning goals, we can provide them with exactly what they need, when they need it. 

How can we design an environment where learners are actively engaged and motivated in the long run? What makes a learning experience more effective and engaging for the learners? 

Overview 

• How can Artificial intelligence be integrated into the process of teaching at scale?
• How can AI be used to create adaptive pathways to foster motivation and volition?
• How can interactivity and microlearning have an impact on the retention of learners? 

This presentation shows a practical use case on how gamification and microlearning can be implemented within a university-level course and offers new insights on how the elements influence the participation of students.

There are many ways to engage students throughout their learning process, such as for example interaction in classroom sessions, collaboration on exercises and tasks, or gamified elements in synchronous and asynchronous settings.

In this session we will present an experiment with an already pre-existing university course where we incorporated various of these elements (with a focus on gamification and microlearning) to support the student throughout synchronous and asynchronous learning environments (e.g., live classes, e-learning, and during personal time).

We will look at how both participation and learning outcomes have changed from one year to another: did the new elements really added value? Did they increase learning success and improve retention, and/or motivate students to engage more than before?

The theoretical foundations are motivated and elaborated based on current developments in our open-source audience interaction platform (KlickerUZH).

Overview

• How gamified interactions and microlearning can be introduced to a specific university course setting.
• How gamification and microlearning can influence learning success in university courses.
• How gamification and microlearning can motivate students to engage with materials more than in a traditional online learning setting.

Based on learning and motivation theories as well as theories of game design, this presentation shows how gamification can be applied practically to convey learning content in higher education. It also shows that by involving students in the design of the learning environment, students can actively gain experience with digital and innovative forms of delivery as part of their studies.

Digital competencies represent an indispensable prerequisite for future teachers. This has been made clear not least by the Corona pandemic but also by the fact that today's students are digital natives. The presented project offers a practical example of how students can actively gain experience with digital and innovative forms of delivery as part of their studies.

In order to create a learning environment that meets the learner’s needs, the project directly involves the students as the target group in the design of the learning environment. In this way, students who are primarily aiming to become teachers can already try out digital teaching skills in an application-oriented manner.

Gamification as a form of mediation – when used reflectively – offers the opportunity to promote the acquisition of knowledge as well as the interest in the learning content and the motivation for a persistent engagement with it.

This contains, on the one hand, the inclusion of learning and motivation theories as well as theories of game design. On the other hand, the coherence of the form of mediation with the content to be conveyed is essential for learning.

In my Master’s thesis “Parzival 2.0 – Gamification of Higher Education in German Studies“ I showed that such a coherence is especially given in the field of medieval studies. This was illustrated with the popular Arthurian Romance “Parzival”, written by Wolfram von Eschenbach. Reasons for this coherence include the fact that many popular commercial games use a (pseudo) medieval setting. Moreover, an 'âventiure' structure is constitutive of the Arthurian Romance, in which the hero must face a series of increasing challenges.

This represents the archetype of a level and quest structure, that is, in turn, characteristic for the genre of role-playing games. The structural parallels between medieval studies and gaming can make it clear that a subject that increasingly has to justify its relevance is highly up-to-date and compatible with the reality of life of today's learners.

The “Parzival 2.0“ project, which I would like to present, illustrates how these links between medieval studies and gaming can be used to convey learning content in higher education. To this end, a digital learning environment is being designed to provide students in the second semester of German Studies with the basics of medieval studies in addition to the classroom courses.

To this purpose, in the summer semester 2022 and winter semester 2022/23, two consecutive seminars are being held. In the first seminar, literary fundamentals are taught in close examination of the Middle High German novel “Parzival”. In addition, the students work with selected game elements like avatars and quests to link the two areas by defining the learning content and developing a storyboard as the foundation for creating the learning environment. In the second seminar, the students will deal intensively with this concept. Finally, they will implement it, customized to the technical basics of the chosen software, by creating a pilot.

In addition to the students of German Studies, students of the Master Degree Program “Culture of the Techno-scientific World” will be included. They come from different disciplines in both the humanities and the natural sciences.

Since „Parzival 2.0“ is an OER project, which is built on freely available software (open source), a transfer of the design possibilities to other teaching contexts and subjects is possible. In this way, the project offers opportunities for inspiration for innovative and interdisciplinary teaching, which focuses on the needs of students as well as their preparation for later professional life.

Overview

• Understand what is necessary to use gamification in a reflected manner.
• Find opportunities to integrate students in the process of designing a learning environment.
• Find ways to offer university teaching that enables students to try out the competencies required in everyday working life in an application-oriented manner.
• Use gamification to introduce learners to unfamiliar things through a medium they are familiar with (gaming, digital).