Do you ever coach your students for case competitions? Do you ever use simulation games to teach your students about real life scenarios? Do you have talented students who need exposure and encouragement for their work? Do you have students who need mentor feedback and motivation? Have you ever considered virtual competitions?

Virtual Competitions

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A virtual competition is a contest, game, or event that students participate in online. There are players or teams, challenges or tasks, judges, and prizes. Competition encourages students to push themselves. Judges provide students with feedback. Players and teams learn how to work with others.

VariationsNone.

ExamplesUse your imagination. What could your students compete on virtually? What would be an appropriate contest for your students? Only you know what would be authentic to your field of study, your curriculum, and your students. To get started, consider these ideas:

Visual Arts•Art commission•Photography contest•Talent show•Film festival

Health & Community Studies•Online raffle•Online auction•Serve-a-thon•Cyber forensics

Science & Technology•Design charette•Hack-a-thon •Science fair•Software techarrette

Business Administration•Case competition•Simulation game•Entrepreneurial project•Fundraising event

Humanities & Social Sciences•Read-a-thon•Math-a-thon

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•Spoken word open mic•Short story competition

MeritsCompetitions prepare learners for the workplace as they model real-situations. A contest can motivate and engage students through applied learning. They build knowledge, confidence, and creativity. Further, they build relationships and reciprocity between students and sponsors. When students compete well, there may be many kinds of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

Learning. Authentic competitions can influence student learning as well as foster engagement and peer learning. Through problem-solving, higher order thinking, creativity, challenge, and risk-taking, students build confidence. Contests model work-integrated learning and real-world contexts. Competitions tend to motivate and excite learners (Battisti, Boato, Carli, & Neri, 2011; Hupy, 2011; Nobe, Scott, & Johnson, 2006; Riley & Karnes, 2005; Robinson & Stewardson, 2012). In particular for gifted learners, a competition offers an interactive and differentiated learning experience (Riley & Karnes, 2005).

Build Relationships. Through a competition or contest, students have the opportunity to build relationships with teammates, competitors, and community or corporate sponsors. From teamwork, not only do students make friends, but they also use cooperative and collaborative skills and learn to appreciate the skills of others. Collegiality, camaraderie, and community, can bring out the best in all. Students may make networking connections with competitors or sponsors (Battisti, Boato, Carli, & Neri, 2011; Riley & Karnes, 2005). It is often from our networks that we find job opportunities.

Reciprocity. With competitions, their is a win-win relationship for students, sponsors, and the community. Students may end up with internships and friendships. Sponsors may end up with solutions to real problems. Competitions may raise awareness of local and global issues (Riley & Karnes, 2005). When a strong sense of community and fellowship exists, everyone benefits from the esprit de corps.

Rewards. There are many benefits of competitions. Students could receive cash prizes or gifts. They may receive corporate sponsorship, scholarships, or internships. Some contests showcase or publish winners, which creates exposure for the budding artist. Further, there may be networking and mentorship opportunities through the rich feedback from judges and interaction with competitors (Nobe, Scott, & Johnson, 2006).

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ChallengesEntering a competition has some obstacles. Participating in a contest can be costly. There is a fine line between winning and failing; both have lessons to share. Rather than fear failure, we need to recognize that it is part of the learning process. Make sure that the contest fits the curriculum.

Costs. Participating in competitions can be expensive. Students may need to pay entrance fees, mailing costs, and travel expenses. If the contest requires a simulation game, there may be a cost in purchasing a license for the game. There may also be material costs to create an object or record a talent. Community sponsorship, may alleviate some of the high costs involved in large project competitions (Riley & Karnes, 2005).

Focus on Winning. Competitions do run the risk of focusing too much on winning. While winning is fun and certainly confidence building, there is more to the game. If we win, reflect on what we did well, and debrief and reflect on what we could do better, than there is valuable learning. If we win and arrogantly believe we have nothing left to learn, than we have failed. If we taunt or tease the competition, than we have failed (Riley & Karnes, 2005).

Failure. In the same way that winning a competition builds confidence, losing a competition can deflate self-esteem. To send a student into a competition before he or she was ready could be devastating, but for the student who is ready to compete, a contest can be valuable; it’s more a matter of “win some or learn some” (Mraz, 2008) rather than lose some. Today’s youth, so shielded from failure, are at risk in the workforce, for how will they deal with criticism and disappointment the first time that they are not successful. On the other hand, failure also sometimes tell us that we are on the wrong path and need to choose a new direction; think of some of the misguided contestants who audition for American Idol.

Curriculum Fit. Preparing students for a competition can be time-consuming. If the contest is outside the curriculum, you and your students may find yourself putting in hours and hours beyond the classroom. Look for competitions that align to the curriculum. Embed the contest into the curriculum or course. Such an approach will actually save time and raise engagement (Riley & Karnes, 2005; Robinson & Stewardson, 2012).

Group Dynamics. Students can learn a great deal from working in teams. However, there will always be issues with some students not pulling their weight or not contributing. Likewise, there will always be those that dominate or even bully. There will always be differences of opinion (Hupy, 2011). Through roles, tasks, and team building exercises, we

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can mitigate the stages of groups: forming, storming, norming, performing (Glasser, 1998; Tuckman & Jensen, 1997).

Instructional DesignUse a backwards design approach. First, start with your learning outcomes. Second, create your assessments. Third, plan your instructional activities. Finally, choose a technology to enhance the lesson.

Design. Consider your curriculum; look carefully at your accreditation standards, graduate attributes, program learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, and lesson learning outcomes. Will a virtual competition fulfill the learning outcomes? How will you prepare students for a virtual contest? What technologies will you and your students need to learn in order to participate in the contest? Will virtual competitions enhance the learning experience?

Develop. Browse the Internet for official online contests that students can enter to gain exposure in their field of study. For example, The Weather Network and Canadian Geographic magazine host a Whatever the Weather photo contest that anyone can enter with the chance of having their photo published in the magazine. The same magazine also hosts a Spirit of Canadian Football photo contest. The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition hosts an annual competition with the potential of having one’s screenplay produced. On Virtual Dance Competition, dancers upload videos, choose their judges, and win cash. Knowledge Matters hosts four college/university Virtual Business Challenges that use simulation games and award cash prizes: DECA Challenges for restaurant, retailing, sports, and finance; FBLA Challenge for management and finance; ICHRIE Challenge for restaurant management; and BPA Challenge for accounting.

Consider starting your own competition; a virtual competition can be as simple as an online submission or as complex as designing a simulation player game. You will need an authentic relevant contest idea as well as rules of engagement. Then, you will need

Look at what Sheridan College is doing with competitions! Since July 2013, Nick Johnston, has hosted the on campus hack-a-thon, Capture the

Flag IT Security Contest. Students compete on various ethical hacking challenges in a full day event. Read more in the Sheridan Stories article

Hack attack! Winners received prizes from corporate sponsors.

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sponsors to award prizes, awards, or other types of recognition such as an internship or mentorship. Ideally, you will need a panel of judges to review submissions and provide feedback. Finally, you will need a marketing plan to find participants as well as to showcase the winners.

There are many fund raising type competitions, contests, and events to participate in. We can create an online raffle or online auction to raise money for a charity; students can create and donate their work which gets exposure and raise funds. Through social media and Twibbon, students can promote their campaign and raise funds. To find a charity, take a look at the Charity Village website. Look at how Chicago Cares runs an annual serv-a-thon or how Sodexo hosts a stop hunger drive.

Deliver. Decide what students will do before, during, and after the competition. Before the contest, students might read an article, listen to a podcast, or watch a video. During the competition, students may correspond and collaborate with their virtual teams or competitors; on the other hand, they might work independently on their task. After the competition, students might reflect through a paper, presentation, or podcast. The contest should be authentic, active, and applied.

TechnologyFor a contest, you can create a website for submission of entries. Depending on the type of competition, you may need to create a simulation game. To connect competitors and judges, you may want to use web or video conferencing software. You may want to set up a YouTube, Vimeo, or iTunes channel or a social media presence with Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr or Pinterest to showcase winning videos or a website to showcase winning projects in an efair.

Look at what Sheridan is doing with competitions! Shaun Ghafari, led a team of Sheridan engineering students in the Formula North race car

competition. The engineering design competition targets Canadian university students. It took the Sheridan Motorsport Team two years to

design and build the car. In May 2014, they raced the car in the competition. To learn more about the project, read more on the Sheridan

News website or on the team’s Facebook page.

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ReferencesBattisti, F. F., Boato, G. G., Carli, M. M., & Neri, A. A. (2011). Teaching multimedia data

protection through an international online competition. IEEE Transactions On Education, 54(3), p.381-386. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Glasser, W. (1998). Choice theory in the classroom. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Hupy, J. P. (2011). Teaching geographic concepts through fieldwork and competition. Journal of Geography, 110(3), p.131-135. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Nobe, M., Scott, G., & Johnson, B. (2006). Go for it! Student competitions energize construction education. Tech Directions, 65(8), p.18-19. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Mraz, J. (2008). I’m yours. On We sing. We dance. We steal things [Digital download]. USA: Atlantic.

Riley, T.L. & Karnes, F.A. (2005). Problem-solving competitions: Just the solution! Gifted Child Today, 28(4), p.31-37. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Robinson, T. P., & Stewardson, G. A. (2012). Exciting students through VEX robotic competitions. Technology And Engineering Teacher, 72(2), p.15-21. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Tuckman, B.W. & Jensen, M.C. (1977). Stages of small-group development revisited. Group & Organization Studies, 2(4), p.419-427. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

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Written by Paula OggPhotography by Jonathan Eger

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