Setting Engineering Students Up for Success in the 21st Century: Integrating Gamification and Crowdsourcing into a CDIO-based Web Design Course

Abstract

Over the past few decades, many researchers have tested course designs that may better engage students in developing countries, accommodate for Millennials’ desires to learn and teach at will, and teach students the skills they need for their first jobs. The vision of this paper for a web design course seeks to address these issues for engineering students. The paper first details the ‘study everywhere, anytime, from any device and using any tool’ approach, following the CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate) contextual learning model sustained by gamified crowdsourcing. Then the multi-pronged approach has been tested in a high-enrollment (269-student) web design course at a university in China. The success of integrating the gamification and crowdsourcing techniques into the web design course is then analyzed. Results are positive overall. A linear upward trend is observed in the number of students who completed the course exercises over the duration of the course, marking an increase in student engagement over time.