Hey Sporcle, Activate Learning!

“Here is my gamer tag. Add me to your party!” For the past three years, the aforementioned phrase has echoed through schools, playgrounds, and households around the world. Children and gamers alike come together daily in “parties” to be the last person standing as they anxiously await new skins and new seasons. There is no doubt that video games such as Fortnite have proven to be an example of the shift in children’s play culture (Carter et al, 2020). Moreover, the totality of the gaming experience which include storytelling and required critical thinking skills has opened up the platform to appeal to a wider audience (Chess, 2018). Gamification has the ability to engage and unite individuals of all ages. Thus, it can be used as an effective learning modality to assess student knowledge and establish an active learning environment.

Active Learning

Sporcle is a trivia website that allows users to take quizzes on a wide range of subjects through the use of the web or a mobile device. Teachers can utilize the app as a classroom tool to assess students and assist with learning course content, enhance collaboration, and facilitate self-directed learning. Research shows that students are more satisfied and confident in academic achievement when active learning is implemented in the classroom (Fabian, Topping, & Barron, 2018). Reiser & Dempsey (2018) define active learning as an instructional practice that rouses student cognition and emotion in a meaningful way so that they are equipped to engage with their peers, assigned task, and lesson materials in order to successfully master learning goals. Active learning can look like students participating in discussion with their peers, working together in groups, and establishing their own work schedules. Based on the availability of features, teachers can achieve all of the mentioned characteristics of active learning with Sporcle.

Discourse and Social Interactions

According to UC Berkley (n.d.) learners who have opportunities to talk with their peers and others are more knowledgeable about their ideas, observations, and understanding. These opportunities are helpful because in expressing their thinking out loud, learners can check themselves and others for understanding, make meaningful connections to both peers and content, and reflect on ideas. Furthermore, allowing students to talk and discuss helps them to identify misconceptions, defend and explain their thinking, and gain a deeper level of understanding to enhance retention of concepts (Pylman, n.d.). Quizzes can be used in group discussions to create conversations. Students can create questions to ask other students in their group. Then, they can evaluate and discuss the answers together in their groups (Amran, 2016, p. 1472). Sporcle has the feature “Sporcle Party” that allows students to play in a similar fashion as they would with other gaming platforms. They can have a live “trivia party” that can include up to 25 people. In addition, they can “follow” and become “friends" with other users. As a benefit in classroom application, students are able to “party up” by creating private parties. Within the private party, the teams will have a chat panel for discussion.

Group Quizzes

One of the many highlights of the private party is that students are able to actually play as a team. UC Berkeley (2018) suggests group quizzes are an effective strategy for active learning. First, give the students a quiz that they will complete on their own for a grade. After the individual quiz, place students in small groups where they will take the quiz again. Last, students submit the group quiz for a grade receiving the average of the two if the group quiz grade is higher. Such a setting will allow students to have an opportunity for open discussion. It will allow students to use the same skill sets through discussion – defend their ideas, learn from the perspective of others, and reflect on the ideas that are shared. Not only will students benefit by gaining understanding in the subject area but they will also gain knowledge of alternate topics (Amran, Yokoyama, & Nishino, 2016, p. 1472) under the supervision of the teacher.

Motivation and Agency

There is no escaping the rapid shift in teachers’ roles from “sage on the stage” (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018) to facilitators of learning. Even more so, the responsibility of learning has shifted through the autonomy of student choice. Online learning is a medium that allows students to visualize concepts in an abstract way resulting in improved active recall, remembering content for assessments (Park, Burke, and Chrysanthou, 2020).  There are several features of Sporcle that foster student motivation, self-directed learning (agency), and self-efficacy:

App features

• Quizzes have a variety of questions that are framed as short answer not just multiple choice. The variety of quiz responses makes Sporcle exhibit a flashcard style, which enhances active recall and is considered “one of the most powerful learning techniques out there” (Ballen et al, 2017).

• Teachers can create a playlist of quizzes allowing students               1) to choose the quizzes that they want to take and 2) an opportunity to explore and provide a list of interesting ones for the teacher to add to the playlist.

• Immediate feedback that is positive. For example, if a player earns a 22% on a quiz, the response is “nobody likes a show-off, so everybody must like you!” Responses such as these help to improve student motivation and belief that they can excel in the subject area (self-efficacy).

Conclusion

Students who have autonomy in their own learning are more engaged. Gamification heightens student involvement as they are equipped “to think about and apply what they are learning” (Pylman, n.d.). Gamifying classroom assessments benefit both the teacher and students. Sporcle provides a quiz library on numerous subject areas so that this tool can be adapted in all forms of learning environments. Furthermore, engaging familiar platform with the party option increases student motivation to practice. For those who are looking for a simple way of implementing active learning strategies into their learning environment, Sporcle is definitely a great place to start!

References:

Amran, R., Yokoyama, F., & Nishino, K. (2016). Development of active learning methods of English in Japanese high schools to support student activities in group discussions. Procedia Computer Science, 96, 1471-1478.

Ballen, C. J., Wieman, C., Salehi, S., Searle, J. B., & Zamudio, K. R. (2017). Enhancing diversity in undergraduate science: Self-efficacy drives performance gains with active learning. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 16(4), ar56.

Carter, M., Moore, K., Mavoa, J., Horst, H., & Gaspard, L. (2020). Situating the Appeal of Fortnite Within Children’s Changing Play Cultures. Games and Culture, 15(4), 453-471.

Chess, S. (2018). Power On: Why Video Games Matter. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 98(1), 17-21.

Fabian, K., Topping, K. J., & Barron, I. G. (2018). Using mobile technologies for mathematics: effects on student attitudes and achievement. Educational Technology Research and Development, 66(5), 1119-1139.

Park, H., Burke, J. D., Blin, V., & Chrysanthou, H. (2020, July). Improving Memory Recall and Measuring User Ability Through Gamified Techniques with ‘Chatty’: An E-Learning Application for Foreign Languages. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 349-366). Springer, Cham.

Pylman, S. (n.d.). Active Learning Research. Michigan State University Office of Medical Education Research and Development: College of Human Medicine. https://omerad.msu.edu/images/teaching/active_learning/Active_Learning_Research.pdf

Reiser, R.A., Dempsey, J.V. (2018). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology

(4th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education.

UC Berkeley (n.d.). Active Learning at Berkeley. Center for Teaching and Learning. https://teaching.berkeley.edu/active-learning-berkeley