Game On!

Last Updated on: October 31, 2026

Christi talks about gamification

I am excited about the first presentation of the morning for the University of Wyoming Technology Bootcamp. Christi Boggs, Meg Van Baalen-Wood, and Karen Williams will be discussion gamification in education.

Instructors and trainers in all areas are talking about how to effectively integrate games into courses, how to make courses more game-like and how games can improve education. In this session, we will describe how we used several pillars of game theory to redesign our own courses, complete with epic wins and fails!

Bringing Game Principles Into the Classroom

Christi explains why she added game elements to her course. She wanted to lead by example. When first thinking about gamifying a class, she felt she could not compete with professional games.

I read a book called Reality is Broken in the eLearning Guild. Games do not have to be really complex. They can be simple and get the instructional principle across. Your class is already a game, just a badly designed one. Classes and games both have points. There are obstacles and barriers in both games and classes. Students must overcome instructors, who serve as the big boss, to achieve the “A.” Students adapt to beat the boss. We don’t normally give them all the rules or resources they need to succeed.

Failure is an option. Do-overs are an option. Normally, we only give one attempt. In a game-like environment, you have multiple lives.

Resources help you achieve more. As instructors, we need to keep providing resources. The tasks must lead to new knowledge. The “Boss,” also known as the instructor, is a resource for the class.

Choice is an important factor. The students had choices of assignments. How could they complete the assignments? With choice, students feel they have some control over the situation and what happened to them. Christi provided activity and path choices, time, and topic.

Organizing Learning Into Quests

Chisti outlined her course. She provided 5 quests worth 200 points for 1,000 points. Each quest has around 300 points. She only counted 200 points from each quest toward the grade. One to two required elements per quest, which required mastery (70%) to progress. Students could resubmit as many times as they wished. Students worked through the course at their own pace. Results: Students were completing 280-300 points while only needing 200 points.

Supporting Mastery Through Feedback and Resubmission

Karen talked about the courses they used for gamification. The principles they are using are not discipline-specific. Karen recommends the book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Karen points out that a good game lets you explore and lets you find resources on your own. A game allows you to try. In a game, there is support. We need to bring this to the classroom. Instructors need to be a resource and a support. Karen and Christi maintain robust and rigorous rubrics. They provide feedback so that the students can try again. They provided a suggested pace for completing their quests. More students earned higher grades. Because the students could redo work, grading for the instructor was easier. It was easier to be critical. It was easier to maintain a rigorous rubric. Students felt the course set them up for success.

Karen discusses the challenges. She mentioned some students waited until the last minute to turn in work. The online system did not maintain grades as they wanted them .

Karen mentioned that she felt less overwhelmed in grading and providing feedback for most of the course assignments. She felt she gave more meaningful and timely feedback. She had more dialogue with her students than in traditional courses.

Think Tanks

Meg talks about her experiences

Meg talked about her course and the demographics of her students. She prepares students to write in the workplace. When she first thought about gamification, she initially thought, “No way.” In a traditional class, she felt like a timekeeper and a barrier in the classroom. Meg says she is not a game player. She implemented game principles with terminology appropriate jargon for the discipline. Her approach included choice, resubmission, etc. She used project units where students could choose projects. Instead of discussions, she had “think tanks.” The grade point average was higher for the gamified course than for other courses. She did not collect required drafts but experienced a higher number of students turning in draft papers. She saw greater improvement in writing in her course.

Meg’s course had 5 units, and a required task in each unit with an array of optional tasks. Students could participate in several activities.

Meg had three major themes: community, ownership, and perception of the instructor.

Community

Over half the class granted permission to use their work as examples. Students noticed and appreciated the sense of community in the class. Students thought about community when participating in the “think tanks.” Meg experienced uniformly successful collaborations in group projects. They used wikis to complete their work as a group.

Ownership

Eleven out of 21 students spoke about time management and planning. Students spoke about project planning needs. Meg learned new strategies for working with revisions. She saw great work and was tired by other work.

Perceptions of instructor

Meg received comments from students who saw her as a valuable mentor. This was the first online course where students asked her for a recommendation. In this class, she received two.

Limitations or lessons learned

Students unfamiliar with course design and the lack of structure. Students were anxious. Meg was anxious about students finishing. She found it challenging to handle pacing and grading. She was no longer in control of the class. It was difficult for her to see an assignment in week eight that students should have submitted in week three. She wants to do more scaffolding in a future course. She also wants to explain to her students what a useful revision is and what is a waste of time. Christi required more mastery for completed class assignments.

“You cannot fail this class unless you CHOOSE to.” ~ student.

Karen said she could be more playful in the course. As a result, the students were more playful and had fun in the class.

Additional Reading

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