Building Better Rubrics Using Game Design

Game-like grading systems, a sense of playfulness, and more.  Ian Schreiber gave a talk for AltDevConf on using principles of game design when teaching and showed us that it's about more than just gamifying education in the reward-happy marketing bandwagon sense.

(video link)

One of the first things Ian talked about is his own experience implementing a game-like grading system.  Even though he is decidedly against that marketer's idea of gamification I alluded to earlier, he figured he'd try two ways of making grades seem more interesting.

First, he tried making the final grade out of a million points, giving something like 50,000 for each assignment.  This made the points more like what you might see in a game, but otherwise did not affect the grading system.

Second, he had everyone's grades start from perfect, but used the concept of 'health.'  He had a chart of hearts such that after you lost, say, three hearts, you'd move from an A+ to an A.  Lose four more and you'd be at an A-, and so on.  This was an interesting experiment since, as Ian mentioned, most similar approaches have students work up from a fail as they complete coursework, similar to  gaining XP.

The funny thing is that while even Ian didn't think this should work, it worked really well.  The students liked these schemes a lot.  He figures it has less to do with the idea of changing a grading system and more the fact that it was playful.

Turns out that playfulness is a really powerful idea that Ian was able to use in more than one context.  For example, instead of giving a standard formal final exam, he had his students design a game in groups within a two hour period.  It wasn't an easy challenge for them; they received new (and changing) constraints every fifteen minutes! But it made them relaxed, so Ian was able to evaluate them based on their true knowledge, not on what they could recall under stress.

I am really looking forward to trying some of the ideas in this video the next time I teach an undergraduate course.  I'm also looking at James Paul Gee's (and others') ideas about applying principles of game design to education very carefully.

Have you tried applying game design principles to your grading schemes or other areas of your courses (at any level, not just undergraduate)? What went well, and what didn't?

Bastion: Narrating Your Every Move

Who knew that having your every move narrated back to you could be so satisfying? Far from annoying, the compelling nature of the voice-overs in Bastion demonstrate once again that you don't need complex technology to produce a truly great storytelling experience.

Bastion box art obtained via Wikipedia

Right from the very start of the game, a rustic voice belonging to a sage old man describes your actions and the game world.  The wording would probably be suitable for a short story, it's that good.  Not only that, but it's varied enough that you don't feel like you hear the same thing over and over.

And the technology to make it happen? Certainly nothing complicated.  The logic would be pretty straightforward, especially given the constrained nature of the isometric 2D play space.  When the player falls off the edge, a related quip is spoken.  As the player moves into a certain area with predefined enemies, background on why he is there is given.  Small mementos left in the world can be gathered, and the player can ask for a piece of their back stories later on.

It doesn't hurt that the voice acting and, like Skyward Sword, the music are top notch.

Have you played some or all of Bastion? What was your experience? What other games have fantastic storytelling that was likely accomplished with relatively simple technology?

The Little Things Matter When Learning Math

I recently started tutoring someone for grade 11 college prep¹ math.  Our first topic was trigonometric equations for solving triangles.  When my student got stuck on solving a right triangle after finishing several problems involving more complex triangles, I was surprised.

110810-1240964-i by Waifer X

Turns out the problem was one of notation.  In most of the problems the student encountered, angles were labelled as A, B, C and the sides opposite those angles as a, b, c.  The formulas written down for right triangles, on the other hand, used theta (θ) as the angle and opposite (O), adjacent (A), and hypotenuse (H) for the sides.

So after getting used to one way of looking at angles, the student was stumped when faced with θ; they just weren't sure what they were solving for.  Once I explained that θ was another way of labelling angles, the rest was easy.

It really goes to show that the little things matter a lot when learning math.  If you don't have the language down pat, a little change like this can throw you off.  Although it would have been easy to make a formula sheet with consistent labelling of angles, it is something easily missed by a person with a long history with the language of math.

I imagine the same is true of computer science.  How often do we use multiple synonyms when teaching beginners how to program? How often are our students thrown off by terms that appear to be completely unrelated to them? Definitely something to watch out for.

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¹ This is a term used in the Ontario curriculum. College prep courses are intended for students who intend to take a college diploma program rather than pursue a university degree.

Help Design a Book for Computer Science Beginners

Bringing computer science to the masses is my passion, through education and outreach.  I've run mini-courses for girls, designed a video game, lead workshops for professional women, taught arts and social science students, and TA'ed for computer science students.  Now I have a chance to broaden my impact thanks to a professor named Binto George, who contacted me about a book he wanted to write.

Proofreading by Julia Manzerova

Our book is all about exploring what computer science is, and finding the beauty in it.  We're going to look at a variety of CS topics in everyday contexts.  We are taking extra care to make the content appealing to a wider audience, women included.  Our main targeted use is for non-major CS courses like the one I taught for arts and social science students, though we hope that many more people than that will enjoy it.

We recently put together a really short survey to help determine the best topics to focus on.  We would very much like to have your input on what you'd like to see.  We would very much appreciate the two or three minutes it would take for you to fill it in.

Survey for Computer Science Book

Thank you so much, and watch this space for periodic updates as the project progresses!

Celebrate HER

Serena and I were nominated for Celebrate HER.

Celebrate HER is an Ottawa-based gender inclusive non-profit organization. Our vision is to facilitate greater social responsibility within our community. Our goal is to raise funds for charities and programs supporting women in the Ottawa area. Our mission is to raise awareness of women’s issues, support local programming, and honour amazing woman making a difference in our community, locally and globally.

I'm quite pleased about this given the good company Serena and I are in.  For instance, right beside our profiles is that of Jennifer Flanagan, co-founder, president, and CEO of Actua, an awesome Canadian outreach organization.  Virtual Ventures at Carleton is part of Actua, which I've been volunteering with for a while.  Each year, I give a workshop on computer science to the girls' camps.

We were nominated thanks to our work on Girl Develop It Ottawa, but as you can see on my profile, my teaching and outreach in general are being celebrated.

This seems like a great opportunity to highlight the best of Ottawa, and I'm honoured to be a part of it!