“Bingo!” Do we have a winner?

Abstract

This design case details my efforts as an instructor to combat the fact that my students were not completing
assigned readings. The first step in addressing the issue was recognizing that my students had legitimate reasons for neglecting the assignments and that this was not a situation of me against them. The design solution was based upon the Buzzword Bingo game, a game designed to mock the catchphrases so common in the world of business, and some of the subversive nature of the gamecarried over into the classroom. This lead to students trying to game the system, resulting in tension for me, the instructor, who had to remember that he welcomed these challenges to his authority into the classroom. The increased engagement—which I wanted—required me to become comfortable with the reduced level of control.

Although implementation required minimal technology support and was initially piloted using only a standard
discussion board, I iterated through multiple rounds of software enhancements to improve ease of use and make it easier to provide quality feedback to my students. These changes resulted in unexpected benefits as they enabled me to perform analytics on the captured responses resulting in a deeper sense of their progress and an ability to tailor my instruction to the student’ needs.