EconJourney | Unleasing the Power of Story to

EconJourney
Unleashing the Power of Story to Teach Economic Principles
Neil B. Niman
Steven Furnagiev
Kate E. Ward*
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824
603.862.3336
[email protected]
* Neil Niman is Associate Dean of Academic Programs at the Peter T. Paul College of Business and
Economics. Steven Furnagiev is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics and Kate Ward is a
Content Developer and Project Manager at the Center for Work and Play.
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EconJourney: Unleashing the Power of Story to Teach Economic Principles
In their influential book, Arum and Roksa (2011) cast students as being academically adrift. Utilizing the
Collegiate Learning Assessment, they evaluated twenty-three hundred students spanning twenty-four
US institutions of higher education. What they discovered was that forty five percent of students
showed virtually no learning gains during their first two years. More disturbing was that the comparison
between freshman and senior years displayed hardly any improvement. And further they found thirty
seven percent of students devoted less than five hours per week preparing for class.
The discipline of Economics is no stranger to the challenges posed by the need to promote deep
learning—yet it seems the methods used by current instructors are largely ineffective in increasing
learning outcomes. Traditionally, Principles of Economics courses have been taught using a “chalk and
talk” approach. In the most recent national survey of teaching and assessment methods concluded in
2010, lecturing was once again the preferred format of the vast majority of instructors. In fact, about
eighty-three percent of class time is spent lecturing to students; a statistic that has not changed since
1995 (Watts and Schaur 2011).1
In a more recent survey held at the 2012 ASSA meetings, Goffe and Kauper (2014) found that
roughly two thirds of the 340 instructors who responded reported using lecture as the primary form of
instruction in their courses. Of the two thirds of instructors that use lecture, roughly half lecture because
they believe it is the best way to deliver the material and half use lecture because they believe it is cost
effective.
Despite there being relatively no change in teaching styles over the past few decades, studies
have shown that students taught in a traditional lecture format only retain 55% of information Cherney
(2008). In an often cited study, Walstad and Allgood (1999) demonstrate that there is only a marginal
difference in retention between a student that has taken an economics course and one that has not.
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College seniors who had taken a class in economics scored on average just 14 points higher on a 15question test than those that had no background in economics. Although economic students did score
higher, the median grade was only in the 60s, thus confirming that they had remembered only a very
limited amount.2
Currently in its second semester pilot, we have developed a new approach for instruction: the
Journey Process. Subsequently, we have launched a website located at http://econjourney.com for real
time application of the Journey Process using a Principles of Microeconomics as the foundation for
content. Rather than using it to replace the traditional economics course or the lecture format, we have
added it as a supplement.
The goal of the Journey Process is to transform students from being passive listeners into active
story makers. The rise of social media has done more than turn today’s undergraduate students into
multi-modal consumers of information; it has also turned them into storytellers who share their lives on
a daily or even moment by moment basis. As a result, story has taken on a significance that has gone far
beyond a means for entertainment or a method for disseminating knowledge. The stories we tell about
ourselves create a form of expression that helps to develop a sense of identity and place within a social
fabric consisting of friends, relatives, and peers both in the physical and online worlds.3
In EconJourney, students create and write about their own imaginary world plagued by scarcity.
A crisis occurs that makes the problems created by scarcity more acute. A main character is introduced
who must undertake a journey in order to acquire the knowledge needed to improve the quality of life
for all affected by the crisis. Economic concepts are learned through a series of challenges and this
knowledge is used to solve the problems created by scarcity and achieve an “epic” win.4
The Journey Process and its manifestation in EconJourney are based on ideas developed in
Niman (2014). They seek to harness the principles underlying game design to create a framework for
learning basic tenets of a particular subject matter such as economics, and further that generates a co-
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created experience where students are provided the tools they need to turn the principles of
microeconomics into a compelling story of their own choosing.
What follows is a description of the Journey Process and the general principles that underlay the
development of the website located at http://econjourney.com. We then discuss our experiences using
this approach in the classroom. Finally we more broadly discuss the potential of the approach and our
roadmap for future development.
The Journey Process
The use of literature to teach economics or illustrate economic principles is not a new thought (Vachris
and Bohanon, 2012; Cott and Johnson, 2012; Watts, 2002; Hartley, 2001). In fact, William Breit and
Kenneth Elzinga have gone so far as to contend that “all good economic analysis is structured like
classical detective fiction” (2002, p. 368). A similar perspective is offered by Deirdre McCloskey (1990)
who believes that it is no accident that the novel and economic science were born at the same time.
However, in all of these cases, economics is taught using someone else’s story, drawn from
history or from an instructor’s own experiences. The Journey Process on the other hand is designed to
assist students in constructing their own narratives using important economic principles. It is designed
to empower students in a manner that helps them to make logical connections between what appears
often as a series of unrelated concepts. It uses the power of story to give meaning to those connections
in an effort to form a lasting memory.5 And further, it aims to help the student make a connection
between the success of their fictionalized character and their own success in mastering economic
concepts through the story creation process.6
The development of the Journey Process has relied to a large extent on those same principles
used to design games. It is an application of the concept of Gamification where game mechanics are
used in non-game situations to motivate behavior and achieve superior results (Niman, 2014).
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Game designers (McGonigal, 2011) like to reference the concept of flow (Csikszenthmihalyi,
1975) when discussing the source of intrinsic motivation found in many games. This notion refers to a
state of mind where the player is totally concentrated on the job at hand and with that singular focus, is
able to attain success. The satisfaction of a job well done, challenges overcame, or through mastery over
something that seemed to be beyond reach motivates continued and repeated play.
Think in terms of learning the game of basketball, or more specifically how to shoot. For many
young kids, there can be a great deal of satisfaction throwing a ball through a hoop. However, they
quickly realize, the further they are away from the basket, the harder it is to be successful. Hence young
players generally start learning how to shoot a basketball by standing relatively close to the basket, or
even use a shorter hoop or smaller ball. As they begin to master a particular ‘easy’ shot, they move
farther and farther away, increase the ball size, and raise the hoop to increase the degree of difficulty,
and create new challenges capable of holding their interest.
The same holds true in a well-designed learning environment. In order to achieve a state of flow,
students need to reach a level of comfort with simple ideas or constructs before moving to something
more advanced. Just as in basketball, it is fairly easy to identify whether a shot succeeded or failed, the
same is true for a well-designed learning environment. Instant feedback is essential for being able to
make those micro adjustments required to find one’s groove, reach a state of flow and overcome the
challenge of making a difficult shot (or more difficult concepts). Simple metrics (the shot went in or it did
not) are also important for maintaining motivation and infusing a desire to learn (even when the
material becomes more difficult).
However, while some players can shoot basketballs at a hoop for hours on end, most are easily
bored without the introduction of some form of extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation often follows
with the development of some form of healthy competition. Shooting basketballs becomes more
interesting when an additional player is introduced capable of preventing the ball from reaching the
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basket. What began as a singular endeavor has now become a contest to see who can overcome the
obstacles created by defensive player and score the most points. Now suddenly there are points to be
totaled, scores to be kept and ultimately a winner to be crowned.
Many games are designed in a way where it is easy for players to record, display and compare
individual achievements. The achievements associated with reaching a higher level or a similar type of
success and the comparisons that are inevitably made as the result of keeping score, creates status for
the player. Status forms the basis for gaining self-esteem. This self-esteem arises naturally from the
comparisons that occur when equally matched individuals evaluate their position relative to others
(Niman, 2013) and can also serve as an important source of motivation.
The same type of extrinsic motivation can be attained with the development of a well-designed
learning environment. When learning becomes something other than a solitary endeavor with the
potential for external recognition either in the form of a visible reward or place on a leaderboard,
students may very well exert more effort. The challenge is to find ways to mix students with different
skill sets so they can compete on even terms with other students in the class. Hence the student who
might be struggling on an individual basis can still find a path that will enable them to experience
success.
All of this becomes magnified when a social component is added. A one on one basketball game
is for many, more interesting than just shooting baskets at a hoop. That being said, two on two can be
more exciting and a game with five on a side even more so. Comradery can help a player feel part of
something larger and more special; it creates opportunities for achieving flow as part of a team and
personalizes relative comparisons. Rivalries form between bands of allies (teammates), leagues are
formed to enhance competition and victory becomes an even bigger deal.
Hence basketball, like any other game uses various mechanics to create something fun that
players want to experience over and over again. EconJourney does the same in that it provides a vehicle
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for developing a better understanding of the concepts, starting first with the basics, and further is
designed to motivate students to do something they might otherwise be reluctant to try.
Examples of game mechanics used in EconJourney include:

A progress bar so that students can see how far they have come and how much further
they need to go

The ability for students to learn from their mistakes and eventually overcome a
challenge in order to gain a sense of mastery over the material

The introduction of cause and effect by making features of the site only available after
the student has overcome a challenge and mastered the material

The use of narrative to tie together concepts into a coherent whole in order to develop
a deeper level of understanding

The introduction of achievements that can be used as symbols for acknowledging
accomplishments earned

Peer to peer interaction through the creation of a social component to create a mutually
supportive environment that helps bring out the best in an individual student
Mechanics are often just a series of “levers” that carry out a vision embedded in the design.
EconJourney is based on five design principles that merit more detailed discussion. These principles
encompass the five following elements:
1. Co-Creation as a means for crafting a more memorable learning experience
2. Story as a mechanism for integrating concepts into a meaningful coherent thread
3. Coaching Model to provide guidance and foster success
4. Snackable Content to make economic concepts more accessible
5. Challenges developed to expose the logical connections between economic concepts
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These elements are illustrated in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1
Co-Creation
The heart of the Journey Process is the use of story to provide a meaningful framework for the
application of economic concepts. To accomplish this goal, the student writes a story utilizing the
concepts they are taught. This naturally raises the question: Does it have to be their story? In other
words, wouldn’t any story accomplish the small objective?
In describing the effective economics instructor, David Colander has asserted that “A good
principles of economics teacher is a good storyteller (1995, p. 169).” However, this creates an almost
insurmountable challenge because, “it is sometimes said that an economist is an accountant without a
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sense of humor” (2000, p. 77). Yet, despite possibly not having the most dynamic personality, Colander
believes that the problem does not lie solely with the instructor, but perhaps more in the method. He
asserts that students find economics boring because instructors try to combine the telling of stories with
the teaching of simple models. It is the formal models that turn our exciting stories into something that
only a small minority of students would find to be of interest (Colander, 2004, 2005).
Is it really that the application of economic models turning exciting stories into boring ones, or is
it that, at least from the student perspective, the stories were never and will never be very interesting to
them. We all appreciate our own stories, however as the gap grows larger between the interests and
experiences of the teller and the listener, it is not clear that what is viewed to be compelling by the teller
is also true of the listener. Rather than trying to bridge the gap between storyteller and listener, the
Journey Process is designed to help students tell their own story, one that is meaningful and important
to them.
By turning students into active story makers, learning becomes part of a co-created experience.
Co-creation as part of learning is not about ceding control of the educational process to the student, nor
is it about joint knowledge creation, rather it is the process of creating an environment in which
students can partake in an active dialogue and co-construct personalized experiences to facilitate the
learning process (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). It is about forming an environment where a student
can take abstract constructs and turn them into relatable concepts that have meaning for them and
hence will be more memorable.
Examples of co-created experiences can be found all over the internet. Perhaps the best known
is that of Facebook. Facebook provides a framework that provides both constraints and helpful nudges
for how best one might generate content. It provides a host of tools that facilitate the content creation
process. Users utilize those tools within the defined framework to create pages that in combination tell
a story. Stories are then shared within the community that emerges as friends get friends to join and
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post their own pages. Without the content generated by its community of users, the company’s website
would be nothing more than an empty shell. Hence value emerges from a co-created process that has
the user learning more about themselves and their friends while enhancing feelings of belonging within
a community of peers (Marandi, Little and Hughes, 2010; Pongsakornrungsilp and Schroeder, 2011).
Similar to the Facebook example, EconJourney provides a website where students can develop
and post their stories. The Story Coach Model serves as a guide to help integrate economic concepts
with story elements, and serves a similar purpose as the tools of Facebook, by shaping the type of
content being posted. Writing prompts lead to forms that further add structure to the development of
the ideas and content that will create the foundation for the student’s story. Forums exist for sharing
stories so that students can compare what they have done and potentially learn from each other.
Story
The general structure of the story used in EconJourney is a loose interpretation of the Hero’s Journey
story archetype developed by Joseph Campbell—a universal pattern found in many familiar stories.
Based on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, this basic archetype can be found in well-known characters like
Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, or Moses in the Old Testament. As a result,
the concept of a hero and the triumph of good over evil has become a fundamental pillar supporting
modern culture. As Daniel Kahneman has remarked, “…we all care intensely for the narrative of our own
life and very much want it to be a good story, with a decent hero” (Kahneman, 2011 p. 387).
While story is a prevalent form of communication, modern digital media has turned it into a
fragmented series of tweets (Twitter), individual posts on various walls (Facebook), pictures that may or
may not disappear (Snapchat and Instagram), anonymous comments (YikYak), or short videos (Vine) to
just name a few. As a result, today’s student is losing the ability to weave together divided content to
develop a coherent thread capable of supporting the construction of an engaging story.
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To reverse this trend, EconJourney was designed to not only to teach economic principles, but
to also take students away from the world of short meaningless posts and inspire them to think in terms
of constructing a complete narrative. The benefits to creating a narrative are twofold. The power of
narrative is that it forces a storyteller to make the necessary connections between ideas in order to
convey a coherent message, rather than to display a collection of isolated concepts. As importantly, a
narrative is a vehicle for establishing meaning that is capable of persisting long after the development
process ends.
For example, in economics, an instructor might discuss the problem of scarcity as a tradeoff
between beer and pizza. The unveil being that the equilibrium price of a pizza is the result of the
interaction between supply and demand. This can even be combined with a long discussion of whether
or not the local pizza shop earns a profit as the result of the size of the market for pizza and the number
of competitors. But this method fails to do two things: string together observable ties between concepts
and to give real valuable and memorable context.
On an entirely different note, EconJourney helps students identify how scarcity interacts with
the quality of life. By introducing a crisis that makes the problem worse for everyone involved, we ask
students to develop a narrative around the search for economic knowledge, and how it each central
principle adds to the capacity to solve this fundamental problem. Attaching the concepts to a problem
that must be solved and asking students to work through the steps needed to solve that problem will
make it easier to remember over the course of time.
Because drawing connections between the stages is fundamental to writing a story that flows,
the twelve stages were divided equally into three chapters (to fit seamlessly in a typical college or
university semester). The chapters were designed to serve as check points for students to post their
work in an online forum. This creates an opportunity for the instructor and teaching assistant to review
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progress to date and provide valuable feedback. Students are given the opportunity to improve their
work up until the due date when the final story must be turned in.
Posting to a public forum also makes it possible for other students in the class to read the stories
being created by their classmates. This creates an opportunity for peer feedback. More importantly,
using a public forum also serves as a subtle means for promoting a higher quality of work. For many
students, how they appear relative to a class of peers can be more important than being evaluated by a
single instructor. Hence posting in a forum serves as a subtle form of peer pressure.
Coaching Model
Because the personal experience of many students is to read or write isolated posts designed to
communicate snapshots rather than complete narratives, we learned from the first pilot that they are in
need of more direction than explanation of stage events. Because stories are typically written in
hindsight, students need coaching consisting of the important themes, roles and important events that
happen over the course of the story.
To write an effective story, students need to develop a vision of the basic structure of how the
story must play out so that it becomes feasible for them to integrate as many as forty economic
concepts into a single story strategy. Hence it is helpful if they can see up front how their stories need to
flow and how the concepts at the highest level fit together, so that they may plan out a plot that can
sustain the interest of a reader over the course of the stories.
The Story Coach Model begins by asking students to identify overarching themes that will shape
the story development process. In EconJourney, this revolves around some problem created by scarcity
that can be improved with a reallocation of resources, but can only be solved through some form of
change. It is a problem of sufficient magnitude that it touches the life of all members of the social
community imagined and described by students as they write their stories.
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Students are then asked to create a central character who will undertake a journey in order to
acquire the knowledge needed to resolve the problem of scarcity made worse by some crisis. Their
central characters will encounter various challenges designed to teach them the knowledge that will be
needed in order to solve what has been identified as the fundamental problem.
To make the development of the story manageable, the journey has been divided into twelve
stages. Groups of four stages each are combined to create the three chapters that will become the
material for a student’s story. Thus the next step in the Coaching Model is to assist students in planning
out how ideas will flow within a chapter and between the chapters. In each stage, they will learn
economic concepts and be expected to fashion a coherent thread capable of tying those concepts
together.
After seeing an overview of the basic elements of the story, the student is afforded an
opportunity to plan each stage so that once again, instead of a random series of posts, the stages are
written in a way where they can be easily combined so that the major character can respond to the
problem at hand and eventually fashion a solution that has a meaningful impact.
Finally, the Story Coach Model incorporates a number of writing tips for how to make a story
engaging and interesting to the reader. Stories are rarely interesting when the main character is one
dimensional, tension does not exist to drive changes in events and the character does not experience
their share of wins and losses.
With writing prompts and the story coach, students were in a position to enter their writing
(typically two or three paragraphs) for each stage. The writing was entered in a form and saved in a
database. Thus each time the student returned and logged into the site, they would have access to what
they had already written. Help was also offered in order to get the student to think more deeply about
the connections between stages by asking them to write a transition from one stage to the next.
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To reinforce the importance of the economic concepts and to ensure that they were being used
properly, an additional check was created requiring students to cut and past their use of each concept.
The check was not only designed to give students one more opportunity to reflect on the concepts and
how they had been used, but it also served as an easy reference for the instructor. Rather than
reviewing the entire student contribution for each stage, the teaching assistant was asked to review the
entries in the “check” form to ensure that students were using the concepts properly.7
Snackable Content
The Journey Process is not designed as a creative writing experience, but rather is intended as a vehicle
for learning and applying economic concepts in a way that is meaningful and memorable. Hence in order
to write about economic concepts, students must first gain exposure to those concepts in a format
where they are likely to engage with the material and become sufficiently intrigued to want to take the
time to learn how it can be used to develop their stories.
The content was created to match the general flow of Hubbard and O’Brien’s fifth edition of
Principles of Microeconomics. An attempt was made to take the three most important concepts in the
appropriate chapters and use them to construct each stage. The content for each stage was constructed
in a two part process. The first part involved an experienced economics instructor who wrote (as briefly
as possible) the general idea encompassing the stage with the three main economics concepts. The draft
stage was then handed over to a recent economics degree graduate to rewrite the stage in order to
make it snackable, more accessible and engaging for undergraduate students.
‘Snackable’ is a term used in content marketing to describe short bursts of information
presented in visual, audio, or written form, often referenced in terms of the Three S’s (snackable,
shareable, and searchable).8 The concept itself reflects an increase in consumer demand for on-the-go
information, and the decline in traditional methods for message dissemination. When used in
conjunction with the principles of searchability and sharability, this snackable content looks largely
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different from that of traditional preparation. It is entertaining, and reflects key words or buzz topics.
And rather than aiming to make a reader, viewer, or listener aware of all the facts, figures, and main
messages, snackable content is designed to leave the consumer eager for more.
With the steep decline in newspaper readership and a steady decline in TV news viewership
(especially for those aged 18-29), media outlets, news sources, and the entire advertising industry have
been forced to refocus energies towards developing content consumers will actually consume and
exploiting mediums of distribution that consumers actually use. From the viewpoint of marketing
researchers, the largest problem with traditional content is that it is too long for today’s average
consumer. For example, in the news industry over 80 percent of Millennials say they’d like to check the
news in spurts throughout the day rather than watching a longer, regularly scheduled programming,
such as the five o’clock news.9
Effort to address this trend through the creation of snackable content has manifested itself in
many ways. For example, newspapers have developed online sources, with the New York Times taking it
so far as to create the NYT Now App, which provides readers with a short daily debriefing requiring only
a few minutes of attention. Radio shows have created podcasts to summarize longer programming, and
traditional advertisers have exploited the functionality of YouTube by developing commercials intended
for virality.
According to a wide variety of studies, it seems that the majority of Millennials are looking to
social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for information and news—the vehicle for snackable
content sharing.10 With the rise of sites such as Buzzfeed and Elite Daily based on growing insights into
the science of planned virality, the ‘informative’ links they are clicking on are designed not to enlighten
them, but rather to catch their attention, and to suck them into a particular outlet.11
Students, having been constantly exposed to this content designed to grab their attention, are
therefore more accustomed to reading short spurts of information, and retaining better what is
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designed to entertain them than simply to teach them. This has amplified student complacency in the
classroom. The content they consume on a minute-by-minute basis is intended to entertain and increase
awareness quickly while traditional educational texts are designed to require time, effort, and heavy
analysis. This polarization is in part responsible for the decreasing rates of student reading.
In EconJourney, we are experimenting with the principles of snackable (and sharable) content by
creating a bridge between the common text book and the design used by popular websites. The content
is written in a relatable voice, chunked up in small sections, and designed to inspire. By using the
concepts subtly, we are hoping that the content itself feels more like the content they are used to
consuming. Rather than requiring them to sit down for the whole meal, we give them something short
and sweet, hoping they will crave, and thus seek out more. Then we turn the table around on them, and
ask for a higher level view of the topics, further enforcing the need to pursue more knowledge.
Thus the Journey Process is designed to assist students in reversing how students acquire and
use information. Within the context of the classroom, students are given textbooks to read and are
asked to break the ideas down into snackable chunks to improve comprehension. We instead are giving
the students the content in snackable chunks and are asking them to use those chunks to create a
coherent story. Thus we are hoping those same connections that they fail to comprehend when asked to
read a lengthy piece of writing and synthesize can now be made on their own terms (with sufficient
guidance) so that they can create on their own the connections needed to make the material
comprehensible.
Challenges
Providing students with content in an accessible format is of course no guarantee that they have
actually learned it or can apply the concepts in a meaningful manner. We therefore wanted to create
something that would test their knowledge and provide feedback so that they students could gain a
sense of the degree to which they feel secure in the knowledge they just acquired.
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Incorporating good game design principles, we wanted to make sure that whatever challenges
were created was something that could be somewhat easily mastered to minimize the degree of
potential frustration while contribute toward building a sense of accomplishment. To accomplish that,
we wanted to make sure that students would have multiple opportunities to get the correct answer.
Therefore we designed the challenges so that until they were mastered, it would not be possible to
move to the next step of the journey. We also wanted to make sure that students received immediate
feedback so that they could receive a modest amount of guidance as they repeated (if needed) the
challenge until mastery was achieved.
In designing the challenges, we wanted to go beyond creating an assessment mechanism. The
challenges also represent a teaching opportunity to reinforce concepts and show the logical linkages
between the concepts. In order to develop a coherent story line that ties the concepts in the various
stages together, students must not only become familiar with each one, but must also see how they are
connected. Since many students struggle with grasping the concepts themselves, they require additional
assistance in order to tie them together.
In the first version of EconJourney we used scenarios and open ended questions to try and get
the students to think about the concepts and how to use them. We received a great deal of push back as
the student could not cope with an unfamiliar format that left too much to the imagination. In response,
we modified the challenges in version 2.0 in order to adopt the more familiar multiple choice format. By
putting the challenges in a format that was more familiar and one that more easily lent itself to
immediate feedback, much of the resistance disappeared.
However, what was not abandoned was the desire to maintain the challenge format and to use
the questions as an additional teaching opportunity. Hence many of the questions are more problem
oriented where there is a fair amount of set up before the questions can be answered. These question
set ups were designed to approach the familiar economic concepts in unfamiliar ways in order to offer a
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different perspective than the textbook. More importantly, they were designed to walk the student
through the logic revealing why the concept is important, how it is used, and how it relates to the other
concepts introduced in the stage. For these reasons, the challenges attempt to support learning the
concepts as a thought exercise rather than something that needs to be memorized as part of a rote
learning exercise.
Challenges for each stage consist of anywhere between three and six multiple choice questions.
Given an unlimited number of attempts, students could only advance to the writing part of the stage
after they answered all questions correctly. For those students experiencing difficulty, hints were
offered.
Our experience with EconJourney
The description of how EconJourney works was the result of a number of changes made after the first
pilot that was run in a single section of Principles of Microeconomics in the fall semester 2014 at the
University of New Hampshire. EconJourney was used as an additional supplement in conjunction with
Mankiw’s Principles of Microeconomics book. We learned relatively quickly that what made sense in the
development phase turned out to be unworkable in an actual classroom environment.
The first set of problems was associated with the limited technology that we had at our disposal.
The material was laid out in a storyboard format where student input and participation took place off
site. This created a great deal of confusion and really detracted from the whole experience.
It also created a number of challenges with the implementation of various game mechanics. Our
attempts to construct a leaderboard and meaningful group work failed miserably. We created a point
system that rewarded effort instead of achievement and the challenges themselves were far too vague
and offered limited feedback.
Aside from issues with the technology, the largest problems arose from the content itself.
Instead of focusing on the economic content, the material instead emphasized story development. As a
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result, we discovered that the students didn’t have a firm grasp of the economic concepts and we saw
little use of them in the development of individual stories. Moreover, what we thought was a fair
amount of direction for constructing a story turned into a hopeless morass as students had a difficult
time making the logical connection between ideas; we did not do enough at the outset to help them
structure their stories.
The first big change in the development of version 2.0 was to think smaller in terms of ambition
and the amount of content on the site. We learned from the first pilot that most of the content we had
developed was never looked at. Hence we spent a great deal of time strategizing on how we could
reduce the amount of content and still provide enough so that students could learn and apply the
concepts. We tried to limit the economic content to three important ideas for each stage, and
embedded in each stage the appropriate definitions and textbook references for each.
In an effort to increase the probability that students would actually read the content on the site,
we not only reduced the amount, but we also changed the style to make the content similar to what
undergraduate students typically read on non-academic websites. We also upgraded the technology so
that additional content could only be unlocked after something was read and questions were answered.
Finally, the content was focused primarily on learning and applying economic concepts.
The website was rebuilt to enable students to write each stage of their story within a succession
of forms on the website that would save their work and recall it as the student progresses through the
Journey. Each form was primed with a specific writing prompt to help students think about the
progression of their story and in what way they need to apply the concepts within each stage.
We added a check feature that asks the students to copy and paste each sentence where they
used particular economic concepts. The purpose of the check was to remind them which economic
concepts were identified as being important for that stage, to require them to pause and reflect on how
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they used a particular concept, and finally, to provide an easy way for the instructor to check the
student’s work.
In addition to fundamental changes made to the flow of the site, and a newly developed focus
on the application of the economic concepts, a great deal of time was spent further developing and
refining the Story Coach Model. The goal was to make the writing process easier so that students could
focus more of their attention of learning and applying economic concepts.
With version 2.0 of the EconJourney website, a second pilot was developed for spring semester
2015. Not only were there changes in the website, but the content was heavily modified to be
compatible with Hubbard and O’Brien’s Principles of Microeconomics book. This required some
substantial changes to the stages, but forced us to pay more attention to the flow of ideas and make
sure that logical gaps no longer existed.
In our first survey of the class with a response rate of 83%, we learned that many of our changes
have had a positive impact. In terms of the Story Coach Model, 52% found it very helpful with another
20% saying that they did not look at it but would be willing to check it out. Of the students responding
73% told us that we have just the right amount of material. Only 37% found that applying the concepts
through the writing process was not useful. Finally, 72% found the challenges were helpful for learning
the economics concepts.
Concluding Remarks
As with the introduction of any new approach, there are things we wish we had done differently during
the first pilot, but are pleased with some of the improvements that we’ve made for the second. Planned
upgrades for version 2.5 include a new technology platform and further refinement of the material. On a
longer horizon, version 3.0 will see the addition of a social component that can foster peer to peer
learning and will also use a series of metrics to create an environment that does more to promote
extrinsic motivation.
20
To reach version 3.0, we plan on developing roles for each student to play in the development
of their journey. Real world problems are often solved with teams and placing students in a position
where they need to work with each other to solve common social, environmental, technological, and
political problems will enhance the journey experience by pairing them with other likeminded
individuals. Our plan at this point is to have students view a problem through the lenses of an
entrepreneur, scientist and politician, so that students may capitalize on their own refined skill sets.
With students working in groups of three, there will be greater opportunities for collaboration,
an appreciation of different perspectives and the ability to create a healthy competition designed to
enhance motivation. In recognizing that a student at bottom of the class would be negatively impacted
by the use of a leaderboard or some other device to track and publicize performance, 3.0 will promote
competition between equally matched teams, and thus provide every student with a pathway to
potential success. Competitions between mismatched opponents are rarely fun for anyone, but if teams
within brackets or entire classes of students are given an opportunity on a level playing field, the
dynamics can change dramatically.
As we continue to refine EconJourney, we hope to roll out the Journey Process to other
disciplines. Hence we envision a potential PyschJourney, BioJourney, PhysicsJourney, HistoryJourney and
so on. Thinking even more broadly it would be possible to design an entire general education program
using the approach. Each journey would view an identical problem through a different (disciplinary) lens
and students could gain a better understanding of the value in taking a multifaceted approach.
Alternatively, an additional course could be added to the curriculum where students would be required
to apply all of the different lenses to a problem of their choosing.
21
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25
Notes
1
In response to these concerns raised about the use of the lecture format there has been a movement
to increase the use of a more active or experiential learning approach. These new styles are designed to
help combat the traditional approach of passive learning and have the student learn by doing. Durham,
Mckinnon and Schulman (2007) contend that an experiential approach has shown to have positive
effects on a wide range of learners. There have been numerous studies (Dickie, 2006; Emerson and
Taylor, 2004; Cardell et. al., 1996; Frank, 1997; Gremmen and Potters, 1997) that show students taught
in an active or experiential learning environment score better than those taught using the lecture
format. The common theme of all these studies show that engaging students in learning helps improve
their attitudes and gets them involved. Instead of teaching at them, an instructor teaches with them.
2
What is perhaps most disheartening is the contention by Christoffersen (2002) that the lecture format
most benefits the learning styles of Euro-American males and Asians. As a result, the use of lecture as
the primary mode for delivery of economics content creates a suboptimal learning environment for
women and students with varied learning styles.
3
As noted by Sara Worth (2008, p. 54): “When we begin to learn to reason, it is not entirely discursive or
empirical. We learn through the structure of stories. That is, we learn to reason through the reasoning
provided to us through hearing and telling stories. By engaging with narratives, we practice using our
narrative reason. The structure found within narratives helps us to imagine more broadly than we are
called to do with discursive thinking. …The way we construct our narratives (fictional and nonfictional) is
importantly tied to the way we understand, order, and construct our own reality and our own personal
identity.”
4
The importance of writing is supported by the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement where twenty seven
questions were added to the survey given to 23,000 students at 82 US institutions of higher education. Results of
the survey affirmed that “when institutions provided students with extensive, intellectually challenging writing
26
activities, the students engaged in more deep learning activities such as analysis, synthesis, integration of ideas
from various sources, and grappled more with course ideas both in and out of the classroom” (NSSA, 2008 p. 22).
5
Find citation that makes a connection between story and memory.
6
Blascovich and Bailenson (2011) discuss how gamers make a strong connection with their online characters to the
point where they have difficulty distinguishing between their true identity and their online created one.
7
Given that the Journey Process increases the “cost” to the instructor because of the amount of student
writing that is involved, the check feature was designed as a way for reducing such costs at the
intermediate phases of EconJourney.
8
The Three S’s are something being talked about in a series of marketing blogs, and by a number of
marketing firms—the original source of the idea, however, is unclear. These principles have not yet
entered the literature, but are being used as proxies for measurement of successful content
development by new age marketing firms. And as a hot topic of conversation, they are reflective of
successful content deployment among some of the internet’s leading brands. One example of this type
of blog can be found at: https://www.marketingtechblog.com/content-infographic/
9
These trends/statistics having been taken from the Pew Center for the People and the Press Political
Survey (July 2013) and “Trends in news Consumption: 1991 to 2012” also published by the Pew Research
Center.
10
According to a study put out by Pew Research Center, Social & Demographic Trends in their 2014
publication “Millennials in Adulthood” 81% of Millennials are on Facebook (defined as those aging from
18-33). And according to aw YPulse study from May 2013, which has been verified and quoted by
sources such as Forbes, 68% of Millennials use social media as news source, and further over 50% of
Millennials use some internet source, whether it be social media or a news website, as their primary
source for news.
27
11
In an article titled “Does Buzzfeed Know the Secret?” New York Magazine dives into understanding
the algorithm used by Buzzfeed’s founder Jonah Peretti to increase traffic to his site. By uncovering that
an algorithm is used at all, NYM brings light to the concept of planned virality, and exhibits how popular
‘news’ sites are fabricating articles not for meaningful content, but for entertainment and sharability
purposes.