instructional Design & Technology
ETEC 5440 ADDIE Project
How to Engage Junior High School Students in Learning the History of Flight by the Wright Brothers through Gamification
Analysis Paper
Development Paper
Design Document
Formative Evaluation
Reflections on The Project
The Instructional Design project is on “How to Engage Junior High School Students in Learning the History of Flight by the Wright Brothers through Gamification.” In the process of designing the material, we have most definitely undergone a lot of changes. Initially, our thought process was to come up with an instructional material in parts, where we provide a background on the Wright Brothers and retell the story up to their historically-innovative first flight, and then provide a knowledge check in the form of a computer simulation game where the object was to try to recreate the first flight by coming up with a “crude” design of the Wright Brothers’ glider and then making it fly and stay up in the air. This was some sort of rude awakening for us as we realized that we did not have time to develop the game, much less the ability to program it to be available as a simulation. We then thought of utilizing online games on a website dedicated to the Wright Brothers, and considered incorporating it as part of the instructional material, to be informed that games we utilize must be original, so that idea was abandoned as well. Upon close examination of the concept of gamification, we then understood that it was not necessary for the game component to be digital, only that it requires the application of the elements of game playing and competition amother others in the pursuit of of engagement in the lesson. We then re-tooled our efforts towards developing a three-part instruction where we 1. provide a lecture 2. do a knowledge check 3. apply gamification through a Jeopardy mini-game. In the Implementation phase we had even more challenges as all three of us in the team do not come from an education background, therefore we were scrambling to come up with participants as learners for our instructional material, which we were able to, thanks to relatives of one of our team members. Given that our implementation date was too close to our evaluation date, plus some personal challenges for some of us in the team, we were unable to deliver a carefully thought-of presentation as we were pressed for time. If we have a chance for a do-over, we will definitely fine-tune our process more and create a digitally-oriented game, more students as learner-participants with buzzers as noted in the evaluation, and a better presentation with visuals representing the findings of our evaluation.
Reflections on ETEC 5440
After being away from school for a considerable number of years, it was a breath of fresh air to be back in a classroom and to learn new things — I loved learning about the different Learning Theories, doing the Jamboard exercises, breaking down mundane tasks through the Task Analysis exercise, and the adrenaline rush of doing the ADDIE project. This experience is, for me, a good preview of what to expect when I embark on my Instructional Design and Technology career, and I am proud to be able to showcase my first design through my ePortfolio.
I am not going to lie, there are days where I feel like I am experiencing “impostor syndrome” because of the times where I literally blank out or my thoughts won’t align properly when I start to write or do a deep thought process on a project — having gone through COVID twice is no joke and brain fog is real. But I have learned a lot in this class, and I looked forward to attending it, albeit in Zoom, as well as engage in interesting class discussions that I would never have otherwise elicited from my elementary-aged children (they’re smart, just on a different level). So thank you, classmates and Dr. Moe for providing a venue for intelligent discourse.
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.