{"id":286,"date":"2022-01-02T13:52:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-02T21:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0211\/?p=286"},"modified":"2022-01-07T11:31:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T19:31:53","slug":"adventure-to-the-kingdom-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0211\/adventure-to-the-kingdom-of-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventure to the Kingdom of Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katrina<\/a><\/span> and I collaborated on the Design Thinking Challenge to develop a unique solution that would apply to both of our digital learning environments. We invite you to take a look at our solution and browse our interactive design interface below!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Context<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The authors work in two vastly different contexts that share a vexing commonality: when students have bypassed certain requirements, an extensive amount of human resource \u2018man-hours\u2019 are required to rectify the situations. In the first author\u2019s case, prospective students are applying to a university program of study and have failed to complete one or several of the application requirements. In the second author\u2019s context, first year students must complete a writing course that requires applying grammar appropriately to write academic-quality productions while adhering to uninteresting, detail-specific academic integrity standards that many do not apply effectively. In both contexts, failure to complete the appropriate actions demands time-consuming follow-up from various staff members. A better system with internal regulating mechanisms is needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter the \u2018Kingdom of Writing\u2019 game. A future \u2018Kingdom Series\u2019 gaming solution could be utilized successfully in each context, but for this paper, the decision was made to apply it to the writing course, given the beneficial \u201ccognitive outcomes and attitudes\u201d (Vogel et al., 2006, p.235) of gamification. Applying interactive gaming to topical content in a first-year course is a novel way to support better engaged students and achievement of learning outcomes, while ensuring compliance with institutional requirements.<\/span><\/p>\n

A first-year college writing course has institutional mandates for written clarity and adherence to academic integrity standards (Conestoga College, n.d.). Students come from various backgrounds, in terms of international and domestic academic environments, as well as level of written fluency and accuracy instruction therein.\u00a0 Given that some students will be intensely familiar with, for example, sentence-, paragraph- and essay-structure, a self-directed learning environment is preferred, allowing students to choose their learning pace. Vogel et al.\u2019s meta-analysis confirms that when a learner controls their navigation throughout the game, cognitive gains were significant (2006, p.234).<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, as a theoretical framework for this use of gaming, self-determination theory supports \u201chuman psychological needs to make choices, to compete and collaborate with others; all of which can be afforded in the gamified environment\u201d (Alsawaier,2018, p.60). For this design, there are aspects of cognitivist theory as well, in that learner autonomy is important, as are scaffolded incremental learning steps (Dron & Anderson, 2014) to the writing process. Also, a constructivist approach functions in the game, in which the learner experiments and questions (Dron & Anderson, 2014) varying written components, and works to solve written problems and internalize rules about writing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Game: Kingdom of Writing<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n