0:00:01 – Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:09 – Kimberly King

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer an holistic approach to student support, well-being and success: the Whole Human education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners. Today, we are talking about whether or not gamifying your life works. According to a recent article in Forbes magazine, gamification is not about turning life into a constant competition. Instead, it makes your goals more engaging and sets you up for success. Implementing these strategies makes you more likely to complete tasks and have fun along the way. By gamifying your life, you are reminded that you are the protagonist of your own life. Such an interesting and relevant conversation, especially considering the era that we’re in. More with us on today’s episode.

On today’s episode, we’re discussing gamifying your life and whether that works, and joining us is Dr. Brian Arnold. Dr. Brian Arnold is the Credential-Rich Pathways Director at National University, and this is a new title, so how exciting and congratulations. He earned his PhD in educational technology and educational psychology from Michigan State University and spent the first half of his career focused on media arts, film games, design, and then ended up in teaching administration in those disciplines. His current research interests focus on humane emerging technologies and one of his early career. Highlights include working as an editor for Nickelodeon Animation Studios in the late 90s on shows like SpongeBob Squarepants, and etc. I can’t wait to talk to you about that. That’s so cool. We welcome you to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. How are you?

0:02:02 – Doctor Brian Arnold

I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

0:02:07 – Kimberly King

Well, great, why don’t you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show topic?

0:02:14 – Doctor Brian Arnold

So, as the Credential-Rich Pathways Director, I work with different degree programs to find ways for students to be able to use credentials as an on-ramp or an off-ramp into programs or out of programs to help them be more robust job seekers, or to embed credentials so that if students complete a degree course or program, they walk away with some value add.

In addition to that, I’m also serving as the National University AI Council Chair, and so we work a lot with our eight committees to try and ensure that we’re following our AI strategic plan to enhance AI literacy, AI education, and operational efficiencies within our organization.

And in my spare time, I’m working with a talented group of people to set up a conference that’s happening in September. It’s called the Universal Conference and it’s dedicated to exploring questions around, how do we leverage emerging technologies to enhance the well-being of our users? And how do we apply that to education, both K-12 and higher ed?

We’re having the event in Zoom events as the space for the plenary sessions and speaking. We also are having events in VR space for folks who want to experiment in those realities, and they can attend using a set of those really cool goggles you strap to your face, or they can pilot an avatar with their laptop, just like they’re playing a video game.

0:03:48 – Kimberly King

How cool you are, like the epitome of being a lifelong learner and then maybe starting here in your career and I guess there’s no career that is unattainable with you. I love it that you’re continuing to learn and then redirect as the world changes. So good for you.

0:04:06 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Thank you. It’s my attempt to keep up with the absolutely overwhelming number of changes that are coming at us every day is just to stay engaged and swallow as much of the elephant as you can and keep moving forward.

0:04:18 – Kimberly King

Good, I love it. You have a really good attitude about that too. So this is so interesting. Today we are talking about gamifying your life, and you’re really hitting that next generation, aren’t you? Because I feel like everybody’s been brought up on their cell phones playing games and with the goggles attached. So, doctor, for our listeners who might be new to this concept, and could you paint a clear picture of what exactly gamification entails, especially within the context of education? And what are we talking about beyond just adding points and badges?

0:04:51 – Doctor Brian Arnold

All really good questions. So, whether they know it or not, nobody’s new to gamification. We’ve all had our experiences gamified, even if you just take a step back and look at a classroom. In a classroom, you do assignments. These are challenges that have obstacles, and when you succeed in them, you’re awarded with points which you can redeem for a rank, which is your grade. So the classroom is already gamified to some extent. Almost all large companies have some sort of reward schemes. You’ve got your airline miles, and you’ve got your rewards points on your credit cards.

Those are all gamifications and they’re designed to get you engaged, to get you to interact with whatever the content is, whether that’s learning or spending your money or having some brand loyalty. It’s all around us and it’s just a matter of being able to sort of understand it and see it, see what’s in there. There were two parts to the question, though.

What is it other than points? It’s also a mindset. So when we talk about gamification, it’s a way of seeing the world, and probably a more playful way, as more of rehearsal and less of catastrophic consequence. So if you go and you take a test and you don’t pass that test, it feels bad, it feels like you literally failed. There’s that sense of setback, whereas most of us have a pretty healthy attitude towards games. You’re playing in Monopoly with your friends. You don’t win, okay, you’ll play again.

That mindset of gamification, beyond the systems of rewards and engagements and obstacles, it’s that sense of play, that sense of rehearsal- that this is all just part of a larger process. Just part of a larger process. And winning, losing, failing, succeeding, it’s all okay because you’re there to be part of the experience and to be engaged, Now as a designer of those spaces, if you’re an educator, that’s one thing. As someone who experiences it as a customer, as a student, as a learner, it’s another. But that shared mindset of hey, let’s just play with this. First of all- I know I’m going far with this question, we lower our inhibitions, we lower our shields, we’re a little more comfortable taking risks, we’re a little more comfortable failing and trying new things, all of which is deeply beneficial for learning and for having rewarding experiences.

0:07:23 – Kimberly King

I really like that, what you just said, because it is true it kind of takes our guard down, thinking, oh, this is a competition, it’s playful and yeah, you kind of- the stakes aren’t as high, it feels like, because it’s not the critical side or a crisis or something. So I like that mindset.

0:07:38 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Absolutely. And there are different types of games too. There are highly competitive games and there are high-stakes stressful situations in which games take place. The Olympics, the World Series, you know, are some ready examples. But what I’m talking about when I mention gamification is that more casual approach rather than the high-stakes do-or-die kind of situation.

0:08:08 – Kimberly King

Well, and I can imagine you know what, if you’re a really poor test taker and people freak out or they have that, you know, the minute they feel like, oh, this is do or die time. But with your approach I feel like, especially for those that struggle with the test taking, it does it just kind of makes you kind of go OK, we’re in game mode right now. We’re in game mode. So interesting. Your article highlights that learners are hooked by fun and that they are rewarded with knowledge and skills. And I love that and I guess that is that really game mentality. Could you elaborate on this dynamic? And then how does this initial engagement through game-like elements lead to deeper and more lasting learning outcomes?

0:08:48 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, first, quickly, the reference to the article I wrote before I began my PhD journey. I wrote my very first article called Gamification in Education, and I put it up on a public site research gate and it’s gotten just tens of thousands of hits. And the more serious scholarship I’ve done since then, you know 15, 25, 100. So there’s something universal or resonant about the article that I’m referring to. But so what do I mean by that initial engagement that leads to deeper learning? A lot of it has to do with that anxiety we talked about before, about approaching learning, about test taking, but a lot of it, too, really centers around interest forming, so sort of the idea that if you’re not paying attention, you’re definitely not learning. If you are paying attention, you might be.

So if there’s a way to engage people on a subject, on content to the learning process, it creates opportunities. Opportunities where learning might take hold, where the situational interest of I’m learning this because it’s in front of me and I kind of have to might transcend to, you know what? I’m going to go do a little bit more reading about that. I’m going to go find out more about that. I want to take a class on that. So the idea is that this more relaxed approach to engagement is less about meeting learning outcomes and more about curating lifelong learning or interest in a specific topic that transcends the course content being offered at that moment.

0:10:26 – Kimberly King

Okay, and so I love that. Again, it is. It’s just kind of like a little bit of a shift. And I like that you have said gamifying your life toward education and really kind of anything in your life right?

0:10:42 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, it’s interesting you put it that way because, you know, not everything can be gamified and there are times where the outcome really does matter and so a more serious approach is warranted. That doesn’t mean you have to bring back the anxiety or the stress, that sort of general openness and mindset can still stay with you, but there are times where it does matter and a little more attention to the outcome is warranted.

0:11:11 – Kimberly King

It’s almost like you’re training, you’re putting tools in your toolbox so that when the time comes, for when it’s important or when it you know the stakes are higher that you can go. Oh okay, hold on, you know, and take a big deep breath and kind of attack it like the game, like you say. But you’re learning these tools.

0:11:27 – Doctor Brian Arnold

100%. You’ve laid the foundation in a less stressful way and now you’re better prepared to tackle the high stakes.

0:11:33 – Kimberly King

I love it. So you mentioned that not all players are engaged by the same kind of games, but how can educators and designers account for this diversity in player preferences when implementing gamified learning experiences? And then, what are some of the key considerations to ensure inclusivity and broad appeal?

0:11:53 – Doctor Brian Arnold

It’s a complex question. So there’s definitely research, the four Bartle types, the 16 Yi types. There’s different types of gamers. People are seeking different kinds of experiences, of gratifications when they play games. So I’ll use the Bartle types because it’s just the simplest one. I remember it with the acronym SAKE. There are seekers, there are achievers, there are killers and there are explorers, right. So people playing for different games.

So you picture sort of the first person shooter, HALO, big games, you know lots of guns, Doom, all that kind of stuff. You know these are people who want to go in and kill things and that’s enjoyable for them, right. But not everyone is going to enjoy that experience. Like okay, today’s lesson, we’re going to go around and kill some numbers, like that’s going to engage some students and not others. So the other piece, explorers just want to see the area.

A lot of role-playing games have large, open worlds where people can explore. So they not only enjoy that aspect of exploring or learning on their own, but they want to find hidden treasures. They want to be rewarded for that process. So designing around that. A good game will capture these four types and more.

Socializers. They are playing games. I don’t know if you’re playing a board game with a small group and no one’s rolling the dice, no one’s moving their marker, everyone’s just chatting. Sometimes, really, it’s about a reason to get together and socialize. Some of the video games, some of the analog games, are built around this as well, so you have the different types.

When designing an experience for your learners, it’s just important to get in there and look at who they really are. The same experience won’t work for a 13-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl and you know, someone who’s really into dinosaurs versus someone who’s really into space. You just kind of have to take a look and say, okay, where are their interests, what type of challenges do they enjoy and find rewarding? And some of that is asking them and trying to find a good match or a design for their level of interest and just sort of refining as you go. Someone might say they really enjoy exploration, but it turns out they find that frustrating and boring. It just kind of depends. So, as with most technological based solutions, it’s really getting to know your individual audience and customizing the experience for their wants and needs and outcomes.

0:14:17 – Kimberly King

And it is true, it’s such a different thought process being the actual designer, and I’m sure you probably do have a group of people, a wide range, that you talk to and you discover what those interests are, like you mentioned, the five-year-old girl versus the 13-year-old boy.

0:14:33 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Yeah, there’s plenty of research, but even if you were to identify a specific demographic and then you get down to the point of this is Tina and this is James, they just might have different interests than their demographic would suggest. So it’s a good place to start, but then it always comes down to really just taking a look at them and asking them specifically what works and what doesn’t.

0:14:51 – Kimberly King

Okay, I think you said the term is called the concept of the SAKE players. Is that how you pronounce it?

0:14:57 – Doctor Brian Arnold

No, it’s the four Bartle types. I only remember the acronym with the S-A-K-E: socializer, achiever, killer, and explorer.

0:15:05 – Kimberly King

Okay, so that I think is intriguing. Could you explain, then, what that acronym? Well, you just mentioned what it stands for, but again, the different player motivations and that design, and I think you kind of actually really just did answer this question, yeah.

0:15:19 – Doctor Brian Arnold

And there are many more nuanced models than that one. I’m just giving the one that’s simplest to begin with.

0:15:25 – Kimberly King

Okay, so you emphasize the value of immediate feedback in games and compared to more traditional educational settings, in your experience, how does this instantaneous feedback loop contribute to student learning and motivation? And then what are some practical ways to integrate this effectively?

0:15:43 – Doctor Brian Arnold

So as more and more learning moves into online modalities, that’s often paired with a delay in getting feedback. So you have a discussion board, you have an assignment, you submit it on Monday, you’re going to get some feedback the next Monday, at which point, let’s be honest, most of us have forgotten half of what we put into the content and then the feedback. It’s just sort of this strange third-person experience, that immediate sense of feedback which is, in theory, more available in face-to-face courses, but in reality you’re still sharing the instructor’s time with 29 other people, and that concept of real-time feedback. That’s when you can adapt and move, you can fail forward, you can fail rapidly, you can prototype rapidly, you can iterate when you get that feedback.

So in a game-like scenario where that process is automated and that might be something driven by an emerging technology like AI, or it might be something static where you try something and okay, I tried to jump over the gap with my player, I hit the jump button too soon, I fell into a chasm and died. That’s immediate feedback. I know, I need to change how I do that. I need to hit the jump button at a different time. So that immediate feedback means that I can try five or six times in 10 seconds instead of once a week. And so that rate of learning, that rate of forming relationships, of making connections, of being able to build up sort of emotion of ideas that’s staying in your short-term memory and bank on it, is greatly enhanced with that. And so by gamifying the process, you’ve engaged someone and giving them that immediate feedback, they’re able to, especially for foundational level skills, rapidly move up that ladder so they’re ready to explore some more complex materials with a much broader foundation.

0:17:39 – Kimberly King

It’s so interesting. You talked right in the very, very beginning. We talked about how the role of play it is central to your work, but you also touch upon the practice and the rehearsal, interest-driven learning and even empathy development, which I think is interesting too in this phase the empathy part, because you’re talking about AI and gaming and everything. So could you share an example of how a well-designed gamified activity can foster these crucial aspects of learning?

0:18:08 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, I’ll go back to my initial point to build towards your question is you know it creates opportunities, right? You can’t guarantee anything. Those people who traditionally have spoken out against games have said oh, you know, games will make our players violent, right. Well if that’s true… which I don’t think it is. Then they also have the ability to teach us empathy and to influence how we think and perceive the world. Now, either way, you got to kind of pick a side. So, in theory, by modeling positive things in a game world, you offer them the opportunity to adopt those values in a much more interactive way than simply like a moral play that you would watch on TV or in a movie. You get to interact with it.

The other piece about gaming that offers that additional level of potential for developing a more empathic worldview or evolving yourself as a social person or someone who understands their emotional landscape, is that usually when you’re playing a game, you don’t have to be you.

So you might play a game as, I’m going to be a big jerk, I’m going to be a horrible, evil villain, I’m going to be the worst person ever, and you get to get that out of your system and sort of simulate that. See what that looks like. Now. Does it matter in some games? No, it does in others. Or you might decide that you’re going to play this game as your best possible self.

What would the heroic version of you do in this scenario? And I know not all games fit these parameters, but it offers the potential for identity experimentation and identity formation in a safe place without real world consequences, where, if you went around in real life acting like a mustache-twiddling villain, there would be real world consequences and if you were trying to be your ever so sweet nicest, you might get some strange looks. So what I’m saying is games can be a safe place to experiment with identity and, in that form, an identity that’s more evolved than you could form without taking those social risks that you’re not willing to take in real life.

0:20:34 – Kimberly King

So it kind of gives you a little bit of extra, I don’t know. Just yeah, confidence, maybe just because you’re trying out okay, this works here, this doesn’t work here but you’re still sort of behind the shield practicing.

0:20:44 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Right, and it’s the heart of simulation, which is you know, why would you simulate something? It’s either too expensive or too risky to do in real life, and for the player that risk might be a social risk, but it’s real, and so that simulation allows them a place to take that risk and possibly benefit from it.

0:21:03 – Kimberly King

So I’ve heard this term vibe coding. What does that mean? And in simple games, what could you explain that meaning and how educators can leverage this concept to create engaging and impactful learning experiences even within limited resources?

0:21:20 – Doctor Brian Arnold

So, basically, at this point, in the same way and this is changing every day, so if you’re listening to this, tomorrow things might be different. But when you enter into a query, a query into any sort of large language model or AI, it has the ability to design something for you, normally using text. We’re at the point now and we’ll be more so in the future in an escalating speed, where you can ask the tools to code for you to create- Make me an app that does X, y and Z. Make me an app where there’s a game where numbers fall from the sky and if I don’t, if I add the first number to the second number, it goes away. If I don’t, it’ll hit the ground and I lose points, something like that.

So, vibe coding is this idea that you’re not really a coder, capital C. I understand basic or Python or whatnot, but I can ask the tool to code for me to create some simple applications, and these simple applications will probably be complex applications a week from now. But starting to open yourself up to the idea of not telling yourself, I can’t do this or make this because I don’t have the technical skills. That barrier is getting softer and falling and the ability to vibe code is getting better. That doesn’t mean you can sit down and write your own version of Word using ChatGPT tomorrow, but the opportunities are getting better and better, and the ability to design your own games is more and more in the hands of the average person.

0:23:00 – Kimberly King

Wow, that’s crazy, but I love hearing that. Again, this technology with AI everything is happening so quickly now, isn’t it? Considering this rapid advancement in technology since your 2014 article that you referenced, how do you see this landscape of gamification and education evolving? And then, what new tools or approaches are you particularly excited about in the future?

0:23:22 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, I think what we’re seeing- So I’ve been gaming since a long time ago, you know, and when I was a gamer it was kind of a social pariah kind of a thing. It was something fringe, something weird kids did sort of outside the norm, even though a lot of people were doing it. Since then,  it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s right up there with Hollywood films. And we’re seeing people in decision-making spaces as teachers, as administrators, who grew up playing games.

So the social stigma of gaming is more or less gone. And there’s still people that have concerns about the impact of gaming. There are still issues with particular kids avoiding reality or other maladaptive behaviors that they manifest by spending too much screen time. That’s still a reality. But where the positive things are is there are so many games out there that already exist that people can use for teaching purposes and adapt to their own needs, and the stigma is more or less gone. That doesn’t mean, like you know, if you eat fast food every day, it’s not good for you. There’s a limit to how much you want to use it, but as one tool among many, it offers a lot of possibilities and just sort of being creative about it.

So I’ll give an example, from my own experience since my 2014 article. I was running a course on communication and leadership and it had a gaming flavor, and so there was a web app that was kind of analogous to what is an escape room now.

You basically had to get out of the phone booth and you had to follow a bunch of clues and find things. So we had five or six students all log into the same app and have that same simultaneous, concurrent experience of problem solving in real time, and their task was to communicate with each other as they solved problems so that they could all move forward together.

And it was fascinating because the people that figured things out would figure it out, race forward and get stuck. Everyone would start talking all over each other, and it became a really authentic, gamified way of encountering issues of communication and teamwork that weren’t just like okay, in teamwork, communication is really important, beep. And in one ear and out the other it’s not really relevant, but so finding ways to turn the learning of these complex and sometimes ill-defined concepts into an experience, and into a shared experience, is one of the ways that gaming has come a long way and democratized many of these processes.

0:26:06 – Kimberly King

So I know that- I mean I like what you’re saying there because I feel like for a long time or early on it was really an individual thing, But now I mean you are playing a game but you have really brought everybody together too and you said in real time. So I like that. We’ve seen gamification applied in various fields, mostly customer-facing rewards programs. What do you believe are some of the unique opportunities and challenges of applying gamification specifically within the educational sphere compared to other areas?

0:26:38 – Doctor Brian Arnold

So I think that with the introduction of so many new tools for students being able to represent themselves as avatars, we have the opportunity to really put our weight behind the idea that representation matters. We have the ability to teach with a teacher that represents the learner. We have an opportunity for learners to represent themselves as their ideal selves. They can represent themselves as the identity that they want to represent, not necessarily the one that they are in at the moment.

They also have an opportunity- and this is a project that I’m still trying to get off the ground- Imagine if you could make the representation of your teacher as you in 10 years. A wiser, smarter version of you is now the visual that you see teaching you your content.

If you start to get creative with what the technology allows, there’s just a lot of opportunity to turn it a little bit more into a simulation, which tends to be a lot more authentic and engaging for the learner, and turn it a lot more into a game, which, again, that lowers that inhibition and increases that ability to feel comfortable taking risks and grapple with the material in a much more substantive way.

0:28:02 – Kimberly King

Yeah, I can imagine the future is bright and we have no idea, in some even areas, where we’re going, but that’s really interesting. Finally, so for educators who are eager to explore gamification in their own classrooms or learning environments, what would your top piece of advice be to get started effectively and avoid common pitfalls?

0:28:23 – Doctor Brian Arnold

With almost any piece of technology, the super duper secret is to spend time with it. You know, so if you think gamification is a great idea but you’ve never really played many games, it’s time to sit down and play some games, whether it’s by yourself or with some other people. One big piece that I think is often overlooked is people get really caught up in the video part of video games, and that gamification is equally valid and much more affordable and realistic in an analog way. So get out some cards, get out some dice, get out some figurines. You can gamify a process without plugging anything in. It doesn’t need a battery. So go ahead and embrace what the analog tools are first, and then get yourself in front of those games.

The other piece that I’ve seen happen a lot is- I’ll take the other end of the continuum. You’ve got the person who’s never really played games. You’ve got the hardcore gamer right, guilty, who wants to introduce games into their teaching, and they bite off a little more than they can chew. So, as I mentioned before, with the vibe coding, with that there’s a lot more opportunities. But like you’re not going to make a AAA title in your spare time and then a big game release and have your students go through this complex environment. Keep it simple, keep it realistic, keep it focused on your individual learners that you have in front of you so it feels authentic and engaging and have fun yourself.

0:29:57 – Kimberly King

And I like that you pointed out you don’t always have to plug it in. You know cards, dice, whatever the game is, so there’s always a strategic way of going about that. So well, this is so interesting. Thank you so very much. I appreciate your sharing your knowledge. If you want more information, you can visit National University’s website at nu.edu and Dr. Arnold, thank you so much for your time.

0:30:19 – Doctor Brian Arnold

It’s been a pleasure, thank you.

0:30:23 – Kimberly King

You’ve been listening to the National University Podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.