Teaching in the Age of AI and Attention Economy: How a Tiny Game Makes a Big Difference
- Yusuf Öç
- May 15
- 3 min read
In today’s attention economy, capturing and keeping students’ focus is becoming more difficult than ever. Even at the postgraduate level, distractions are everywhere. Notifications, multitasking, and AI-generated summaries of class materials are making it harder to truly engage students in meaningful learning.
Even well-crafted case studies are often too long for today's learners, and semester-long simulations, while valuable, can demand more time than many curricula allow.
This challenge made me ask a simple question: how can we teach in ways that students actually enjoy and remember?
We published a paper titled "GIST do it! How motivational mechanisms help wearable users develop healthy habits" together with my co-author Professor Kirk Plangger in Computers in Human Behaviour journal here is the link if you are interested in learning more https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756322100412X?casa_token=3NjmTiDvGRwAAAAA:iap0lvq6llUJUs81m3-Roxj9DyfTosbRLHYKoLgHvSDm4rczZIQ5J10iD6-Ms--J3uZDxZ43 We created the GIST framework, which stands for Gamification, Instructing, Sharing, and Tracking. Originally designed to support healthy habit formation using technology, I recently adapted this framework into a short, interactive game for marketing education.
The goal was clear: make learning active, engaging, and connected to real-world decision-making. The topic was marketing communications, particularly campaign planning, agency selection, and budget allocation—concepts that are easy to explain in theory but difficult for students to apply in practice.
Why a Game?
The idea came from my experience teaching an online MSc module at King’s College London. Many students struggled to understand how to choose an agency or allocate a campaign budget. Even though the topic sounds familiar to most, applying these ideas in a business context requires critical thinking, and this wasn’t coming through in traditional lectures.
So, we built a small game. It simulates a real-world campaign planning process and lets students take on the role of a marketing manager. They are briefed on the case, guided through the steps, encouraged to share their decisions and strategies with each other, and receive instant feedback on their performance.
This structure follows the GIST approach:
Gamification keeps students motivated through competition and clear goals.
Instructing provides them with a step-by-step path and clear expectations.
Sharing invites discussion and reflection by letting students compare results.
Tracking offers feedback so they can learn and improve in real time.
The best part? The whole experience fits into one class session.
What Happened When I Used It
I first introduced the game to online MSc students. It was so well received that I quickly integrated it into on-campus classes at Bayes Business School and King’s College London. From undergraduate to MBA level, students across different programmes found the game fun, useful, and insightful. Thanks to my dear colleague Dr. Sabrina Gottschalk at Bayes Business School who used it in her undergrad class undergraduate students also enjoyed the experience and share very positive feedback.
They told me they learned more in one session than in weeks of reading or working on longer-term simulations. The game gave them space to test their ideas, reflect on their decisions, and quickly understand key marketing principles in a realistic setting.
This feedback reflects something bigger. In a world where generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity) can instantly summarise long case studies and where attention spans are getting shorter, traditional teaching methods are struggling. Long simulations take too much time, and passive content delivery just doesn’t cut it anymore.
This short game offers an alternative. It’s fast, focused, and flexible enough to be used without redesigning an entire module.
Try It Yourself
To show how a nice and kind person I am the game is free and open to anyone who wants to use it (😇😇). If you're teaching marketing or related subjects and would like to give it a try, feel free to reach out by filling out the contact form on this website. I can share some documentation or talk you through how to use it in your own class.
Final Thoughts
We don’t need to throw away lectures or stop using case studies. But we do need to adapt. Small, experiential activities like this game can help us reconnect with students and deliver high-impact learning experiences in a short time.
If you're interested in the full story, check out my chapter, “Developing an Experiential Formative Assessment Activity with the GIST Framework”, in the book Formative Assessment and Feedback in Post-Digital Learning Environments. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003360254-13/developing-experiential-formative-assessment-activity-gist-framework-yusuf-oc
Let’s make learning fun, practical, and memorable—one small game at a time.
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