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While we can hope that this Tuesday won’t bring “something awful,” we must recognize that it will likely feel even more charged than 2008 or 2016. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about how to best support my students following this year’s election.
Published on Leave a comment on So Restless Indeed
The title for this blog post comes from Arcadia's song "Election Day," which has nothing whatsoever to do with the American political system. However, a 2021 study suggests that listening to 80s pop music can be an effective means of lowering anxiety.

Election Day in the U.S. is Tuesday, November 5—and it’s safe to say that most Americans are not only well aware of that fact but are also bracing for the emotionally charged days likely to follow. I’ve been reflecting on how to approach those expectations in my class next week.

I began teaching at Xavier in the fall of 2007, so I recall teaching on Wednesday, November 5, 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected; I also remember teaching on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump’s election. On both occasions, I was unprepared for the strong emotions expressed by my students. Both times, I ended up setting aside my planned activities to give students an opportunity to share what they were feeling. Was that the right decision? I’m not entirely sure. But in both instances, students seemed to appreciate my willingness to create a space for discussion.

According to Huston & DiPietro (2007), when responding to a stressful event, “an instructor’s response need not be complicated, time intensive, or even personalized.” Their study focused on faculty responses to collective tragedies, but their findings apply to other situations that bring up intense emotions. Students in their study often reported frustration when faculty ignored a major event and gratitude when instructors acknowledged that something impactful had occurred.

While we can hope that this Tuesday won’t bring “something awful,” we must recognize that it will likely feel even more charged than 2008 or 2016. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about how to best support my students following this year’s election.

The Center for Teaching Excellence at Boston College encourages faculty to consider several factors when planning post-election classes:

  • Your comfort level: What are you comfortable discussing with students? Self-care is essential. Avoid engaging in topics that may elevate your own stress.
  • Student burnout: Are students able to engage in discussion? This has been a long, complex election year. Students might not have the cognitive or emotional energy to process the results immediately.
  • Connection to learning: How does this fit with the course content? For some students, discussing the election results might be more meaningful if there’s a clear link to course objectives.
  • Classroom community: How might this fit within your classroom’s culture? By now, you probably have a good sense of how your students engage with one another and their comfort level in discussing sensitive topics.

If any of these factors lead you to decide against dedicating an entire class to the election results, the team at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) at the University of Michigan suggests a few smaller steps faculty can take:

  • Acknowledge the situation. By openly recognizing the election, we show students that we understand its impact on them. Huston & DiPietro (2007) found that students felt more unsettled when faculty didn’t respond to significant events at all.
  • Make learning adjustments. When students are stressed, their ability to learn can suffer. Consider temporarily easing your expectations. As Jin (2017) points out, external stressors can greatly hinder a student’s capacity to engage and retain new information.
  • Share campus resources. Most faculty aren’t trained as therapists, as Field (2023) reminds us. Sometimes the best support we can offer is to connect students with campus resources.

This election year, I won’t be in class on Wednesday, but I’ll let students know that they’re welcome to stop by my office for coffee and a friendly conversation. I’ll also be reducing the workload for the week, to give everyone a little more space to process the results—whatever they may be.

References

Published on Leave a comment on ICYMI: Why Use Gamification in your Courses?

backgammon game board

Gamification is making a boring process interesting by using fun elements from games. Gamification is not the same as playing a game. Educators have been using gamification even before there was an official term for it.

Yu-kai Chou (2015) defines gamification as:

The craft of deriving fun and engaging elements found typically in games and thoughtfully applying them to real-world or productive activities.

Why Use Gamification?

Clearly gamification is a motivation tool. So why would you take the time to set-up a gamification component to your courses? In an LearnDash blog post Justin Ferriman lists some benefits of gamification to consider. Those benefits are:

  • Provides Instant Feedback – Learners receive instant feedback on their understanding of the course content. This instant feedback highlights what they need to spend more time reviewing.
  • Prompts Change in Behavior – The ability to earn points and badges reinforces certain behaviors. Cashing in the points and badges for something tangible or real makes this even more true.
  • Better Learning Experience – Gamifiying a course offers the opportunity for learners to engage with the content in various ways.
  • Safe To Fail – Gamification can incorporate the “loss” of a reward instead of earning a reward. Making it safe for learners to fail and to learn from their mistakes.

What is considered as fun in games?

Winning or beating an opponent is an obvious answer. However, pleasure is also derived from activities such as:

  • problem-solving
  • exploring
  • creating
  • imagining
  • collecting
  • role-playing
  • collaborating
  • simply chilling out

What gaming elements can be used in the learning process?

Gamification strategies include elements such as gamifying grading, incentivizing students with rewards and adding competitive elements such as leaderboards. From the non-exhaustive list of gaming components and mechanics, here are a few from a Bright Classroom Ideas blog post by Savas Savides, which can be particularly useful to educators:

  • Narrative - Nothing can beat a well-told captivating story, whether you are a child or an adult. Text, audio, video, cartoon, they all have the same denominator: a storyline.
  • Progression - Learners need to know they are acquiring skills and getting better. Student portfolios and ‘can-do’ statements help them reflect on their own learning.
  • Challenges - Tasks should be easy enough to tackle, but hard enough to challenge and motivate. And, following the previous point on progression, they should have a gradually rising level of difficulty.
  • Competition - Motivates students to perform better. Through competition, students not only do what is required to accomplish the required goals, but also do the best they can do. Competition allows the students to come forward with better ideas and clearly highlight their skills in front of their teacher and classmates. Competition is closely linked to rewards.
  • Cooperation - Apart from competing against each other, students also like working together. Never miss an opportunity to form pairs or groups to work on a project. It is more fun than working alone.
  • Rewards - With tangible rewards there is always the danger that they may substitute for the intrinsic motivation. It is better to use intangible rewards (e.g. points). Remember that the game is ultimately its own reward.
  • Win States - When the outcome is a winner.
  • Achievements - Create tangible things that serve as proof of student achievement. They can be certificates, posters, photos, videos etc.
  • Badges - Another tangible proof of individual achievement. They can be stickers, stamps, even your own drawings on the board.
  • Leaderboards - A classification of all learners-participants according to their performance. A really powerful motivational tool.
  • Points - Instant intangible rewards that help create leaderboards.
  • Teams - Either working with each other in a team or cooperating to beat another team, students can overcome shyness and benefit immensely.

A well-designed gamified course can grab and keep students’ attention, improve students’ knowledge retention, and improve students’ overall success in the course. Gamification may not suit everyone. But for those who use it, the benefits of gamification can be substantial.

For more information on gamification, check out these resources:

Image credit: image by Al Buettner from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #49: Robert Duke on Optimizing Student Learning

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Robert Duke

A conversation with Dr. Robert Duke of UT-Austin, on optimizing student learning.

Links for this episode:

...continue reading "Conversation #49: Robert Duke on Optimizing Student Learning"

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Published on 1 Comment on The End of the Deadline?

By Jay Todd

Photo of a parking meter that says, FAIL, instead of 0.
"Parking Meter Fail" by Jeramey Jannene / CC BY 2.0

I'll be honest: I can't remember the last time I penalized a student for turning in a late assignment. I used to be very strict about this. I was taught, in fact, to be very strict about deadlines. Make your policy clear in your syllabus and never deviate from it, I was told. Don't let the students take advantage. So I used to deduct one letter grade for each day a major assignment was late. Small assignments couldn't be late at all.

At some point though, I started to wonder about the effectiveness of this approach. Mostly, I started to worry, as a writing teacher, that I was hindering good writing by making the deadline some important. A few times, because of my clearly stated policy, I had to give an A paper -- I mean a truly excellent paper -- a C, simply because it was late.

I still have a policy in my syllabus that says, clearly, that a deadline is a deadline, but I follow that up with a statement that says, "If you anticipate having difficulty meeting a deadline, please speak to me about it." Basically, to an astute reader, I'm negating my policy right there.

Ellen Boucher discusses this a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: It's Time to Ditch Our Deadlines. Her new policy is that all assignments come with an automatic two-day grace period. If a student needs still more time, all that's required is a meeting. As a result, she says, she's seen higher quality work and less stress from her students. She makes a good argument, especially by focusing on how this helps under-prepared college students.

I should say though that so far, I've only taken this approach with big assignments -- essays and research papers. Daily homework, quizzes, and such still come with fairly rigid deadlines.

4

Published on 4 Comments on Why Use Gamification in your Courses?

by Janice Florent

game board

Gamification is making a boring process interesting by using fun elements from games. Gamification is not the same as playing a game. Educators have been using gamification even before there was an official term for it.

Yu-kai Chou (2015) defines gamification as:

The craft of deriving fun and engaging elements found typically in games and thoughtfully applying them to real-world or productive activities.

Why Use Gamification?

Clearly gamification is a motivation tool. So why would you take the time to set-up a gamification component to your courses? In an LearnDash blog post Justin Ferriman lists some benefits of gamification to consider. Those benefits are:

  • Provides Instant Feedback – learners instantly receive feedback on their understanding of the course content which in turn highlights what they need to spend more time reviewing.
  • Prompts Change in Behavior – Certain behaviors are reinforced by granting learners the ability to earn points and badges. This is even more true if these points and badges can be “cashed in” for something tangible or real.
  • Better Learning Experience – Gamification offers the opportunity for learners to engage with the content in various ways.
  • Safe To Fail – Gamification isn’t always about rewards but can also incorporate the “loss” of a reward. This makes it safe for people to fail and to learn from those mistakes.

What is considered as fun in games?

Winning or beating an opponent is an obvious answer. However, pleasure is also derived from activities such as:

  • problem-solving
  • exploring
  • creating
  • imagining
  • collecting
  • role-playing
  • collaborating
  • simply chilling out

What gaming elements can be used in the learning process?

Gamification strategies include elements such as gamifying grading, incentivizing students with rewards and adding competitive elements such as leaderboards. From the non-exhaustive list of gaming components and mechanics, here are a few from a Bright Classroom Ideas blog post by Savas Savides, which can be particularly useful to educators:

  • Narrative - Nothing can beat a well-told captivating story, whether you are a child or an adult. Text, audio, video, cartoon, they all have the same denominator: a storyline.
  • Progression - Learners need to know they are acquiring skills and getting better. Student portfolios and ‘can-do’ statements help them reflect on their own learning.
  • Challenges - Tasks should be easy enough to tackle, but hard enough to challenge and motivate. And, following the previous point on progression, they should have a gradually rising level of difficulty.
  • Competition - Motivates students to perform better. Through competition, students not only do what is required to accomplish the required goals, but also do the best they can do. Competition allows the students to come forward with better ideas and clearly highlight their skills in front of their teacher and classmates. Competition is closely linked to rewards.
  • Cooperation - Apart from competing against each other, students also like working together. Never miss an opportunity to form pairs or groups to work on a project. It is more fun than working alone.
  • Rewards - With tangible rewards there is always the danger that they may substitute for the intrinsic motivation. It is better to use intangible rewards (e.g. points). Remember that the game is ultimately its own reward.
  • Win States - When the outcome is a winner.
  • Achievements - Create tangible things that serve as proof of student achievement. They can be certificates, posters, photos, videos etc.
  • Badges - Another tangible proof of individual achievement. They can be stickers, stamps, even your own drawings on the board.
  • Leaderboards - A classification of all learners-participants according to their performance. A really powerful motivational tool.
  • Points - Instant intangible rewards that help create leaderboards.
  • Teams - Either working with each other in a team or cooperating to beat another team, students can overcome shyness and benefit immensely.

A well-designed gamified course can grab and keep students’ attention, improve students’ knowledge retention, and improve students’ overall success in the course. Gamification may not suit everyone. But for those who use it, the benefits of gamification can be substantial.

Image credit: image by Skitterphoto from Pixabay