Planning for success: how students use a grade prediction tool to win their classes

Gameful course designs require a significant shift in approach for both students and instructors. Transforming a standard course into a good game involves fundamentally altering how the course functions, most notably by giving students greater control over their work. We have developed an application, GradeCraft, to support this shift in pedagogy. A key feature of the application is the Grade Predictor, where students can explore coursework options and plan pathways to success. We observed students in two gameful courses with differing designs using the Grade Predictor in similar ways: they spent similar amounts of time per session, increased usage when assignments were due and before making significant course decisions, predicted different types of assignments at different rates, and made more predictions in preparation for the end of semester. This study describes how students plan their coursework using the GradeCraft Grade Predictor tool.