Gamification: Introduction

For thousands of years we have used games to teach us important skills for the real world.  For example, Chess is over a thousand years old and it some of the lessons it teaches includes:

• strategic thinking,
• planning,
• decisions have consequences, and
• the how leaders need to assign importance to their team

The value of play is so deeply rooted in evolution, that other species such as cats also adopt it as a means to develop needed skills.  Ironically for the main part of the past hundred years, play has been viewed as antithetical to education. Instead classrooms were designed liked factories to where students are given top-down instruction to impart skills necessary for working menial, and often repetitive, industrial jobs.

Recently games and simulations have become rediscovered resources to assist higher education (Chacon, Chen, & Wolf, 2007).  In 2003, Nick Pelling coins the term gamification and it has been growing since, offering successful teaching strategies and increasing engagement (Werbach & Hunter, 2012).  What is gamification?

Gamification is using the principles of play, such as games, to make real world activities more engaging.

I will briefly touch base on three aspects of gamification and in another blog post offer advice on implementing them. They are:

1. Learning as Improving
2. Agency
3. Grading

Each of these aspects can redefine a traditional class and benefit the students.