Exploratory Learning Through
Educational Simulation & Games

Overall Course Themes

This course deals with aspects of the design process that are sometimes neglected. To design an instructional game well, you must be both systematic and intuitive, analytic and artistic. In mastering the ISD process, you've learned to handle the cognitive side of instruction (which, almost by definition, is the most important). In EDTEC 670, you'll also learn to deal with the affective side of instruction. Throughout the course we'll be addressing the questions: What makes some activities interesting or fun? How can we maximize enjoyment without sacrificing instructional quality? It's a difficult and fascinating challenge for any instructional designer.

A second major theme of the course involves the design of simulations. The questions that will dominate the second half of the course are these: How do we represent reality in a simulation? How do we balance simplicity, efficiency, and playability against realism, richness and complexity? These, too, are challenging design tasks.

Objectives

Upon completing this course, you'll be able to:

1. Explain selected psychological theories and models useful to describe motivational and affective aspects of instruction. The models will include the following: Keller's ARCS model; Csikszentmihalyi's flow model; Malone & Lepper's intrinsic motivation taxonomy.
   
   
2. Explain selected frameworks developed by master practitioners to analyze and design games and game-like experiences. These will include Schell's game design lenses, gamification strategies, and guidelines developed specifically for board games.
   
   
3. Analyze a situation that is currrently not engaging to its participants and apply principles of motivational design and gamification to it to improve it.
   
   
4. Design an educational board game that is flexible and effective, and document its rules, physical attributes, context of use, rationale, and variations.
   
   
5. Create face-to-face simulations, role plays and other activities designed to build social cohesion among learners and convey understanding of complex content.
   
   
6. Design and document an online educational experience and describe the motivational principles at work in the design.
   
   
7. Reflect on and explain the design processes you use in creating motivating educational products and experiences.

Course Schedule

Much of the work of the class will be done on your own schedule, either solo or in teams. Unless otherwise noted below, both sections meets synchronously at Mondays at 4pm. Our first class meeting will take place using Wimba via Blackboard. After that, we'll use Google Hangouts on Air for whole class meetings and Google Hangouts for small group meetings. You'll need a Google account (not necessarily a gmail account) to participate. Additional meeting times will be scheduled with subsets of the class later in the semester.

This will be taught as a flipped class. That is, most new information will be given to you in the form of readings, recorded presentations and solo exercises to be done ahead of time. We'll use our synchronous time together for discussion and activities that take advantage of having dozens of great brains all in one virtual place, not for lectures.

This class will also be deeply involved with EDTEC's Learning DesignLAB, a system through which we engage with external clients to develop class projects based on authentic problems.

This class will make use of a strategy called Team-Based Learning. You'll be assigned to a team after the first class and will stay with the same team throughout the course.

Week	Date	In-Class Activities	Post-Class Homework
1	Aug 27	Course Overview and Introduction	Buy the books (see new info below about getting them free through SDSU) If Wimba is new to you, read this guide. Introduce yourself with a 2 minute YouTube video Complete this Form Email bdodge@gmail.com the URL of your YouTube video and the Google Account you'll be using for group work. Read Chapters 1 - 7 of Keller
2	Sept 10	Session will be held using Google Hangout on Air. Nine attendees can participate with video, the rest can watch. Please use text chat to ask questions, make (polite) comments, etc, using our private Chatzy room. Understanding the ARCS model Archives Part 1 | Part 2	Read Chapters 8 - 10 of Keller View last year's conversation with John Keller. Look over the video introduction and favorite games of your classmates.
3	Sept 17	Attention & Relevance MDD Assignment Overview Team Formation Archive	DUE: Email Bernie your team's preference for an MDD project. Describe the content, learners, and context and the extent to which you will have access to the materials, instructor and info from learners.
4	Sept 24	Conversation with Cara Gillette, from our DesignLab partner Nan McKay & Associates. Explore and admire the team gSites. Discussion of the ARCS Model and the Motivational Design process for your MDD (Chapters 8-10) Review of the MDD Template Archive Part 1 | Part 2	Finish the Keller book Read Chapter 1 - 4 of Gamification Explore these Gamification links from Dianne Rees (EDTEC '12) Complete Worksheets 1-3 and attach the Worksheet Document to your team site.
TEAM SITES		Amuzgo BriBri Chaga Duala Embera Mende
5	Oct 1	Peer sharing of MDDs in progress (Worksheets 1-3) Gamification Exercise Today's slides	Read Chapter 5 - 8 of Gamification Complete Worksheets 4-6. Read Alfonso Gonzalez on the gamification of his science class Study this list of game mechanics from gamification.org and see what you can apply to your MDD project. View Sebastian Deterling's critical view of gamification
6	Oct 8	Gamification discussion Team meetings w/Bernie	Complete Worksheets 7-8 DUE: Draft Motivational Design Document
7	Oct 15	NOTE: First part of class will take place in Wimba. After a break, we'll reconvene in WizIQ. Guest discussion with James Sanders discussing his startup ClassBadges.com Board Game Design Assignment Project Possibilities	Read pp 1 - 74 of Schell Watch Board Games 101 and 2 reviews on Scott Nicholson's site Explore: Cardboard Cognition Team project selection Consider going to the ISPI session on Gamification on Thursday
8	Oct 22	WizIQ Link Want to volunteer for free registration at SDCUE 2012? Let me know ASAP! Team Assignments and First Contact Board Game Design	Complete Board Game Analysis Worksheet 1 Read pp 75 - 120 of Schell
9	Oct 29	DUE: Final Motivational Design Document No class meeting. 30 minute meetings with Board Game teams. Make an appointment to Hangout with +Bernie Dodge.	Continue working on your board game design and on Board Game Worksheet 2
10	Nov 5	Meet in WizIQ DUE: Board Game Design Worksheet 2 for peer feedback. Links are to Analysis (Worksheet 1) and Design (Worksheet 2) Amuzgo - Ratio & Proportion [A][D] BriBri - Citizenship Test Prep [A] [D] Chaga - Restaurant Management [A][D] Duala - Pharmaceutical Approval [A][D] Embera - ALI [A][D] Mende - Patient Access Reps [A][D] In class activity: examine some existing games looking for interesting mechanics and share what you found on this document.	Meet with Bernie Thurs - Sat Read pp 121 - 170 of Schell
11	Nov 12	Veteran's Day. Campus is closed. Set up a 30-minute meeting with Bernie.	Work on playtesting with a rough prototype.
12	Nov 19	DUE: Board Game Design Document Final version. Materials uploaded to Game Crafter. Optional Team Work Session with Instructor. No class meeting.	Finalize Board Game Documentation
13	Nov 26	Playtesting - Checklist (View slides and apply it to the playtesting of your board game)	Meet with Bernie Wed/Thu/Fri Find something interesting in the GLS 8.0 Proceedings to discuss next week
14	Dec 3	PLE: A system for your own ongoing learning about game design. Example. Current issues on learning game design discussion Country Cats Corral: A case study in e-game design	Post final versions of MDD, Board Game documents and your PLEs to your team Google Site. Post relevant PLE inputs to the discussion forum
15	Dec 11	Project Showcase Game night @ Bernie's

Readings

There are several required books for the course which may be ordered online by clicking on the link below. The campus bookstore at SDSU will not be stocking these books.

• Keller, J. M. (2010). Motivational design for learning and performance: The ARCS model approach. New York: Springer. [Available electronically to those on campus through SpringerLink]
• Schell, J. (2008).The art of game design: A book of lenses. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
• Zichermann, G., Cunningham, C. (2011). Gamification by design: Implementing game mechanics. Sausalito, CA: O'Reilly. [Available online to SDSU students with a library PIN through ProQuest.]

An additional set of readings is available online in the Course Documents portion of our Blackboard site. It includes the following articles:

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.
  Chapter 4: The conditions of flow
• Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.). Aptitude, learning and instruction. Volume 3: Conative and affective process analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

An optional book you might want to read during the course if you're particularly interested in board games is:

• Costikyan, G. & Davidson, D. (2011). Tabletop: Analog Game Design. Feedbooks.

You can download the book without illustrations for free. The paper version includes pictures that make the concepts much clearer.

In addition to the readings, you'll be making use of Cardboard Cognition, a resource created by previous generations of EDTEC 670 students. Cardboard Cognition is a compendium of dozens of educational card and board game designs.

Grading

Your final grade will be determined by your performance a motivational design intervention for an existing course, the design of an educational board game, and participation in discussions about readings.

Knowledge base contributions will be graded individually. All three design projects will be team efforts. Each individual on the team will be graded separately, though the overall performance of the team will have an influence over individual grades. It behooves you, therefore, to put some energy into team building in order to maximize everyone's success. The projects will be weighted as follows:

This is a graduate level course. Grading performance in an amorphous area like game design is not easy, but not impossible either. Please keep in mind the following definitions of grading standards from the SDSU Graduate Catalog:

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