Beyond fun and games: Toward an adaptive and emergent learning platform for pre-med students with the UT TIME Portal

Abstract

The University of Texas Transformation in Medical Education Portal (UT TIME Portal) is a game-based learning platform for select pre-med students. The UT TIME Portal offers unique opportunities for assessment of player performance through rich quantitative and qualitative user data, asynchronous access to content and individualized feedback, and motivational mechanics like game-earned badges and professor-awarded discussion board stars. Our initial findings suggest that the UT TIME Portal helps students improve knowledge regarding basic patient interviewing skills and influences attitudes about professionalism in social media use. This paper explores the results of our first experiments with the UT TIME Portal - suggesting parameters for an adaptive and emergent learning platform for healthcare professional education based on the rich data set available from the multi-faceted design.