Gamification

Introduction to Pedagogy Module DIT

Week 3

*I have left out people’s names so as to respect their privacy.

Description:

I had a meeting this morning with my two PhD supervisors. It was arranged about a week ago to catch up, check in, and see how things were going after the summer holidays. It took place in Room 1 in the National Optometry Centre (NOC), which is the Topcon room, so there are many students and patients coming in and out using the fundus camera, OCT, visual fields etc... It is quite a busy room. It is also where I see my patients for my Demodex trial.

Everyone was in good form, well settled back into the swing of things now. There were several items on the agenda to be discussed. Top of the list was a research grant proposal which we had just been told about the evening before that had a 5pm deadline for the same day, so we were under pressure to get that finalised and sent away.

We also needed to discuss the Pedagogy module, I raised my concerns about not doing any demonstrating and they agreed that it would be beneficial for me to get some element of experience while I am taking the module. It was decided that I should help A.* – one of my supervisors’ when she is working with the final year students on their final year projects. These tutorials are timetabled to take place every second week and the topics of each tutorial is decided by the students, so it will be based around what they feel they need to understand/ know more about.

Feelings:

I was feeling good about the meeting. I was looking forward to it. Since people were away and busy over the summer we had not had a chance to meet up in person. It had been a very busy summer for me as well as I had written my first paper and submitted it to a journal, and I was busy trying to recruit patients’ for the next phase of the study. We had a lot to catch up on.

Before we the summer holidays we had had a meeting at which V.* had asked me to put together a time-plan for the next few months. Something to work off to try to keep myself on track. I knew that she was going to be looking for this so I had prepared one for her just in case. I felt very confident and prepared going into this meeting. For the first time I had things that I wanted to discuss, not just sit there and wait for them to give me instruction. I suppose another year older another year wiser but I definitely feel less like a deer in the headlights this year, which is a good thing.

Everyone was very happy with the progress that was being made. Everybody was very positive and encouraging. As was discussed in the pedagogy lectures about having to praise students even when they’re wrong, I am now starting to notice how even if I’ve done something ridiculously silly they’ll still complement me and say something like; ‘yea that’s a good idea but have you considered doing this instead…’ I grew up in a Gaeltacht area and it brings back memories of the old Irish proverb ‘Moll an óige agus tiocfaidh sí, bual sa tóin agus titfidh sí’ … in less poetic English translation ‘Praise the youth and she will rise, kick her in the bum and she will fall’. I’m sure everybody is different but I have to say I certainly respond better to positive constructive feedback and advice.

I was absolutely delighted with the outcome of the meeting; that I will essentially get to experience what it is like standing at the top of a class. I think that it will be a great help for me with the upcoming presentation in November, and also for my CV and giving me a taste of what it would be like to be a full-time lecturer/facilitator. If I absolutely hate it then maybe lecturing isn’t for me. Better to find these things out early rather than late. But I think I will like it. I’m looking forward to it.

It does increase my work-load a little bit as my supervisors’ would like me to put a few slides together but I will just have to find the time to do it…. somewhere J.

Evaluation:

Overall I felt the meeting went well. There was good positive feedback on the work that has been done, and the time-plan in place to stay on track and bring us up to the Christmas holidays. I certainly came away from the meeting feeling like it had been very constructive, that we had discussed all the urgent matters at hand and had come up with solutions to the minor hurdles that were popping up from time to time.

Having had previous meetings that didn’t go as well I didn’t want a repeat of those situations where I’m leaving feeling stressed and under pressure because I feel like I’m under performing and not living up to the expectations of my supervisors. Slacking I think the term is for it. No slacking.

Analysis:

Atmosphere - Overall the meeting went smoothly without any hiccups. Perhaps it was a bit long, it took us the entire hour but we did have a lot of items to discuss. Everyone was in good spirits, the mood was light feedback was positive.

Content - The organising of the demonstrating for the pedagogy modules by A and V* was seamless. They have very good ideas about what works and what doesn’t which they have obviously picked up along the way from their own experiences. Almost on the spot they were able to construct a plan for me to get involved with the fourth year final year project tutorials, and how to approach the head of Department with this idea. As A.* is also doing a Masters on a similar topic with the LTTC she has some great ideas for interactive group learning. Gamification is the new buzz word in education (Huang & Soman 2013).

Even though we didn’t discuss the AGM presentation much they did give me very good direction for it and A.* has let me look at some previous lectures she has given on similar topics to give me an idea of what I need to cover. They are very supportive which I think is a MUST have quality in any demonstrator, facilitator, supervisor. They are certainly great role models. The type of facilitator a person should aspire to be.

Conclusion:

With regards to the content of the meeting I think it went as well as it could have. It was productive and positive. Aspects that I could have handled better would probably be the location of the meeting. It is my main testing room in the NOC but it is a very busy room, patient’s need to have their fundus photos taken which means the room lights need to be switched off so we had to have the majority of our meeting in the dark. I would have sent an agenda out before the meeting with the topics that I wanted to discuss so if there was anything that they wanted to discuss they could add it to the agenda and I could ensure that I had all necessary documents etc… ready. This also gives people a heads up about what will be talked about and what is concerning any of the other parties.

I am certainly aware that I need to take more notes or fill in the relevant parts of the log book before during and after the meeting as I tend to forget things little things with so much going on. Unless it’s urgent everything gets put to the long finger – not unlike some of these reflections.

Action Plan:

As I was quite happy with the outcome of the meeting I don’t think there is much that I would do differently next time around. I would certainly be as prepared as I was; having a list of the items that I wanted to discuss, pre-empting the documentation that they would want me to hand up to them. Keeping them informed of my movements as I’m part-time it’s important for them to know when I’m in college and when I’m at work.

We have planned to have monthly meetings as much as we can. This should keep a good flow and structure to the work.

Now that it has been arranged that I can help with the final year students tutorials on their final year project I will try to implement some of the teaching techniques discussed in class in the tutorial. Initiate some discussion between the students, get them thinking about their own projects and how to go about constructing their experimental plan, collecting their data, what statistics they want to look at etc… Splitting them into their different groups would work well for this class. It will keep it interactive and educational (Carlile & Jordan, 2005).

Similar to Gagne’s 9 events of instruction (Gagné & Briggs, 1974), I aim to follow a shorter version – the five step process to gamification in education:

http://ii.library.jhu.edu/files/2014/05/gamificationprocess.png

The target audience will be the students, and the context of the tutorial will be “Understanding Experimental Plans”. I will set out specific learning objectives for them. Learning goals will include that they understand the concept of an experimental plan and how to write one. Behavioural goals will include that they are interactive and willing to take part in the role-play sessions etc… I will structure the session in such a way that the definition and explanation of experimental plans will be discussed first, with examples given for them to work off. I can assist them with finding external resources that can be of use to them e.g. online searches. To conclude I will divide them into their project groups, give them examples of previous final year projects and get them to work together to transfer data onto an excel spreadsheet as practice for collecting and recording their own data. In another tutorial we can look at using that data then and carrying out statistical analysis on it.

References:

Huang WH-Y & D Soman (2013): A Practitioner’s Guide To Gamification Of Education. In: Toronto RSoMUo (ed.).

Carlile, O., & Jordan, A. (2005). It works in practice but will it work in theory? The theoretical underpinnings of pedagogy. In G. O' Neill, S. Moore & B. E. McMullin (Eds.), Emerging Issues in the Practice of University Learning and Teaching (pp. 11-26). Dublin: All Ireland Society for Higher Education (AISHE).

Gagné, R. M., & Briggs, L. J. (1974). Principles of instructional design. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.