When educators hear about the strong evidence supporting gamification's impact on learning, I suspect many immediately picture a favorite family or one that a faculty member used in a course helped them to learn in a way that lectures never could. Others might envision classic board game and wonder how it might be adapted to help students learn in their course. What likely doesn't come to mind? The wide range of game-based strategies already in use throughout education: role-playing, simulations, choose-your-own-path activities, discipline-specific escape rooms, and a surprising number of others.
When it comes to gamification in higher education, there is a lot more to consider than rolling dice and collecting tokens. Fortunately, Gamify Your College Classroom: Strategies to Foster Critical Thinking and Life Skills Across Disciplines brings clarity and creativity to the table. Edited by Sierra Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi, this volume assembles 40 experts in the field of gamification. Together, these 40 contributors unpack a variety of game types, explain why they work, andmost importantlyshow how you might use them in your own course, whether in-person or online, first-year course or graduate seminar, and in any discipline. This isn't just a bookit's a practical, thoughtful, and thoroughly useful handbook created by a coalition of gamification experts who know how to take the elements of a good game and move from novelty to meaningful pedagogy. If you are curious how to create more engaging learning environments, this book is where the game begins.
Todd Zakrajsek, Adjunct Associate Professor and Associate Director of The Faculty Development Fellowship, Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, Director, Lilly Conferences on Evidence-Based Teaching
A very compelling and insightful book that offers a fresh perspective on the topic of using gamification in the classroom. The authors who contributed to this book provide a wide and diverse range of topics, such as using Storytelling and Escape Rooms, Role-Playing, and Semester-Long Gamification. Sierra Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi delivers a collection of meticulously researched chapters and engaging writing style that makes this book an essential contribution to the field of higher education. I encourage anyone interested in the fascinating topic of gamification to add this book to your collection.
E. David Moss, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Mt. San Jacinto College, USA
Into our doom and gloom world, with constant predictions that teachers are all going to be replaced by AI, comes this upbeat book to provide a cheerful antidote and start a fresh conversation. Whatever your discipline, its hard not to want to dip into this compendium and fantasize about how it might apply to your own classroom. The authors are thoughtful, knowledgeable, realistic, and more than a little inspiring. Whether you end up being an advanced practitioner in gamification, or just an armchair curricular dreamer, this persuasive volume provides new ideas for thinking creatively about how we engage students in meaningful learning encounters that can reinvigorate their futures, and ours.
Teresa Dawson, Teaching Professor in Geography, University of Victoria, Canada
