A basic “how to make” a School of Webcraft Challenge (poster included)

Last week I wrote a post about what makes a good challenge in School of Webcraft. This week I tried to break down the process of building such a challenge for content experts who wish to create a “challenge blueprint” of their own. The “challenge” model is a new approach for P2PU courses and we are trying it out for the release of Webmaking 101 in School of Webcraft along with the implementation of the Open Badge Infrastructure (check this post by Phillip to learn more about the challenge model in P2PU and this post by Erin to learn more about the Open Badge Infrastructure ). The steps below are based on the approach we have taken so far to create the challenges in Webmaking 101 and are open for you to mix and match according to your needs. (If you are the visual type like myself scroll down at the end of this post for an info-graphic poster that outlines the steps below) 

1. Set a learning goal: Start by defining what is the big idea you want to teach in this challenge. What will learners understand (knowledge) upon completion of the challenge? what will they be able to do (skills)? Remember that a learning goal is not always tied to a specific piece of content, for example understanding the fundamentals of HTML. A learning goal can be connected to multiple skills like “working in a team”, “problem solving”, “creative thinking” etc.
   
2. Define a motivating “need to know”: think of a motivating situation that creates a need for learners to acquire the knowledge and skills you want to teach them. This is what we call a “need to know” and it can be connected to a narrative or to a real world context. Ask yourself why are the learners taking on the challenge? Are they casting spells against HTML zombies? are they activists trying to put together a website for a better cause? are they putting together a professional portfolio site?
   
   
3. Explain “what is the benefit?”: Think of how the materials will clearly convey their benefit to the learner. Each overview section might have explicit “after this challenge” language (aka “The Payoff” or “Victory”) that describes skill and knowledge gain in non-technical terms. For example you can say something like “you will be able to …” “build simple web pages”, “integrate video into a page’ , “learn how to work with others”, “become a mentor.”

4. Create clear objectives and expectations: Before you start breaking your challenge down to smaller tasks and milestones, think backwards: what will the final objective be? Make sure to create concrete expectations for the outcomes of the challenge, such as building a website that includes specific features. The objectives should be simple to understand yet challenging to accomplish, in order for the learners to be motivated enough to go through it.

5. Break it down to milestones: Create a trajectory of smaller milestones that a learner needs to reach in order to achieve the challenge objectives. You can imagine this like a map; what “places”do you want your learners to go first, second and so on in order to reach their final destination?  For example in “Your Webspace” challenge there are three milestones; finding a hosting service, setting it up and creating a step by step tutorial of how you did it.
6. Look around you for inspiration and guidance: the point here is that you do not have to reinvent the wheel; research other courses, websites, games or activities that support similar learning goals. Don’t be literal in your research, sometimes things that are not obvious precedents can be very inspiring. For example, you could get inspired by Ze Frank’s sandwich project to scout a piece of HTML code like <div> around your neighborhood like we did to create the “HTML is all around you” challenge.
   
   
7. Embed Assessments and Badges: Be clear on how the challenge will determine whether or not one has met a learning goal. Try to integrate the assessment as part of the challenge, rather than after the fact. One way to do that is to have the learners create and share artifacts such as a video, a blog post, a game, a tutorial or a song. Artifacts can then be associated with different badges; for example in the “HTML is all around you” challenge learners have to understand what HTML tags mean. To do so they have to create a photo collage of HTML tags as seen in the real world. During that process they have to share their work with their peers and assess each other on wether they understand how to use the HTML tags. Moreover, the artifacts and the process they took to make those are tied to badges. Those vary from skill based such as the HTML basic that recognizes the ability to make basic use of HTML tags, to peer related ones such as the Super Blogger that is awarded to peers who consistently write informative and engaging blog posts. (This is one of the hardest parts about making a challenge so expect a longer post on the topic)

8. Think of Learners as Peers:  Create opportunities for the learners to interact with each other as part of the challenge and to develop peer assessment habits throughout, such as giving feedback on each others work. Encourage participants to teach each other, hang out online and offline and hack and improve the challenge ideas and wording. Consider how learners can take the challenge, remix it and make it their own.
    
9. Keep it short and simple: when compiling your challenge avoid lengthy explanations and write tasks that are short and easy to understand. You can also consider Including interactive links, such as a video. Make sure that the size of the challenges is consistent in length and style.
   
   
10. Test and Iterate: once you have created your challenge you can think of it as a growing organism constantly evolving based on testing and iteration. You can test your challenge in three phases; first go through it yourself, then have other experienced users play through and then have new users test it out. Be clear on what you are looking for when you are testing your challenge; how long did it take for someone to complete it, where did they get stuck, was it too easy or too challenging and so on. Learn from this process and find ways to incorporate the feedback through various iterations even after you have gone through the initial testing. The School of Webcraft mailing list is a good point to start to ask for feedback.

It is our intention at P2PU and School of Webcraft to look at our work as ever-evolving. We view this “how to” as only one out of a series of tools that embrace different leaning styles and approaches to open education and we will be adding more resources like this one as we go.

In the meantime, stay tuned for the release of our Webmaking 101 and if you got inspired and wish to start your own p2pu study group you can do so here.

Special thanks to Allen Gunn, Pippa Buchanan and Jamie Curle for their help editing this post.

Info-graphic below can be downloaded in full poster size here