Prompt: Roblyer & Hughes (2019) discuss the gaming in the classroom. What benefits and challenges are associated with gaming in the classroom? Do you have any strategies that you use to make gaming productive? When is gaming inappropriate in the instructional setting?

Video Transcript

Hey family,

Crouch (2017) commented that “[w]e are stuffing our lives with technology’s new promises, with no clear sense of whether technology will help us keep the promises we’ve already made” (Preface, para. 6). Gamification of instruction may promise to “profoundly engage learners and lead to learning gains” (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, p. 31); still, as I approached this discussion prompt, I considered how games are or are not appropriate learning supports for organizations like mine that instruct adult professionals. Toward that consideration, Oprescu et al. (2014) proposed ten principles for gamified workplaces. Of those principles, the one that stood out to me is how good games naturally offer a learning curve that encourages a learning mindset. In my experience, some adult learners may decide to leave the learning mindset in the academic classroom and forget to live like real life is the ultimate learning environment. Therefore, if gamification of learning supports can appropriately align the principles of professional eldership and evidence-based learning science, it seems obvious that serious learning games could help even adult learners regain a childlike teachable spirit. Thanks!

References

Oprescu, F., Jones, C., & Katsikitis, M. (2014). I PLAY AT WORK—ten principles for transforming work processes through gamification. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00014

Roblyer, M. D., & Hughes, J. E. (2019). Integrating educational technology into teaching: Transforming learning across disciplines (8th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.