Abstract:

Blended Learning (BL) is an educational format which combines analogue, classical approaches to teaching with elements of e-learning. Especially in higher education it is a popular format to enforce students’ active participation and individualized, multi-channel as well as de-centralized learning.

In the lecture “Communication and Organizational Development I” (KOE I) at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, BL is practiced in the form of a Flipped Classroom. The lecture is an obligatory module for bachelor students in their first semester of mechanical engineering and therefore includes up to 1.600 students every winter semester. Amongst the BL elements used in this course, there is an online lecture, a business simulation with LEGO Mindstorms NXT robots, catch boxes with microphones, which students can playfully throw around the room and thereby discuss with their peers as well as finally, an online examination. Every year, the course is formally evaluated. In the evaluation, students can anonymously rate every element of the lecture. The lecture team analyzes these results and adapts the format accordingly for the following term.

Generally, the adaptations circulate around digital tools such as the addition of an audience response system, which is in line with the university’s future-oriented digitalization strategy. But is digital always preferable over analogue learning formats? Are these indeed more effective and essentially, what students want and need?

In 2016, the KOE I team implemented a fully analogue gamification element in the lecture in order to support the topic of problem-solving in teams. Gamification is defined as the addition of gamy elements to existing processes in order to foster motivation and/or a change of behavior. The gamification element used in this course referred to the “Engineers without Borders Challenge” in which students develop ideas for real life problems in developing countries. In the lecture, a banana peel smashing device is simulated by a wood pile and a bucket filled with sand. Students may try it out in a competitive way and are then asked to find alternative, less exhausting solutions for the process of crushing or shredding banana peel in teams of each around 25 people. The actual smashing device equipped with sharp machetes is used in Tanzania in order to support a bio-gas facility. Students may present their solutions after a working phase in front of their peers – and they are ambitious in doing so. Instead of having two or three teams presenting as planned, the teams waited in lines to get on the lecturing stage and show off their results. After presenting, students are asked to reflect on how the team-building process went and which obstacles they faced. Thus, the method used in this module is part of the learning cycle itself.

This research paper deals with the question whether digital solutions are necessarily more engaging and motivating for students. As a result, it will show that gamification does not necessarily have to be digital and thus sometimes even costly in order to be effective and instructional. It just needs to be student centered, creative as well as content-oriented. As an additional result, it will reflect on the KOE I’s creative process in the course of realizing gamification and thereby provide instructional guidelines for inserting gamification in courses in general. The argumentation will also be based on the student evaluation results of both 2016 and 2017.

Keywords:

Blended Learning, Flipped Classroom, Gamification, Large Classes, Engineers without Borders, Digitalization.