Integration of LearnC4’s Story-Game in Robert Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction

Robert Gagne’s (1987) theoretical framework addresses the role of instructional technology, which focuses on the outcomes of intellectual skills in all aspects of learning. Gagné‘s nine instruction events can be used as a guide to designing a technological-based lesson using LearnC4 as a dominant website.

A. LearnC4

LearnC4, a teaching and learning module initiated by Kadum et al. (2018), is an innovative gamified storyline driven by links. It is an innovative way to design a map of links to produce an engaging platform for story games. Creating the story game is driven by the creative use of Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and WPS features, including animations, transitions, media, and links (hyperlinks or interactive links).

The story games can be created by adapting existing storylines, such as Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, and Frozen. Nevertheless, students are encouraged to generate original storylines. The module uses a gamifying strategy to forge a vibrant learning atmosphere. Thus, it is a handy, user-friendly, and environmentally friendly approach for the students. You may visit the website invented by Byron MC Michael Kadum, Muhammad Shazwan bin Sheikh Abdul Razak, Khairol Nizam bin Othman, and Asyandi bin Mohd Nor at https://baskkml.wixsite.com/learnc4 for more information.

LearnC4 is a learning tool designed for 21st-century student-centred learning, on par with Bloom Taxonomy at the pre-university level. Students are given a more comprehensive opportunity to explore and expose themselves to real-world situations. Students are encouraged to communicate with team members. They collaborate and think critically to complete the tasks creatively and successfully. From all the inputs, students can be autonomous and solve problems; therefore, it is practical and applicable in real life, especially in the workforce.

The teaching and learning process should cater to students' needs, particularly at the tertiary level, as they will soon be stepping into the workplace. According to Joyce et al. (2003), competition is essential in the familiar board game Monopoly. It stimulates real estate speculators' activity and incorporates many elements of real-life speculation. The computer-based model, LearnC4, simulates the activity of real-world situations to students through competition within the teams.

According to Gooden et al. (2011), computer-based exercises or games are developed to simulate real situations or scenarios and require students to use various skills. Knowledge is often needed to take risks and experiment. The games encourage engagement among the students. Therefore, they receive more output than the traditional way of teaching.

Gooden et al. quote Kolb (1984) as saying that students learn primarily from hands-on experience and intuition rather than from logical analysis, which was proven by Kolb’s learning style inventory. Kolb states that experiential learning theory is a holistic, integrative perspective on learning that combines experience, perception, cognition, and behaviour. These fall under the domains of Gagné’s nine events of instruction.

B. Robert Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction

Robert Gagné proposes nine instructional technology events following a systematic instructional design process that shares the behaviourist approach to learning, focusing on the outcomes, instruction behaviours, or training. Use Gagné’s nine events and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to design engaging and meaningful instruction.

This theory stipulates that there are several different types or levels of learning. The significance of these classifications is that each type requires different instruction types. Gagne identifies five major categories of learning: verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills, and attitudes. Various internal and external conditions are necessary for each type of learning (Culatta, 2020).

C. What and How to Achieve These Purposes? Solutions

a. Preparation Purpose

Reception is the first event to gain the attention of the students.
1. It ensures the learners are ready to learn and participate in activities by presenting a stimulus to gain attention.
Expectancy is the second event to inform students of the objectives.
1. It informs students of the objectives and learning outcomes to help them understand what they must learn before instruction begins. Students must think critically to respond to the question and show maturity in writing. The criteria can refer to the rubric and scaffolding used for writing.
2. Students should be able to assess their writing performance after writing, and other students should be able to evaluate and assess their peers’ writing.
Retrieval is the third event to stimulate recall of prior learning.
1. It helps students make sense of new information by relating it to something they already know or have already experienced.

b. Instruction and Practice Purposes

Selective Perception is the fourth event in presenting the content.
1. Use strategies to introduce and cue lesson content to provide more effective, efficient instruction: Organise and chunk content meaningfully. Provide explanations after demonstrations. The activities involve students forming into groups; they plan and design a story game using PowerPoint slides to bring the selected topic into stories.
Semantic Encoding is the fifth event to provide learning guidance.
1. It advises students on strategies to aid them in learning content and the resources available. Once students’ stories are ready to present to the class, they must read other groups' stories to answer the questions and solve the tasks.
2. It allows students to use interesting technological tools to learn the selected topic by using effective communication skills, thinking critically, and writing creatively and collaboratively. It fulfils the needs of 21st-century learning in 4C (Communication, Creative, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking) learning.
3. At the same time, they learn to analyse (analyse the problems to find the solutions in the stories), evaluate (evaluate other groups' stories, do peer assessment) and create (design the storylines and PowerPoint template to present compelling stories). Various learning strategies are introduced to make students more versatile in learning actively and independently.
4. For example, in STRAGAD, students play different roles and characteristics in the stories. Students should be able to justify or associate with further discussions or any arguments presented with citations, if necessary, based on their created genre of stories.
Responding is the sixth event to elicit performance.
1. It activates students’ processing to help them internalise new skills and knowledge and confirm their correct understanding of these concepts. They explain and elaborate on the details if other students ask questions to solve the problems through communication and discussions. It has encouraged the students to ask deep-learning questions on selected topics.
Reinforcement is the seventh event to provide feedback.
1. It provides immediate feedback on students’ performance to assess and facilitate learning. The confirmatory feedback informs and comments on how the students prepare the story game in PowerPoint slides.
2. Corrective and remedial feedback informs students about the accuracy of their performance or response to their peers; it is where they do peer assessment. Instructors give informative information or suggestions to the students and make affirmations throughout the learning process.
3. Finally, analytical feedback gives the students opinions, recommendations, and information to amend for a better storyline or activity flow.

c. Assessment and Transfer Purposes

Retrieval is the eighth event to assess performance.
1. It evaluates the effectiveness of the instructional events; the expected learning outcomes must be tested for their achievement. Performance should be based on previously stated objectives. The pretest and posttest will be conducted to depict the quality of students’ work.
2. Peer assessment based on the rubrics would help to improve students’ strengths and weaknesses in specific skills. Subsequently, they should have no problem doing self-evaluation and self-assessment.
Generalisation is the ninth event to enhance retention and transfer to the job.
1. It is to help students develop expertise; they must internalise new knowledge. They apply their paraphrasing and summarising skills in analysing more articles on selected topics. They can synthesise and analyse the points as the gist to transfer the linear-text information to non-linear texts.
2. They are suggested to use Canva Infographic as the template to present their points attractively and creatively. They share their infographic with other students. They believe that they should gain sufficient information about artificial intelligence to write a quality piece of writing.