Delphinium's Influence Methods

The Most Bang for Your Buck—Default Delphinium Templates

The easiest way to use Delphinium to add influence methods to your course is using a template. Delphinium templates are reusable layouts that can be added as an overlay to any course in just a few minutes. Delphinium's default templates have some useful properties:

  • They make it quick and easy to add educational influence to your course

  • They are designed to add educational influence methods that are compatible with your course

  • You do not need to make ANY changes to your course content and pedagogy to use them

  • They require minimal Delphinium settings configuration

  • There are default Delphinium templates suitable for most course designs, the Layout Coach will help you select one

Enhancing a Default Template

In addition, you can use the Layout Editor to enhance default templates with advanced components like achievements and tag tracker to add even more educational influence. Advanced Delphinium components require more configuration but are simple to master. The Layout Editor also allows you to rearrange components in your layout and add text or images to customize it for your course.

Creating a Delphinium Layout from Scratch

Finally, you can create a Delphinium layout from scratch to accommodate any unique or experimental course design you might be using. Designing a layout is about selecting a well-rounded group of Delphinium components and features that are compatible with your course. The Layout Coach will help. Canvas administrators can save layouts you create as a template so it can be quickly and efficiently copied into multiple courses.

Delphinium's Influence Methods

The following are specific recommendations for how you can use Delphinium to add influence methods to your course. Specific Delphinium components are designed to provide each of these influence methods (detailed in the audit table below).

Engaging

Attention

Onboarding
  • Training for using the environment
Create opportunities for fun and play
  • Quirkiness
  • Curiosity

Self Regulation

Display tasksDisplay standards
  • Clearly display what success looks like
Display progress
  • Where you have been, where you are, and where you need to go
  • Emphasize the gap between where you are and completion
  • levels, points, prizes, badges,
Display outcomes of past performance
  • Feedback
  • Celebrate effective actions
    • Time on task
    • Quality work
    • Meeting deadlines
    • Success

Agentic Thinking

Rewards as informational feedback, not behavioral control

Motivating

Relevance

Provide opportunities for social connection
  • Collaboration
  • Competition
  • Comparison/contrast
  • Reputation
  • Conformity
Narrative

Success

Display progress
  • Where you have been, where you are, and where you need to go
  • Emphasize the gap between where you are and completion
  • levels, points, prizes, badges,
Display outcomes of past performance
  • Feedback
  • Celebrate effective actions
    • Time on task
    • Quality work
    • Meeting deadlines
    • Success

Autonomy

Display meaningful choices students can make in sequence, goals, pace, and strategyGive opportunities to personalize the UI
  • Avatar
  • Alias

Nudging

Social

Provide opportunities for social connection
  • Collaboration
  • Competition
  • Comparison/contrast
  • Reputation
  • Conformity
Create immediacy
  • Use name
  • Humor
  • Greetings

Personal

Create a sense of urgency
  • Lost opportunities
Support ownership
  • Virtual goods
  • Collectables
  • Earned badges
Completion
  • Collecting badges, EE, etc.
  • Levels, points
  • Endowed Progress effect
  • Feed Forward
Inertia
  • Status Quo
  • Stereotypes

Environmental

Ease of use
  • Limit ambiguity
  • Limit selection
  • Default selections
  • Pleasant UX
  • Reduced effort for desired behavior
  • Increased effort for discouraged behavior`
Information Design
  • Framing
  • Anchoring
  • Partitioning
  • Priming
  • Chunking

Supporting

Learning Identity

Communication
  • Mass communication
  • Filter and personalized mass communication
  • Individual communication
  • Scheduled communication
  • AI communication
Provide social credibility and recognition for academic achievements that might otherwise be invisible or denigrated by peers

Emotions and Moods

Provide for positive emotional experiences (e.g., curiosity, joy, optimism, pride)Help students persist through negative emotional experiences (e.g., frustration, failure, anxiety, fear, helplessness, overwhelmed)Avoid creating negative emotional experiences

Socio-economic Influences

Create a learning community
  • Promote citizenship and loyalty
Consider how socio- economic and cultural influences affect your students

Personality

Structure information to accommodate different player types
  • Pragmatists
  • Gamers
  • Champions
  • Citizens

Making a Delphinium Component Audit

In the chart below you can see a matrix comparing the methods of influence to specific Delphinium components and features. You will not use every Delphinium component and feature in every course. When creating a layout from scratch, your goal will be to combine the fewest number of components that are compatible with your class that include the greatest number of influence methods. We want the fewest number of components because we want to keep the layout simple and easy for students to use, while at the same time, we want to optimize the educational influence experience for as many students as possible. Some influence methods can be achieved by several Delphinium components. The Layout Coach will help you select components that are compatible with your class, and the table below will help you make an audit of your template. After you select components, use the table to ensure that your design includes a broad selection of influence methods.