1 Introduction
Learning Design (LD) is a strand in educational research and practice that has emerged from the rationale of helping educators to demonstrate and to share their ideas about teaching and learning (Nguyen et al.,
2020). According to Wasson and Kirschner (
2020), “the advent of information and communication technologies for learning has moved the focus of learning design from just the learning materials and their sequences […] or a learning artefact (e.g., a content management system), to the learning environment as a whole” (p.816). LD has been defined as “a descriptive framework for teaching and learning activities” (Dalziel,
2015, p.4). However, to date much of the work on LD has been either focusing on prescriptive approaches of how LD
should be, or on representations of LDs in formats that are interpretable by computers (Muñoz-Cristóbal et al.,
2018). Recently, the emphasis has shifted away from the representation of LDs per se to the process of eliciting such representations from tutors; a shift that signifies teaching as a design practice (Mor et al.,
2015; Muñoz-Cristóbal et al.,
2018) that could be studied through participatory design approaches which actively involve the main stakeholders of higher education (Flynn et al.,
2018). As highlighted by Viberg et al. (
2018), as “the integration of digital technologies in higher education continuous to increase, there is a need to understand how to best support university teachers of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) in order to support students to achieve academic success” (p.2637). Researchers also stress that empowering teachers/instructors as designers is a challenging task (Wasson & Kirschner,
2020). In the Scandinavian context, researchers underline a close association between design and use, when designing for a future use situation (Bannon & Bødker,
1991).
Considering the existing gap of knowledge about how one can effectively support university teachers as designers of TEL (Viberg et al.,
2018), this study presents a participatory design approach towards LD for TEL. This approach seeks to actively engage its stakeholders (i.e., educators and students) in the TEL design process through Game-based learning (GBL), where GBL refers to the integration of gaming into learning experiences to increase engagement and motivation. Plass et al. (
2015) stress that definitions of GBL mention that it is a type of learning with defined learning outcomes; and that the design process of games for learning “involves balancing the need to cover the subject matter with the desire to prioritise game play” (p.259). According to Gaydos (
2015), research on educational games must develop ways to “share products and processes associated with design so that the community may reliably produce, use, and test educational games” (p. 480). This study aims to offer one of such ways.
Scholars underline that university teachers continue to strive to support the uptake and use of digital technologies in their teaching; and that design, collaboration, and sharing of TEL solutions is important for the advancement of the application of digital technologies in higher education (Lindqvist,
2019). The game presented in this study was created to support such processes as design, collaboration, and sharing of TEL solutions. Furthermore, students can take an important role in informing how TEL activities could be designed and implemented in higher education (Gros & López,
2016). In the co-design process, it is critical to involve other people who “may be directly or indirectly affected by the outcome of a project. In TEL, co-design has proved to be useful in fostering stakeholders’ [students and teachers] engagement, collaboration, and empowerment” (Durall et al.,
2020, p.203). Yet, opportunities for students to contribute as co-designers of TEL activities have so far been scarce (Gros & López,
2016), with few exceptions (e.g., Garcia et al.,
2018). To address this gap, we involved students and teachers in the co-design process.
The following research questions have been posed:
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the background section discusses the value of GBL, other existing LD tools or approaches, and the use of cards for TEL design-related issues. Section
3 presents the game design, its cards, and its rules. The methodology section focuses on the instrument used, the profile of the participants and on processes of data collection and analysis. Next, main results from the evaluation of the designed game are presented. Finally, the paper concludes by proposing recommendations for educators who aim to adopt the card game in their teaching as well as design guidelines for LD systems, and discusses the results to spur further reflections on LD for TEL in higher education.
6 Discussion
This paper introduced a card game and the associated workshop format, presented the conceptions of the participants, and illustrated a typical example of the outputs of the game from one group of participants to show whether the game can be used as a means of eliciting knowledge regarding co-designing TEL activities. In particular, as a means of capturing the components of a ‘bad’ and a ‘good’ TEL scenario, and a justification of why a selected scenario is good or bad.
The results have shown that the goals of the offered game were clear to the participants at a great extent, and the instructions of the game were moderately understandable for the participants, in the sense that at the beginning some of them (10 out of 36 participants) felt somewhat confused. Also, some (11 participants) mentioned that more time was needed. Yet, the majority of the participants (22 participants) seemed to appreciate the social aspect of the game, since they thought that it promoted teamwork (nine participants), collaboration (three participants), communication (three participants), interaction within the groups (three participants), and sharing of different views (three participants). Moreover, fun and creativity were also mentioned by a small number of participants (three participants for each concept). In total, one could argue that, according to the participants’ views, the game promotes in a playful manner the application of twenty-first century skills in combination with the design of TEL activities. Finally, the workshop format also enabled data collection which can help towards documenting the TEL scenarios of the groups.
These findings are in line with the work of Burkey et al. (
2017) who claimed that the participants of their GBL approach showed increased interest and engagement. In addition, they are in line with the case of the GRASP approach in the sense that both approaches encouraged participation and collaboration in conjunction with LD for TEL. Furthermore, as in the case of Buchner and Kerres (
2020) who introduced a card game that employ Augmented Reality for Computer Science education, the findings herein also revolve around extended communication and collaboration among the game players. Finally, the proposed approach presents an alternative and joyful solution for the facilitation of team-based LD that supports the co-creation of LDs not via the use of computerised environments (as in the case of the ‘Ld-shake’ and the ‘Educational Design Studio’ software tools), but via an ‘analog’ (i.e. physical) game.
7 Conclusion
LD aims to help educators to describe and to share their ideas, but much of the work on LD for TEL has been focusing either on prescriptive approaches on how LD should be, or on the representations of learning designs in formats that are interpretable by computers (Muñoz-Cristóbal et al.,
2018). Recently, the emphasis has shifted to the process of eliciting representations from tutors, i.e., a phenomenon that could be studied organically through participatory design approaches that actively involve the main stakeholders of higher education (Flynn et al.,
2018).
Furthermore, there are several frameworks and tools that provide support for the conceptualization and the design phase in the lifecycle of TEL activities. However, only a few of them cater for collaborative design and to our knowledge, none of them is promoting GBL. GBL is important since research has shown that it can promote engagement among the participants, which is crucial in the case of designing TEL activities. According to the literature, involving stakeholders in this process has been difficult and the adoption of LD approaches for TEL suggested by researchers has been low so far. Todorova and Moffat (
2016) argue that games should be part of university curricula and that we should look at how to include them to positively affect students’ learning.
With respect to these two main aforementioned challenges, this study has presented a participatory design approach for TEL that seeks to elicit LD representations and solutions by actively engage its participants, i.e., university tutors and students, through GBL. In particular, the main questions were focusing on a) the perceptions of the participants about the game and b) whether it can be used for the purposes of eliciting learning design solutions in TEL. The game suggested herein actively engages these stakeholders in the processes of designing, collaborating on, and sharing of TEL solutions. Through the suggested workshop format, university tutors and students have the opportunity to contribute as co-designers of TEL activities, since the workshop format involves them into working together in groups in a playful manner to co-design TEL micro-scenarios/activities. The workshop format can be used by tutor trainers (e.g faculty trainers, school teacher trainers) in order to understand the participants’ design choices when they are acting spontaneously in a design space full of possibilities, without any supervision or guidance that embeds prescriptive guidelines for TEL. This can be used for instance, as a diagnostic tool for the faculty trainer in the context of a professional development program or for stakeholders that are interested in mechanisms that give voice to students and promote their role as co-designers (e.g., TEL experts and instructional designers, university tutors).
The study also could be considered in terms of offering new and alternative suggestions for TEL researchers, practitioners and systems builders. In particular, the literature suggests that collaborative approaches that support the co-creation of LDs are limited to a few software tools. Although the effectiveness of these tools has been empirically tested, none of them supports GBL. Yet, it emerged from the findings that a GBL approach could sustain engagement in the co-creation of LDs. This study is unique in the sense that it provides empirical evidence to that. In contrast, the GRASP approach is similar but no empirical evidence was found in the literature for it. Thus, an ensuing recommendation would be to focus future efforts on enhancing the already existing LD collaborative systems by embedding GBL to them or to build new software tools, and test them empirically. In doing that, one should be careful with respect to the clarity of the game rules and the time allocated to play the game, as it emerged from the findings.
Limitations of this study pertain to the small number of participants, which in turn has an impact to the generalisability of the results. Yet, no unanticipated challenges emerged during the workshop. Also, that the study is based on self-reported data which can contain possible sources of bias. Future plans include finetuning the workshop format so that it has a longer duration and to run the workshop again with a larger audience. In general, since there is a limited number of games for TEL, more research is needed on how games can be designed and used for the purpose of eliciting from the participants learning design solutions in TEL, or for similar purposes. Furthermore, the authors invite other researchers to use the cards and the game in their own relevant educational settings.
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