Gamifying an M.Ed. Course: A Post-Mortem
Katrin Becker, Ph.D.
Mount Royal University,
Calgary, AB
becker@minkhollow.ca

Haboun Bair, M.Ed.
University of Calgary,
Calgary, AB
habonb@hotmail.com

Louis Cheng, M.Ed.
Connect Charter School,
Calgary, AB
8cheex@gmail.com

Darla Gunson, M.Ed.
Fort Vermilion School
Division, Fort Vermillion, AB
dgunson@telus.net

Michelle Hayden-Isaak,
M.Ed.
Calgary Board of Education,
Calgary, Alberta
mehaydenisaa@cbe.ab.ca

Christine Miller, M.Ed.
School District 73,
Kamloops, BC
christine.lucille.miller@gmai
l.com

Abstract
This paper is about the collective experiences of a
graduate level education course that had been
partially gamified. A common model for graduate level
Education courses uses a seminar approach where
participants complete various readings and then
respond to them in short editorials or blogs. This
course gamified that component by requiring students
to complete numerous small to medium sized activities
that included these typical ones in order to accumulate
points. These points contributed to their final grade.
Students gave feedback on their experience with
gamification throughout the course which included
increased ownership and control of learning and
grades, as well as unwanted competition, and onerous
marking for the instructor. The paper concludes with
suggestions for meaningful gamification in future
courses.

1. Introduction
The term ‘gamification’ is still very new but even
so its exact origins are not known. The first
documented use was in the digital media industry in
2008 and it has become popular in the last couple of
years [1]. A search performed in June 2013 on Google
Scholar using the term ‘gamification’ turned up over
3000 hits, and with 80,000 people registered in the
Coursera Gamification course in Sept/Oct 2012 [2], the
attention that gamification is getting makes it one of
the trendiest concepts to surface in recent years.
As with many other terms in the field of video game

studies, there is no standard definition for
‘gamification’, so it is necessary to explain for each
context what is meant by the term. Many confuse the
notion of gamification with the use of digital games for
learning [3] and although these two terms are related,
they are not the same thing. Even though some
resistance remains in formal education, the use of
games for learning (digital game-based learning, or
DGBL) is slowly beginning to enjoy mainstream
acceptance as more research supporting the viability of
games as a medium for learning becomes available [4].
Gamification does not yet have the same recognition.
This paper reports on the collective experiences of
the participants in a graduate level education course
that had been partially gamified. Many graduate level
education courses follow a similar model so the
gamification of this one was seen as quite novel. The
common model for graduate level Education courses
uses a seminar approach where participants complete
various readings and then respond to them in short
editorials or blogs. Readings are discussed in class or
in an online forum, and participants are typically
assessed on their participation, which includes
classroom discussion in a face-to-face course, and
forum postings in an online course. Many courses
include a final research-oriented paper and a major
project related to the subject-matter of the course, such
as designing a lesson in an educational technology
course, or a doing a case study in a research methods
course. This template was the norm at the institution
where this particular course was taught, and it was
thought that too great a deviation from ‘the norm’
would be counterproductive. As a result only part of

the course was gamified. However, given that the
subject matter of the course had to do with digital
game based learning, it was decided that a gameful
approach was appropriate. Further, given the
experimental nature of the approach, it was decided to
encourage the participants (‘players’) to provide
ongoing feedback regarding their reactions to and
progress through the gamified portion of the course, so
it then followed that an appropriate reflection on the
course design would take the form of a cooperative
inquiry [5].
In the games industry as in many design activities,
it is common for developers to reflect on a game
project once it is complete. The Game Developer’s
Magazine, the official publication of the International
Game Developer’s Association (IGDA) refers to these
post-production reflections as post-mortems and has
developed a relatively formal structure that it follows
when publishing them. They include technical details
of the game and the development team and three main
review sections: What Went Right, What Went Wrong,
and a Conclusion. In keeping with the gamified theme
of the course being described, a similar approach has
been adopted here.

2. Related Work
Gamification can be broadly defined as the
application of game features and game mechanics in a
non-game context, but gamification does not typically
include using actual games. Like most new approaches,
it has both champions and detractors. Vocal critics
such as Ian Bogost complain that gamification often
takes “the least essential aspects of games and presents
them as the most essential.” He describes it as little
more than ‘pointsification’ designed to motivate
participants with superficial rewards and refers to it as
exploitationware [6]. This simplified application of the
concepts is typically embodied in what others refer to
as ‘PBL’, which stands for “Points, Badges, and
Leaderboards”. Charles, Charles, McNeill, Bustard and
Black [7] simplify the term even further to awarding
“points to students for the successful completion of
tasks throughout the course of study”, but this can
easily degrade into nothing more than a translation of
letter grades to points. Gamification need not be
trivialized in this way. We believe that the concept of
gamification has more potential than that promised by
slick marketing or superficial applications. In fact,
many of the ideas described as part of meaningful
gamification are not new at all and the authors suggest
that this new term can be quite useful. It can be used as
a way to describe the collection of strategies that

together can create a more gameful approach to
learning.
Some applications of gamification go beyond
points, badges, and leaderboards.
Nicholson’s
Meaningful Gamification [8] is designed to help
participants find deeper meaning in a non-game
setting, and the theories behind meaningful
gamification come from educational theories as a way
of using play, reflection, and narrative to engage
learners. Sebastian Deterding has suggested a broader
approach which he refers to as gameful design [9]. For
Deterding, a key design question is: “In what ways
would this be broken if it were a game?” This turns
out to be a useful lens through which to view
approaches to gamification.

2.1. Gamification is Not New
Many of the techniques now being touted as
gamification are not new at all. Even those aspects
often criticized as being superficial have been used in
various forms at various times to greater and lesser
effect. Children in elementary school often get stickers
for completed work; both the Boy Scouts and the Girl
Guides (as well as a great many other organizations)
use badges to symbolize various achievements, and of
course, medals and badges have been a longstanding
tradition in militaries throughout the world. The notion
of leaderboards is also not unique to videogames, or
games of any sort for that matter, as they can be found
in many businesses as ways to highlight sales records
for example, and in schools to commemorate a myriad
of achievements academic and otherwise. If we
consider the concept of levels in games, then certainly
the grades (K-12) and years (freshman, junior, senior,
sophomore) of formal education are the very
embodiment of ‘levels’. There are known requirements
for completing one level and each new level opens up
new content and additional options.
At its core, a game, whether it is digital or not
consists of some well-defined goal, a set of actions that
can be attempted, and a rule system that includes some
consistent form of feedback. Looked at this way, most
courses would qualify as games, yet most would also
agree that most ‘normal’ courses aren’t gameful or
gamified. So what’s the difference? What in fact is
new in gamification?
One answer lies in the vocabulary: the names of
the various components have been changed to use
videogame terminology. Thus, assignments become
‘quests’, groups become ‘guilds’, grades become

‘experience points’, and so on. However, if that is all
that gets altered in a gamified course design, then
complaints that gamification is little more than
superficial window dressing are well founded.
When one goes beyond the superficial labels,
gamification is about designing instruction to be more
gameful. One way to provide a gameful approach is to
define distinct levels of achievement for each
assignment. An example of this was implemented in an
introductory programming language class [10] where
functional requirements were described for ‘C’, ‘B’,
and ‘A’-level solutions and students were free to
choose which level they wanted to complete. In
another course students were given a rubric that
described the requirements for the entire course. They
were then allowed to choose from over 100 different
assignments, each of which had been analyzed to
identify which overall course requirements it was
likely to meet. Allowing students this degree of choice
introduces a gameful quality to the course work, as
each participant may choose which challenges to meet,
but must still demonstrate competence according to an
overarching set of rules [11]. In another design the
instructor gave the students numerous different options
for tasks that could be completed - only some of which
had to be completed for a full score, and where each
task was individually scored [12]. This approach has
been used in the current course design, which is
described in more detail in the section on course
design.

2.2. Research Methodology
The course was a graduate level course for a cohort
of course-based Master of Education students, all of
whom were completing their studies primarily by
distance. Almost all of the students were professional
educators working full-time, some with many years’
worth of experience teaching in a classroom. Given
their level of expertise it was deemed appropriate to
treat the class participants effectively as peers and as a
result the research methodology used in this study was
co-operative inquiry. According to Heron [5]:

“In co-operative inquiry a group of people
come together to explore issues of concern and
interest. All members of the group contribute
both to the ideas that go into their work
together, and also are part of the activity that
is being researched. Everyone has a say in
deciding what questions are to be addressed
and what ideas may be of help; everyone

contributes to thinking about how to explore
the questions; everyone gets involved in the
activity that is being researched; and finally
everybody has a say in whatever conclusions
the co-operative inquiry group may reach. So
in co-operative inquiry the split between
'researcher' and 'subjects' is done away with,
and all those involved act together as 'coresearchers' and as 'co-subjects'. “
The fact that most of the learners were themselves
teachers provided a unique opportunity to approach the
course design as a cooperative inquiry. As a result it
was decided to adopt a relatively ‘open’ approach
where the input and suggestions from the participants
informed the progress of the course while the course
was running. It was decided to reflect on the
experience collectively rather than as one researcher
reporting on the feedback provided by the rest, and the
author list includes numerous class participants.
Students were invited to comment on the DGBL
(Digital Game Based Learning) design while the
course was still running, and this was ultimately
combined with a collectively created post mortem,
allowing for a more comprehensive course analysis
than is typically permitted by student surveys, and
shifting the role of the instructor from teacher as
knowledge keeper to teacher as collaborator.

3. Course Design
The students in each class were members of two
cohorts enrolled in a course-based Master of Education
degree program. The bulk of the degree was to be
completed online as most enrollees were full-time
professional educators. Part of the course requirements
for the degree was the completion of a number of face
to face courses offered in a highly compressed twoweek format over the summer. The DGBL course was
offered in two formats in two different semesters: 1) as
a three credit face-to-face course that ran for two
weeks and met daily for three hours (2012), with an
additional week after classes were over to complete
and submit coursework, and 2) as a regular 13-week
online course (2013). The course had been taught by
the same instructor three previous times (2005, 2006,
2007), but this was before the concept of gamification
had become known and as a result, the course did not
include that topic. The first offering of the gamified
version of the course took place in the summer of
2012. At that time the idea of gamification of learning
was starting to become more prominent and it was
decided to add the topic to the course content. Given

the nature of the topic and the fact that the majority of
the students were practicing teachers, the idea of
implementing gamification as part of the course design
rather than simply studying or discussing it seemed to
be an innovative way to embody the notion of
signature pedagogies for a graduate level education
class. Signature pedagogies are meant to be “the types
of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in
which future practitioners are educated for their new
professions” [13]. Education is unique among
disciplines in that when we teach a class, we are
actually doing what we are teaching. Given also the
fact that that course took place over such a short period
of time, there was really no time to adjust either the
content or the assessment once the course began. This
lead to the idea of inviting the students to examine and
critique the course design as it was being taught, which
then evolved into a cooperative inquiry [5] that
included a number of the students in the class.

3.1. Learning Objectives
The fundamental learning objectives in this course
were largely unchanged from previous, ungamified
versions of this course, although the topics had been
adjusted to reflect new technological developments.
The main learning objectives were:
• To examine the potential and limitations of digital
game based learning in the context of an
educational setting including social, administrative
and pedagogical issues as well as implications of
different models and theories.
• To explore the design and use of educational and
commercial games and identify characteristics of
effective digital game media in both
• To identify the implications of utilizing digital
game based learning in mainstream education and
the institutional changes necessary to realize the
full potential of new teaching and learning
technologies focusing on digital games
• To explore the current theories on the practice of
digital game based learning and teaching and the
implications of digital games as a medium for
formal and informal learning
After completion of the course students were
expected to be able to critically reflect on the value of
digital game based learning, design and develop
educational games, analyze prospective educational
games for their suitability in an educational setting and
access/assess resources for gathering information about
best practices in digital game based learning.

3.2. Gamification
Initially, the gamification of a section of the course
assessment was meant to be a “throw-away” piece - it
was added at the last minute in order to demonstrate a
hands-on example of the topic which was part of the
syllabus. However, over the course of the two weeks it
became a focus and a touchstone to which we as a class
returned again and again.
To implement a gamified approach, the instructor
provided an assortment of reading and response
activities for which students could earn points. There
were minimal requirements in that all participants had
to attempt each kind of activity (quest) at least once,
but each quest could be repeated up to a specific
maximum number of times. For example. one of the
quests was to complete a game review of a digital
game. Students (players) had to complete at least one
game review but could submit as many as 5, albeit for
different games. The options were such that players did
not have to complete all quests in order to earn the
required points. An accumulation of points related
directly to percentage points towards an overall course
mark, but players could also earn points over and
above those required. “Extra” points earned in this way
were applied to the non-gamified portions of the
course.

3.3. Assessment & Scoring
There were a number of ways that assessment in
this course diverged from the more traditional
approach. This course is a master’s level seminar-style
course. At the authors’ institution, these sorts of
courses typically involve weekly readings that form the
basis for in-class or online discussions. Graded
portions of such a course normally include marks given
for discussion in various formats (in class, blog,
forums, etc.), a design or development project related
to the course topics, and possibly a discussion or
research paper. Assessment criteria are normally
described in the form of a rubric, and each learning
task counts for a specific percentage towards a final
grade. The final grade is recorded as a letter grade
only, and there is a standard mapping of percent to
letter grade that applies to most courses in the program.
One of the important ways that gamified courses differ
from ‘non-gamified’ courses is in how marks are
earned. Some of this difference is largely perceptual,
but this can still have an important effect. Often
students think of themselves as having ‘A’s in the
course when it begins, and that they lose marks
throughout the term as a result of mistakes or

omissions. Each assignment is thought of separately as
something to be passed (or failed) rather than one
component that builds towards a larger whole. One of
the fundamental perceptual shifts facilitated by using a
gamified approach to scoring is that students start the
class with 0 points and everything they do is additive.
Whereas earning less than an ‘A’ is seen as a form of
failure to some, earning less than the maximum
possible points on a single quest can be seen as simply
taking a smaller step towards the overall goal than one
might have liked. When there are sufficient quests to
choose from, no-one is required to complete them all,
and some may complete fewer tasks for the same
number of points. Either way, both strategies (fewer
quests with higher scores or more quests with lower
scores) can result in exemplary completion of the
course.
Quests were assigned a maximum number of points
for completion, although students would not
necessarily receive full points for each activity. Table
1 shows a list of activities and the number of points
possible for completion. Multiple submissions were
allowed for all of the activities, from 2-10 submissions,
depending on the activity.
Table 1. Available Activities

Quest Details
3.00
3.01

3.02

3.03

3.04

3.05

3.06
3.07

Introduce Yourself
Peer Review of
Lesson Design
(Quest 1)
Self-Assessment of
Lesson Design
(Quest 1)
Peer Review of High
Concept Game
Design (Quest 2)
Self-Assessment of
High Concept Game
Design (Quest 2)
Rating course
resources (either
instructor or
participant
contributions).
Annotating resources
provided by the
instructor.
Contributing new
annotated resources.

Max.
Points
10

Max
Repeats
1

15

5

20

1

15

5

20

1

3.08

3.09

3.10

3.11

3.12

Posting an original
Blog Post
Adding meaningful
comments to the
posts, reviews,
resources, etc. of
other participants.
Posting an editorial
response to a news
item, blog post, or
other article.
Writing a critical
review of a research
or development
project conducted by
others.
Game Review

15

5

10

10

20

5

25

5

20

5

In order to maintain compatibility with the standard
university grading system, the points were converted to
percentage amounts towards a final course mark. Each
10 points students earned in the game was worth 1%
towards their mark in the course. The gamified portion
of the first offering of the course allotted 20% to the
gamification portion of the marks which was increased
to 50% in the second offering. Players were allowed to
complete as many activities as they chose and were
given the opportunity to have their points to actually
exceed the allotted percentage. In this way they could
compensate for less than perfect marks in other
assignments. It was possible, if a student completed
and received full marks on every single quest, to earn
47% of their mark in the first edition and a full 100%
of their marks in the second edition through this
avenue. As a result, some students completed the
course with a mark of over 100%. The instructor
created individual scorecards made from spreadsheets
for each student in order to keep track of everything.
Existing course management systems don’t support
this kind of scoring and so points and grades needed to
be tallied elsewhere.

4. Post Mortem
5

10

10

10

15

10

In many ways, the design of this course was a
departure from anything most of the students had
experienced. On the whole the students liked the
approach, but found there to be a substantial learning
curve due to the complexity that resulted from
increased choice and the scoring scheme. The second
iteration of the course went far more smoothly in spite
of the fact that the scoring was in fact more complex.

A number of students reported that this was the best
course they had ever taken, and that they had learned
more in this course than in any other. On the other
hand the marking load was extreme, so some
combination of automatic and personal scoring and
assessment is necessary.

4.1. What Went Right
Some students put more work into the readings and
responses than they may have otherwise done had the
course not been gamified. Although many students
were skeptical at first - some admitted that they had
originally planned to complete the minimal amount of
work necessary to earn a reasonable grade - by the end
most students felt more ownership of their own
learning and confidence in their ability to succeed in
the course. Since the possibility existed for students to
complete more activities in the gamification portion of
the course as a way to compensate for marks ‘lost’ in
other areas, students had more control over their final
grade than they would in a traditional style course. It
also served as a mitigating factor in reducing the
perceived risk of attempting quests or contributing to
conversations, which resulted in more varied
conversations. Since there were many opportunities to
earn points, participants were freer to experiment. One
author reported being surprised at how enjoyable it was
to do the assignments, submit them, and then wait for
the leader board to show up so she could see where she
was in the rankings.

4.2. What Went Wrong
Some students were put off by the competition that
naturally occurred, yet others found it motivating. The
traditional approaches to evaluation of reading
responses failed in large part due to the sheer volume
of submissions. The instructor found it very
challenging to keep up with the scoring and had very
little time to provide detailed feedback. Several
methods for submitting quests were tried, including the
use of GoogleDocs and Moodle which caused
confusion and stress for many.

4.3. Surprises
One author reported reluctance among the other
participants to share scores. In a non-gamified class,
many of these same people felt open to share, and the

marks seemed to be second to the content so the shift
of focus onto scores was curious. It was also
interesting to note that it was assumed that certain
people had the high scores even though the leaderboard
contained no names, only scores. However, close to the
end of the course, the score cards were more a sense of
pride than ego as they were at the start. Most of the
participants were striving to earn the extra points, so at
this point it was really a keen way of having everyone
engaged on task, and extending the learning after the
objectives have been reached.

5. Key Elements of a Gamified Design
Key elements of a gamified design include various
aspects of games, but should not be limited to the
superficial score-keeping. While it is important to tie
quests to course objectives, participants should be
allowed to re-try a quest whenever possible, and there
must be a variety of paths the ‘the end’.
For some, the notion that everyone started off with
a ‘0’ and everything they did throughout the course
was guaranteed to add to their final score constituted a
significant perceptual shift. Rather than each item
being assigned a letter grade, points indicated overall
progress towards the end goal which for some had the
effect of taking pressure off of individual components.
While most items could not be re-submitted, it was
possible to submit an additional item in the same
category or to submit something in a completely
different category. That way even if an individual
scored poorly on a single component, that score still
added to the total like all the others, and at worst, a
poor score meant they had to complete additional
quests if they wanted to increase their score. Just like
in a game, players could keep trying a task until they
felt they had mastered it.
The logistics of the course design are perhaps more
important in a gamified course than in a more
traditional design. Gamified courses often have more
individually scored components than other kinds of
courses, so careful organization is key. There are a
number of ways of facilitating submission when there
are many items, such as having students number and
label items, or providing one document where all new
items are collected together. The creation of a
submission form was one idea that came up during
class discussions. It was tried by a few of the
participants and both they and the instructor found it to
simplify the process considerably.

Figure 2 Leaderboard
It becomes almost impossible to assess submissions
individually as the number of items to be submitted
and scored increases. In the first iteration, each
participant was able to submit up to 43 items, worth
from 5 - 25 points. There were 22 participants, which
means a possible total of nearly 1000 items to be read
and marked. In the second iteration this grew to 73
items per student. The 13 participants in the online
edition collectively submitted 488 items for
assessment. Nonetheless, fast turnaround of feedback
is essential as this too is a crucial aspect of games and
one which can have a profound impact on student
motivation. Figure 2 shows the weekly scores for the
online version of the course. It was decided by the
instructor to use only the scores rather than listing any
names. This way players could see where they ranked,
but no individuals could be singled out. Note that
scores were sorted strictly numerically, so each line
does not map on to any individual player. Player ‘A’
could be ranked 7th one week and 3rd the next. While
some participants were quite slow to get started, 3/4
ended up earning more than was needed for a ‘perfect’
score (500). Since very few tasks had set deadlines,
participants were free to adjust their workloads to
compensate for other things that were happening in
their lives. This freedom had disadvantages as well. As
can be seen by the progression of the scores over time,
it is important for the instructor to keep an eye on
every student’s progress and to try and encourage those
who are falling behind to catch up. In a course where
the content builds upon earlier understandings,
deadlines and milestones would have to be designed
differently. It is interesting to note that those students

who earned the highest scores also earned high scores
on all other components of the course. In most cases,
the extra points had no effect on the student’s

score.

6. Conclusion
Ultimately providing authentic, meaningful
learning is at the core of all good instruction, gamified
or not (Merrill, 2002). Gamification can manipulate
students into taking on tasks or can motivate them to
engage more deeply with course material. At the heart
of these concerns is the concept of Self-Determination
Theory. In order to have a positive mental outlook
toward engaging with something, learners need to feel
like they have choice in the learning, that they are
seeing progress, and that they can relate to the world
[14].
Adding gamification to a class adds a significant
amount of overhead, and instructors need to decide – is
their time better spent developing a mechanic-heavy
gamification system or class management or creating
more engaging game-based learning activities within a
traditional structure?
It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery and perhaps in education, it is also an
indication of acceptance. The authors note that the
subsequent instructor for this same course is following
the lead set in these two classes and is continuing to
use a gamified approach.

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