Gameful pedagogy motivates students and faculty by building student autonomy, competency, and belonging. Gameful pedagogy inspires curiosity for research and learning. It allows students to create their own tailored experience to learning acquisition by providing options for learning the course material that are not tied to high-stake assessment. It encourages risks, gives students the freedom to fail, and, in so doing models a growth mindset.
When we teach and assess traditionally, students can often feel disappointed when their learning speed does not necessarily match their peers. Instead, even with grading rubrics, they can feel mystified about what to do to earn the “A.” Studies, such as that by Hayward, Schulz, and Fishman (2021), suggest that by incorporating gameful pedagogy into courses, equity can increase for underrepresented populations in higher education (men, underrepresented minorities, and first-generation student). Current scholarship suggests that equity and access in higher education increases when prior experience is removed as a prerequisite for success in individual coursework (Bell 2018). The University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Information is a useful archive when exploring gameful pedagogy, introducing GAME (Gameful Assessment in Michigan Education) and GradeCraft, a platform designed to allow students to playfully engage with their curriculum. Gameful pedagogy supports multiple attempts at assignments and supports students as they choose their own educational path.
Explore gameful pedagogy by joining a faculty learning community that reads articles, examines and workshops syllabi, and creates student learning opportunity options. Faculty will leave with more knowledge of gameful pedagogy and with course materials for a future course.
This learning community will be facilitated by Zelideth Maria Rivas, the 2022-2023 Hedrick Faculty Teaching Fellow. Please send any questions about the FLC to rivasz@marshall.edu.