Developing a gamified AI-enabled online learning application to improve students’ perception of university physics

Abstract

This article discusses the current progress of the on-going design efforts in creating an AI-enabled gamified web-based online learning application in the university introductory physics courses. The application aims to cater to the learning needs of students with diversity of the background, particularly students with little or weak background. The overall design architecture and principles are discussed, focusing on the rationale and design of the gamified elements that have been incorporated within the application, namely: (i) incremental difficulties, (ii) points and streaks, (iii) leaderboard, and (iv) gamified and animated user interface. Particularly, the gamified elements are considered through the lens of the ‘Head, Hands, and Heart’ of the students, with the objective to first encourage and motivate participation, stimulate practice, and strengthen the students’ domain knowledge of physics. In this article, an architecture to incorporate AI program into the web-based gamification platform by including various AI models (learner model, pedagogy model and domain model) is proposed. With the architecture, we aim to create a personalized tutor that provide effective and unique learning experience to help a learner achieve learning objectives. The AI enabled gamification platform also serves as an efficient feedback tool to teacher for optimization and redesigning of curriculum to best suit the need of individual learner.

Keywords

• Intelligent tutoring systems
• Gamification
• University physics
• Self-directed learning