5 Easy Steps to #Gamifying #HigherEd

by Justin Marquis Ph.D.

It’s time to get the party started with gamification in higher education. Maybe it’s the liberating feeling of the summer, or the fact that it is the perfect time for some educators to make improvements to their curriculums. Maybe I’m just sick of waiting for the gamification movement to bloom on its own. Regardless, it is time to take some drastic action in jumpstarting the games-in-learning movement this summer, so here are five easy things that every educator can start doing this fall to usher in a new era of interactive, engaging, and innovative education.

The Importance of Gamification to Higher Education
I have great respect and admiration for old mentor and friend Charles Reigeluth who writes in his new book, Reinventing Schools: It’s Time to Break the Mold, that dramatic change is needed in education. So dramatic in fact, that the only way to achieve it is going to be to blow up the old system and start from scratch. Reigeluth is talking about public K-12 schools, not higher education, but all of the fundamental societal shifts that he cites as reasons for change in K-12 education in the information age also apply to higher ed. They are:

• A move to customization from standardization
• Increased diversity of ideas, information, and perspective rather than uniformity
• An emphasis on collaboration rather than adversarial relationships
• Work characterized by teamwork/shared leadership rather than bureaucracy
• A focus on individual empowerment and accountability rather than centralized control
• A reliance on worker self-direction rather than compliance