Episode 74
Cracking the Engagement Code in EdTech
Brief description of the episode
What turns “edutainment” into real learning that lasts?
Clarence Tan, co-founder of Boddle Learning, shares how thoughtful game design can keep students engaged without losing instructional focus. He unpacks strategies to reduce cognitive load, signals districts should track to judge impact, and the AI guardrails that keep student data safe. The conversation also explores what makes rollouts smoother and adoption stick, with lessons any K-12 product team can apply.
Key Takeaways:
- Build a shared game world with a persistent character so progress and motivation carry over between activities.
- Support multiple player types and ages: younger learners value variety and quick wins, older learners often seek depth, social play, and building.
- Offer different motivators, including cosmetics, collaboration, and battle modes, so personal preferences are covered.
- Treat leaderboards as a double‑edged tool that can energize top performers yet discourage others; design supports for the mid‑pack.
- Keep the first‑time experience linear with minimal reading so learners reach the core play‑learn loop fast.
- Track session-level throughput that aligns with classroom time, aiming for 30–40 answered items per hour, measured in 15-minute blocks.
- Ensure every item is mapped to state standards and reported in clear, teacher-friendly terms, with options for adaptive or targeted practice.
- Use real classroom usage as the primary indicator of success, focusing on both teacher adoption and student return rates.
- Measure re-engagement through persistent progress that carries across activities rather than isolated mini-games.
- Use AI for progress mapping or content generation without storing PII, and keep processing on vendor‑controlled servers.
- Avoid open chat with language models unless robust filtering is in place for student inputs and outputs.
- Limit identifiers to what teachers need to recognize a student, such as first name and last initial.
- Be ready to explain exactly how models are used and where data lives, so privacy reviews go faster.
- Ensure personalization decisions do not depend on sensitive student data.
- Implement single sign‑on and rostering through platforms like Clever or Google Classroom to eliminate manual account creation.
- Replace classroom password workarounds with SSO to cut login errors and support at‑home use.
- Build teacher buy‑in by letting students explore and customize early, then layer assignments or game locks as needed.
- Align use to real schedules by designing for reliable 15‑minute blocks that still hit the target practice pace.
- Recognize that district adoption today does not depend only on research PDFs but also on verified teacher use and student engagement.
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