Teaching has always been an incredibly engaging and rewarding experience for me, but it wasn’t until I started researching gamification in education that I understood why. Teaching has game-like elements. I get the same satisfaction from teaching as other people get from playing games because teaching is an interactive way to tell a complicated story through collaboration, problem-solving, communication, experimentation, and social networking. I spend hours mentoring students in the lab for the same reasons nearly half of people spend more than four hours a week playing video games. I invest time in my students to help them succeed in much the same way that people devote hours to training Pokémon.
My general approach to teaching is to use the principles that make games engaging to facilitate learning. Games are an extremely engaging medium; the best games engage consumers through challenge, curiosity, autonomy, cooperation and competition, and skill mastery. These principles have been researched and tested extensively for over three decades in the gaming industry, and their application in education improves learning outcomes. I challenge my students using active learning exercises and peak their curiosity using real world examples. I give my students autonomy, social connection, and skill mastery by allowing them to design and conduct experiments in the lab. Gamification helps students develop transferable skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication. These skills are more important than depth of content because the ability to solve problems, think creatively, and communicate effectively is more transferable to real life than being able to regurgitate knowledge, follow instructions, and pass exams.
A full copy of my teaching philosophy can be found here.