An Example of a Gamefied Ethics and Values Course

Because of the prolific amount of writing and research I have been doing on gamification recently, I decided gamifying a public schooling course would be a good exercise in testing the boundaries, limitations, and even some of the strengths of the approach. And just to make the exercise as educational as possible, I chose to design an college-level ethics and values course.

So, why an Ethics course?

The answer is quite simple really, a college-level Ethics course hits my 3 major requirement for this exercise: (1) It is a commonly required course that a lot of people have taken before; (2) it challenges the criticism of gamification’s ability to improve knowledge-based courses (i.e. gamification is belived to only be effective with skill-based courses and not academic or philosophical courses), and (3) that it assesses whether or not gamification can be applied to advanced (college-level) courses and higher-level learning.

That having been said, let me quickly describe my college ethics and values class (hereto referred to as the Old Model):

We met three times a week for class “discussion” and lecture. 90% of the class interactions were lecture, and only occasionally was anything opened up to discussion. Then, at the end of the semester, we were required to turn in a 15-page paper on whether or not civil disobedience could be morally or ethically justified. Yep, that was it.

And so, with the painful memory of the Old Model fresh in my mind, I set out to see if gamification could really change this dusty and decrepit educational model into a more effective course.
 

Photo Credit: Flickr User WCN247 via Creative Commons

First, I had a conversation with an ethics professor that I had a closer relationship with, in order to gain a more intimate knowledge of the essential message and objective of your standard college-level ethics course, and how it could be approached from various angles. Interestingly enough, I learned that Ethics 101 is a course designed to help students realize that decisions carry consequences, so many of which cannot be immediately felt or understood in order to help the student realize that they should probably adopt some type of ethical code of conduct to improve the well-being of other people around them and to prevent their life decisions from sabotaging future progression, improvement, and happiness of both the individual and the human family. Which is about when the realization hit me like a ton of bricks: Fable. 

 For those of you who may not be entirely entrenched in video game culture, Fable was a game released in 2004 where the choices of the player impacted how others reacted and (in part) how the entire video game progressed. That is to say, the style of haircut you choose for your character would affect how the people he was around treated him, and while it certainly was not the first game to explore the consequences of decisions, it was the one that came to mind when I thought of “gamifying” my ethics and values course.

So with that background as a springboard, I went about reinventing the standard, college-level ethics and values course.

And, after about four-or-so more hours of careful consideration and design, this is what my Ethics and Values course looked like:

1.       Lecture and Discussion (Once a week): While I tried my best to do so, ultimately eliminating the lecture altogether seemed damaging to the course as a whole. This allows the professor to ensure that the proper tools for completing the course are being delivered equally to each student. However, I would make the following improvement to the lecture:

a.       meet much less frequently

b.      facilitate discussion by allowing students to text in sensitive answers and thoughts as well as vocalize them, and post the running response board at the front of the classroom so that all involved can see, thus further pushing an atmosphere of discussion.

2.       Small group discussions (Once a week): For this portion of the course, 3-5 students meet virtually with the guidance of a teacher’s assistant to systematically face 4 narrative scenarios requiring them to make an ethical or moral judgment, and the teacher’s assistant chooses one scenario at random for which the consequences of the students’ collective decision (within the narrative scenario) become permanent. These consequences (loss of limb, intense fear of heights, etc.) are then recorded and held by the student for future use.

3.       Personal Decision Navigation (Once a Week): For homework, the students are required to face a series of five narrative scenarios, presented to them as a text word problem, describing an ethical or moral dilemma, wherein they must provide a decision of action, write 3 paragraphs defending their decision, and then receive the consequences (assigned to them by their peers) for each of those decisions and have them recorded for future use in the final assignment)

4.       Final paper (last week of class): Each student must write a final paper, thoroughly exploring how the consequences of all previous decisions (even those made by the group) would affect them in major life events and decisions, such as marriage, parenthood, or career. This paper is completed with the assistance of a teacher’s assistant, and demonstrates whether or not the student has gained the proper understanding of consequences as they relate to ethics and values.

It became clear to me while designing this course (of which this is just a summary) that gamification had a lot to offer even the most ambiguous and abstract of courses, if each change was carefully evaluated and assessed along the way. One of the major pitfalls that I encountered again and again was my own internal desire to turn education into a game at the cost of the education. My own desire to make education sexier continually got the better of me, and I was forced to re-evaluate and change my course design again.

How do you think I did? Leave comments and criticism of my “gamified” course in the comment section below.