Gamification Techniques for Inclusive Teamwork and Assessment with Diverse Student Population and Constraints
General description of the project
As a result of recent global and natural events, our student body has experienced changes in their education path, including but not limited to the worldwide pandemic, earthquakes and hurricanes. As students return to the classroom or switch to hybrid learning modalities, several academic lags and stress factors have been identified, and it is essential that faculty and academic support units be aware of these stress and risk factors to have all resources and tools in place to support them emotionally and academically. This will ensure academic progress and retention, two critical analytical metrics that must be measured and controlled.
In today’s classroom we will find students with special needs and emotional distress, reason why differentiated instruction and assessment techniques must be considered and managed to address diverse needs and academic lags that students may have. Among students with special needs, we have a growing population of students with Asperger and Autism syndrome joining the regular classrooms. These students, along with students with emotional distress needs additional support and encouragement to overcome these challenges and excel academically. Gamification techniques can be used to deal with these issues while delivering classroom instruction in a diversified fashion.
Technologies
Flipped Classroom techniques using hardware parts to do demonstrations and hands-on learning activities. Use of user interface design (UI/UX) tools like Figma, Ninjamock and MarvelApp to develop games and video storyboards and wireframes as part of a game project.
Project collaboration tools, Jira and Teams were also used to manage team task distribution and track project progress.
Explain project results
By flipping the classroom to a game or video design project, critical thinking and team collaboration was encouraged and managed. What started as a diversification of instruction and assessment to meet the needs of autistic students and veterans resulted in benefiting students with severe academic lags, including but not limited to oral, reasoning and writing skills, but also emotional situations that were impacting their span of attention and performance and were at risk of failing one or both courses.
Why it should be considered best practice?
These are times of uncertainty and constant change, with students with diverse backgrounds and needs that are in need of attention beyond the traditional extra time for special accomodations. With the inclusion of cloud based and artificial intelligence platforms we are dealing with lack of ethical conduct and critical thinking. By flipping the classroom with the use of technology, like gamification and collaboration tools to swith from traditional lecture to applied labs, class dynamics will be more engaging and appealing to students, fostering collaboration and initiatives that will facilitate teaching and evaluating student progress. These practices will also serve as metrics and criteria to measure academic progress, attrition and retention.
Highlights of your proposed presentation
This study took place on August, 2023 when students were returning to the classroom for in-person instruction to attend the first technical courses, Hardware and Networking Course, and Operating Systems course. The student body was diverse, including veterans and students with autism syndrome. This diversity presented challenges and opportunities for team assignments, team collaboration and leadership. With the use of gamification tools, it was possible to engage student teams and foster collaboration while completing their assignments and developing the expected skills and competencies. By flipping the classroom to diversified instruction and assessment provided the opportunity to identify and address students with academic lags and emotional distress caused by diverse personal situations. Students who were at risk of failing one or both courses felt encouraged to engage and work in teams and successfully completed the course, with few exceptions.
The IT undergraduate students recognized the significance of ethical practice throughout the delivery experience and team collaboration in project management. The course instructor must foster and engage with students towards recognizing the importance of ethics in the business environment by taking ethical values seriously.
The Evaluation Committee will evaluate submitted proposals based on the following criteria. Each area will be rated on a scale from 1 to 5 (1= non-satisfactory; 5 =outstanding), for a maximum of 45 points.