STEM Professor Succeeds using Yellowdig as a Help Forum

November 13, 2020

STEM Professor Succeeds using Yellowdig as a Help Forum

Unlocking Student Motivation with Gameful Learning

Instructors everywhere face the same uphill climb: getting students to participate meaningfully—especially in online classes. Despite your best efforts, traditional discussion forums can feel more like boxes to check than places for real learning. What’s the antidote? For many educators, the answer is gameful learning.

What is Gameful Learning?

Gameful learning isn’t about turning your classroom into an arcade. It’s about applying the elements of games—clear goals, meaningful choice, and immediate feedback—to academic environments. Platforms like Yellowdig use points, badges, and accolades to recognize real contributions, making participation feel rewarding, not obligatory.

Why Gameful Elements Spark Engagement

Why do students respond so well to this approach? Because gameful mechanics tap into motivation in ways that rote assignments can’t. When students earn points for thoughtful posts or insightful replies, they're encouraged to dig deeper and share experiences. A little friendly competition doesn’t hurt, either—leaderboards spark engagement and help shy students ease into participation.

Yellowdig’s Approach: More Than Just Points

Yellowdig’s platform is built around the idea that engagement should be authentic, not forced. Points aren’t given for empty “I agree” comments, but for contributions that spark conversation and critical thinking. Students can curate their posts with articles or videos that interest them and receive recognition when others interact with their content. This approach fosters intrinsic motivation—students participate because they want to, not because they have to.

Real Results in Real Classrooms

Instructors using Yellowdig consistently report stronger participation and deeper discussion. One faculty member noted that “seventy-five percent of student questions get answered by their peers,” freeing up their time to tackle more advanced topics. Students say they look forward to checking new posts, sharing resources, and earning recognition for meaningful contributions.

Tips for Making Gameful Learning Work

Set Clear Expectations: Let students know how points are earned and celebrate thoughtful interaction, not just frequency.
Offer Meaningful Feedback: Use accolades and comments to highlight particularly insightful posts.
Encourage Creativity: Remind students they can use links, visuals, or even short videos to make their posts stand out.
Foster Healthy Competition: Leaderboards and weekly challenges can energize participation and keep momentum going.

The Takeaway

Gameful learning turns participation from a chore into an opportunity for discovery and community. With the right design, recognition, and tools, you’ll see students take more ownership of their learning—unlocking not just better engagement, but genuine excitement for the subject.
Ready to see how gameful learning can transform your course? Try out Yellowdig and join a thriving community that believes learning should be as rewarding as it is rigorous.

Dr. Vicki Hart, Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont, has been using Yellowdig for two and a half years to teach her graduate courses on epidemiology and biostatistics in the master of public health program. Classes for this program are 100% online and asynchronous, so students are never in real-time classes together.

It was still very important to find ways for these students to be able to connect, collaborate, and converse. That said, assignments in discussion boards and the LMS can deteriorate into check-the-box tasks that students do halfheartedly to get the grade. She wanted her students to have relevant and thoughtful interactions. Then she discovered Yellowdig. “We all have different ways of making this tool work for us.” Dr. Hart found Yellowdig to be the perfect solution for her diverse roster of students, many of whom are working professionals with busy schedules, demanding careers, and familial obligations.

Dr. Hart used Yellowdig differently than other discussion boards. From the beginning of every course, her syllabus encourages students to not only use Yellowdig for discussions, but also as a Q-and-A forum where students can rely on their peers for clarification and guidance. Not only do they usually get a response quicker (there are only so many hours in the day for Dr. Hart) but they also get to foster the kinds of relationships that are often missing from online courses.

Yellowdig helps students to grasp complex topics and engage in a meaningful way.

How did Dr. Hart use Yellowdig's virtual classroom software in her high level, science-based courses?

She encourages Q-and-A interactions by mentioning the forum often in class and by providing a lot of Yellowdig’s Accolades to students who are participating. Dr. Hart noticed that students make full use of Yellowdig’s comprehensive virtual classroom features. They don’t just go back and forth on a message board. Instead, they post pictures, upload equations, handwritten annotations, and generally display a penchant for creativity. This resulted in a high Conversion Ratio (comments per post) which is the greatest indicator for overall engagement as it implies there’s back and forth conversations occurring. Take a look at an example from her forum below.

*Please not that the image below is from Yellowdig’s old post editor. The platform has since been updated.

When Dr. Hart went to quantify whether or not posting in a Help Forum had a positive impact on final grades, she discovered that there was a significant positive association in the final grade with asking, answering, or commenting on a question.

This post is a summary of a webinar hosted on 10/29/2020. If you would like to learn more about Vicki Hart’s experience, watch the recording here.

If you loved what you read and would like to see how Yellowdig could work in your classrom next semester, be sure to sign up below for a demo.

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November 13, 2020