Cristina Girona is a pedagogical manager and online/blended learning design specialist at the eLearning Innovation Center (eLinC) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). As part of the Learning Design Support team, she assists teaching staff with the design of programmes and courses from a pedagogical standpoint. Her role involves introducing active methodologies, curating content, and designing and assessing competencies.
She led the educational development of the Insignia initiative during its ideation phase, linked to the augmented educational model, microcredentials and lifelong learning. Drawing on her experience, she discusses the role of teaching in higher education, the potential of gamification to transform educational design and teacher training through activities such as Encaixa and Funny Feedback, and the true meaning of people-centred design in universities.
What are Encaixa and Funny Feedback, and what need do they address at the UOC?
They are two collaborative learning activities that use gamification strategies to encourage the continuous improvement of teaching practice in the design of online education. In the Encaixa game, players design a course by making decisions about its components and their alignment with the intended learning outcomes. They must fit all the pieces together, which is why the activity is called Encaixa ("fit" in Catalan).
Funny Feedback focuses on effective online feedback, understood as suggestions to enhance learning, through case studies and problem-solving scenarios exploring the different forms and stages at which feedback is provided.
We've incorporated Encaixa as a face-to-face activity within the initial teacher training course eLicense, and it's also part of the SUMA training and development programme for UOC teaching and research staff. This programme includes training activities organized into thematic pathways. Encaixa and Funny Feedback have been added to these pathways to enhance teachers' competencies in learning design, in line with the institutional strategy for evolving the educational model. The aim is to leverage innovation to return teacher training to its rightful place in university settings.
Toni Martínez, Xavier Mas and Maria José Angulo are also co-creators of these initiatives.
Encaixa uses a board game to design courses. Why bring educational design into the world of games?
The point was to encourage collaborative learning and make educational decision-making more social, while also highlighting the potential of gamification as a useful strategy. We also hoped to diversify approaches to learning design. We have eLicense, which is an online course; we have personalized support for learning design, intended for teachers to develop their skills in this area; and now we have an activity that takes teachers to the same place but in collaboration with other teachers. At the UOC, educational design is practised collectively, and the game creates this scenario for team-based trial-and-error.
Participating teachers take a first-person role in the activity. Gamification helps to break down the barrier between the stands, where you watch the game, and the playing field, where the action happens. Approaching educational design in a playful and experiential way strengthens engagement with the task and reinforces the teacher's role as a learning designer.
In this game, the goal is not to build the perfect course, but to generate dialogue, bring uncertainties to the surface and reach agreements so that all the pieces fit together in an educational sense. Its value lies in the process.
Which key design elements are addressed in Encaixa, and how are they integrated?
At the UOC, we work with key elements of learning design: the challenge, learning outcomes, assessment (criteria, tools, evidence and assessors), activities, methodologies, learning resources, motivation and feedback, and the recommended minimum time commitment for each element and for the challenge as a whole.
Encaixa requires participants to make most design decisions within a limited time frame, working with all parts simultaneously. This process forces them to move forward and back and to update their activities, resources or assessment criteria to fit all the pieces together. It's here that they see the true complexity of teaching design and the interdependence of its various parts.
For example, in the case of the challenge, participants quickly realize that framing it as "Foundations of metabolism" is quite different from presenting it as "I'm going running tomorrow. Will I be sore the day after?" At first, it might seem like we're just dressing up the activity, but in fact this framing signals to students that they'll solve a problem, think in terms of cause-and-effect relationships, and relate the challenge to their everyday reality, which increases their engagement. If, instead, we simply said "Foundations of metabolism", the student either already knows what metabolism is or we must tell them they'll learn the basics. My colleagues in the Faculty of Health Sciences, whom I know best, are doing an excellent job in this respect.
Teacher training often has a bad reputation for being unengaging. How can gamification change this perception?
If we choose active methodologies when designing courses, it makes perfect sense for teachers to be trained using those same methodologies.
Not only will they experience them first-hand and be able to transfer them to their own teaching practice, but they'll also learn in the same way they want their students to learn. This approach is very clearly coherent.
Is it harder to design gamified training for teachers than for students?
No, it's not harder. It's just as challenging. As with any active methodology, such as role play, simulation or a case study, the key is to know exactly what you want to achieve in the classroom and, even more importantly, how you'll use the results.
We sometimes work on projects or carry out numerous collaborative activities that aren't always as necessary as we think, or don't work as expected. Conscious design means deciding when a methodology makes sense and when it doesn't, and embracing the complexity involved in designing well.
Encaixa and Funny Feedback have been presented at events such as the EADTU conference, and most recently at the IFE Transforming Higher Education 2026 conference held at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. What are the benefits of sharing these experiences with an international audience?
It allows us to compare perspectives among peers, transfer our practices and position the UOC within the landscape of teacher training for innovative online education.
Encaixa has been very well received both inside and outside the UOC. The systemic perspective on design is transferable to different university models. Teachers from European face-to-face and online universities, as well as educators from Latin America, have had the chance to play. They are often experts in their subject area but have little hands-on pedagogical experience. This offers an opportunity to put design into practice in a different way.
In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about student-centred design. But what does this mean in practice?
It's much easier said than done.
Design is often framed as a choice between content-driven and activity-driven approaches, as if only the latter truly centred on students. But this is an oversimplification. An excellent learning sequence can be built around content if we're very clear about what students should be able to do with that content, in what context and for what purpose.
The key is the learning sequence and everything that accompanies the learning journey. Continuous assessment is not an obstacle course; it's a relay race. Each activity prepares students for the next.
We also place students at the centre when we offer choices, adapt activities to the available time or acknowledge that they may learn more than anticipated. This has an impact on the way we design assessment.
Focusing on the student means recognizing that not everyone starts from the same point or wants to get to the same destination. It's not about following a recipe; it's about consciously making decisions.
How would you define your role as a pedagogical manager at the UOC?
We ensure that what students are expected to learn matches what is going to be taught, and that this makes educational sense.
I work with other teachers to give them tools that allow them to design what they want to teach and discover that they can do so autonomously. What we do is support them until they no longer need us, or no longer need our support.
When it comes to projects, I believe in combining roles and fostering teamwork. I think that each person should contribute their expertise and take on the leadership responsibilities that suit them. Because when leadership is shared, talent multiplies, and the outcome is the best of the best.
Press contact
-
Leyre Artiz