Both gamification and digital credentialing are emerging areas of pedagogical innovation in higher education. This pilot project takes a course with an existing aim of imbruing students with creative thinking and innovation skills, and overlays a novel method of teacher-student interaction based on the popular reality TV show The Apprentice (NBC 2004-2015).
Students are divided into teams. What is different is that the teams compete for digital rewards/ credentials every week, decided following a boardroom-style analysis of their performance and evidence of their creative abilities in a collaborative team environment. Only one team can win reward (i.e. a digital credential) for each challenge. The course assessment is based on individual marks for each challenge plus a group mark for an end-of-semester report.