Media

Battling Extinction Educational App [4] created by KCAD faculty and students in collaboration with Kenowa Hills Public Middle School teachers and students as part of the EPIC Project.

App content

• A 22 second animated introduction that is designed to attract the student's attention, set the expectation that they are about to have an entertaining experience and set up a sense of urgency around the topic of animal extinction.
• A world map that acts as a navigation system. Student choose locations to visit and learn about specific animals. Four of the animals are commonly known and two are not.
• Animal locations within the app include:
  • Extinction Status
  • An animated, interactive story about the cause of extinction. Each story page has a small amount of additional reading that provides information not in the animation.
  • Discussion Questions based on the 5 habits of mind.
  • Research resources
  • Review quiz
• An overall assessment test that can be taken by students on-line.

Location

STEM event at the 2016 ArtPrize HUB. We had a large television set up at one of the stations that students visited. The TV was cabled to a laptop where a lecturer was standing facing outward toward the student groups. The overall environment was noisy and full of distractions in the form of nearby hands-on displays, other groups of students passing by and students within their groups bantering with each other.

Process

A lecture was presented to groups of 10-15 middle school aged students who visited the station for 15 minute sessions. There were 30 groups in total. The students stood in a semi-circle during the lecture. They were told that they were helping us test a new method of digital learning and that they would be asked for feedback. They were also observed and data was gathered from the observations. The students were not told that they would be observed because we did not want them to "act" for the observer.

Method

1. An intro-animation was played 50% of the time before engaging the lecture with the students
2. The students were given the choice to choose the locations as we moved through the lecture for 50 % of the sessions. For the other 50% of the sessions they were chosen by the lecturer.
3. The quiz questions were answered by the lecturer 50% of the time and the students the other 50%.

Note: only one variable was assessed at a time (10 sessions for each variable)

Observations

1. The intro animation
   • Blended experience: The Intro animation had a profound effect on the lecturer's ability to gain the attention of the students. The intro. was played twice. Once to compel the students to tighten up their proximity to the large television and gain their basic attention. Most students missed the first 1/2 to 3/4 of the intro as they proceeded to divert their attention from a distraction to the media. Then it was played again to allow all the students time to read the animated text from beginning to end. The second playing of the intro provided an experience that blended the anticipation of an entertaining experience, set up by the audio and animation that was glimpsed in the students' periphery during their distraction phase, with the fully attentive experience of the complete intro. When the intro. animation was not played, the lecturer resorted to speaking with a raised voice and hand gestures to gain the students attention.
   • Anticipation: When the intro animation was played, the students became more quiet and attentive than when it was not. They "leaned-in" to the media because they wanted to hear the audio and see what the next animated or interactive bit would look and sound like. The novelty of starting a lecture with a digital-entertainment experience provided anticipation for what novelty may come next. When the intro. animation was not played, there was an expectation that this was going to be a more typical lecture that would involve a teacher talking as the primary "media". This was evident in that all eyes were mostly on the teacher as opposed to the image of the map on the television (unless the teacher pointed at the Television).
   • Anticipation Renewal: The experience was new to the students, when asked, they all stated that they had not experienced a lecture that was similar. The animation, audio and interactivity was described by the students as a game and there was much anticipation centered around how the game would play-out. The novelty, initially set-up by the intro animation and reinforced by the game-play remained in-force throughout the 15 minute lecture. The variation in art and animation styles helped keep the experience fresh. However, in another, longer (35 minute) test involving a nearly identical multimedia lecture called Survive Global Climate Change, the perceived entertainment value was somewhat diminished at about minute 25. The lecturer had to create novelty every few minutes through their instruction performance to renew the anticipation value beyond that.
2. Student Choice for the locations:
   • Blended Experience: When a student was able to choose a location, their expectation that their specific curiosity will be satisfied, blended with their actual experience with that location to provide heightened attentiveness. Other students that expressed interest in visiting that location also experienced heightened attentiveness. In the allotted 15 minutes, only 2-3 locations were visited and not all of the students were able to experience the blending.
   • Anticipation: Once students realized that they might be asked to choose the next location to visit in the lecture, most of them picked one out in their mind. They then waited with great expectation that they might raise their hand and be picked to choose at the next opportunity. When the lecturer asked: "who would like to choose the next location? Most hands were eagerly raised. The hand raising never diminished, although the session was only 15 minutes. When asked, the students, without exception, were interested in seeing more images of the animal for reasons of affinity for or curiosity around the animal itself. The interest in learning about the cause of the animals extinction was never mentioned as a choice-driver. When the lecturer chose the locations, students would shout out locations unprompted. After they realized the lecturer would be ignoring them, engagement decreased starkly.
   • Anticipation Renewal: Once a student was chosen to pick a location and that location was visited, the lecturer did not choose that student again. This did not curb those students enthusiasm for continuing to raise their hands in an attempt to receive a second choice even though it was obvious that the teacher would not ever choose them. This irrational exuberance may be explained by the compelling nature of the chance, however remote, they could be picked again.
3. Answering Quiz Questions
   • Blended Experience: When a student was able to answer a question correctly, several events had to happen in the lead up to that experience. They needed to know the answer, decide to raise their hand and be chosen by the lecturer The fact that all three of those events happened sweetened the actual experience of shouting the correct answer and receiving the acknowledgment of the lecturer.
   • Anticipation: Students were most "leaned in" to the lecture during the quiz. The few seconds directly after a question was exposed saw maximum attentiveness. The students clearly wanted to see if they knew the answer and if they would be chosen. In addition, every correct answer brought back (visually) one of the extinct animals and every set of possible answers include one humorous option. These two added features often brought on comments, laughter and "awws" from the students and made the app feel game-like. When the lecturer chose the answers, students would shout out their answers unprompted. After they realized the lecturer would be ignoring them, engagement decreased starkly.
   • Anticipation Renewal: Every new quiz question created new opportunities for direct engagement between the students, teacher and technology. This interactive trifecta never grew old. Students fell roughly into three groups; question answerers (raising hands), humorous question finders (pointing and laughing) and notice-ers of animal repopulation ("awws" vocalized). The three types of interaction created some chaos unless the lecturor controlled the order of the interaction, asking:
     • What is the least likely correct answer (the funniest)?
     • What is the most likely correct answer?
     • Look, you saved an animal with your knowledge... let's hear an "awww".

Take Aways:

We have explored three concepts for maximizing engagement by manipulating expectations:

1. Blended experience: our expected experience will blend with our actual experience to create a perceived experience.
2. Anticipation: our dopamine levels will be elevated by the anticipation of an unknown reward
3. Anticipation renewal: we will need to continue to build new and novel anticipation periodically and systematically within any one single experience.

These three concepts can be integrated into media created for multimedia enhanced lectures by including:

1. Dynamic Introductory animations with sound.
2. Varying student interactions and choices that include opportunities for teachers to actively participate and inject their own classroom learning methods.
3. Segmenting the content and lesson so that numerous intros, interactions and art/animation styles can be integrated to renew expectations.

Introductions

• A high impact, entertainment-focused introductory experience will be effective for setting up the kind of expectations that will facilitate the blending of an expected experience with the actual experience to create a perceived experience that is more engaging. Here are some things that we will integrate into future media based on our observations:
  • Introductory segments should be configured in 2 parts.
    1. An attention-getting part, the length of which can be controlled by the lecturor. An animated loop like those used as start screens for some subscription video services, DVDs, games and Social Media posts are examples. This part should focus on the idea that the students are about to have an entertainment experience while they are learning.
    2. An introduction to the content that builds anticipation but does not give all the content away. In other words, this should not be a detailed preview of everything that will be covered, because building anticipation of an unknown reward is the goal. Movie previews are an example of this, albeit, they are much longer than a lecture introduction would need to be. A 30 second intro. for a 15 minute lecture would be a rough equivalent to a 3 minute preview for a 90 minute film.
  • The audio should be configured at 2 separate volumes and be easily adjustable so the lecturer can find the setting that:
    1. During the the first part, it will compel students to lean in to see what is happening.
    2. During the second part, will draw full attention to screen by being somewhat louder than the first part.

Student Interactions

• Building frequent student choice into the lecture through navigational elements will provide an experience that blends the anticipation that stems from their, very public, choice with their actual experience to create a more engaging perceived experience. this is akin to excitedly introducing a new song to a friend. The anticipation that they will enjoy it as much as you, has the effect of making it sound especially great... to you.
• The anticipation that accompanies the possibility of being called upon to choose the next path in the lecture will create a perfect cocktail of blended (expected + actual = perceived) experiences for each student that is chosen. So the more choices, the better. However, in a classroom full of thirty students this could prove difficult if not impossible. Designing several modes of learning into the lesson that allows the lecturer to break a class to into small groups that rotate through activities could help to meet that challenge. These can be self administered mini-lessons that students rotate through. while the lecturer is lecturing. Here are some ideas:
  • Multimedia enhanced lecture
  • Small group discussion driven by questions centered on the 5 habits of mind.
  • Research projects
  • Math problems associated with the topic
  • Charting and graphing project associated with the topics
  • Writing assignments
  • Art project that synthesizes the subject emotionally
  • Design project that focuses on problem solving

Anticipation Renewal

• Segmenting the content in a way that would allow the inclusion of several intros that could effectively break one lecture into 2, 3 or more lecture-parts, thus renewing the content expectations several times. Examples for this include:
  • Television game show intros for bonus rounds
  • Special effects animations that precede game character power-ups
  • Game cut scenes between levels.