Teaching Tip: The power of play, part 1

April 29, 2014

Gamification is a design methodology that seeks to focus learning behaviors using the universal instinct for play.

How to start in your class? Start right away, and start small. Give your students opportunities to succeed in granular, exciting ways, with low-stakes consequences for failure. These are fundamental elements of play.

Some examples:

Engage with competition

Host a classroom game, like Jeopardy. Base the questions on trivia within your field, use exam review questions, or address an otherwise conceptually problematic area. There are a host of Jeopardy apps available online.

Foster creative thinking skills

Host a classroom debate and give the winning team some sort of status reward.

Motivate discussion

Surprise your students and give away candy, gum, or golden stickers to those who answer or ask questions in class.

Build understanding through empathy

Create an assignment involving role-play where students put themselves in the role of characters from literature, history or science discovery, or in the role of professionals in their field.

-- Teaching Tip by Owen Guthrie, UAF eLearning instructional designer

Learn more about gamification in the classroom in this week’s Teaching Tip at iTeachU: http://elearning.uaf.edu/go/tt-powerofplay

Part two (of three) will be published next week.