Gamification Works! Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Teaching

Invited Talk, VSNU Education Day, the Netherlands

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Abstract

In ICT alone, the human-resource gap in Europe exceeds 200,000 this year and will approach 1,000,000 by 2020. Thus, "Every student counts!" is the new Grand Challenge in education, horizon 2035. However, every student is also different, in starting skill, in personality, etc. We posit that gamification, which we define as using social gaming elements to successfully deliver curriculum-elements, will become a useful tool to help solving the Grand Challenge. In this workshop, you will learn how you can use gamification to improve university teaching and learning. The interactive session will start from Alexandru’s experience using gamification with his teaching team at TU Delft – for many years, for several BSc and MSc courses, with high passing rates and student satisfaction, and with high student participation and engagement. The discussion will focus on gamification mechanics and dynamics, and on activating students from talented to simply disinterested. Alexandru hopes to show that gamification is not just the BLT sandwich of higher education. There may also be brownies.