The use of games within engineering classes has steadily increased, as evidenced by increasing numbers of publications on their implementation and effectiveness. Games within engineering classes can take on a variety of different forms ranging from classroom games (board, card, live action) to digital games and even to gamification elements. In gamification implementations, faculty will leverage principles associated with game-based learning such as storyline, points, leaderboard and badges to help motivate students towards completion of classroom activities. Despite these increases in published implementations of games within engineering, there are still many faculty members that aren’t aware of this pedagogy.

This workshop will provide participants with an understanding of game-based learning and how it can be used within engineering, and will conclude with providing references to help support individuals’ use of this pedagogy. Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to:

Games and gamification implementations can be very powerful experiences for students as they provide them with an opportunity to learn experientially and then connect their time in game play back to technical course material. Research has shown that implementation of these types of activities leads to a general trend in improvement in both student attitudes and learning. As such, this workshop will provide faculty with the necessary skill sets that will allow greater use of these pedagogical tools in first year engineering classes.