Serious-game Supported Learning: Fun Self-Assessment with the Reading Game Activity

A common challenge academics face is the level of students’ attention in classrooms. In combination with a new and advance topic, students may feel detached from the course and may impair learning outcomes. Our attention span is short. How can we engage our students to pay attention in class and to the contents provided on Moodle and prepare them well for their final exams?

Dr Elisa Palazzo, the convener of Landscape Architecture Design Seminar (LAND1322) came up with a strategy to engage and prepare students for the final exam by using the Reading Game activity. The Reading Game is a Moodle-based question and answer game designed to engage learners in their coursework. The Reading Game is designed as a videogame, displays a leaderboard, a progress bar and a rating system to motivate students and to keep them engaged.

In LAND1322, the Reading Game is used to engage students in self-directed formative assessment. The game is implemented with the following rules:

• The students are to create questions and produce answers.
• It is available from week two to week five.
• Students can leave comments, rate questions and to get ‘karma stars’.
• The game gives various rewards and levels.
• The best rated questions will be in the final quiz.

By the end of the game, in week 5, only 9% of students did not engaged with the game. Most of them achieved great scores by producing and answering hundreds of questions. The results were encouraging and the feedback from students very positive.

The results of final quiz, a summative assessment, showed an increased average performance of about 10 points from previous year.

Deployment steps for the Reading Game activity in Moodle:

1. First, go to your Moodle Course, enable Edit mode and click Add an activity or resource link.

2. From the list, choose the Reading Game.

3. Inform the students of this activity. Clarify goals and the rules.
4. Kick off the game posting first 5-10 questions.
5. Moderate inappropriate content and delete wrong questions/answers.
6. When the game takes off, the students will self-moderate the questions and little maintenance will be required.
7. When the game period is finished, debrief and provide feedback to students.

Pros

• Students as producers, not simply consumers. They become active in asking and answering questions.
• In order to produce questions, students achieve a deeper understanding of the topics discussed in class.
• Brings the element of competitiveness in the classroom with immediate feedback and ratings from others on how you are going in answering questions in comparison to others.
• Students can become familiar with the way questions are structured and how answers are provided.
• Improve students’ readiness for final quiz by revising contents of lectures and readings by playing.

Cons

• No official documentation for this Moodle activity.
• Little flexibility and difficult to customize, must play within the frames provided.

To get started, please contact Dr Elisa Palazzo.

• Use digital technology to improve user experience
• Clarify goals at the start (the ‘backstory’)
• Use simple game rules and explain them in details
• Play the interaction and make it competitive
• Include a final extensive feedback/debriefing session Showcase

Please contact Dr Elisa Palazzo for demos.