During the past few years of offering a variety of workshops, presentations, and tours, I’ve learned the value of varying my type of instruction.

More recently, I have been exploring with incorporating gamification during my instruction. This has had positive results and has encouraged me to continue finding new and inventive ways of gamifying learning lessons. The following are a few examples of gamified instruction.

GSG Scavenger Hunt

After having offered “traditional tours” of the Geographic, Statistical, and Government Information Centre (GSG) for a few years, we observed that students seemed bored at times and weren’t always paying attention. This led us to try to come up with new and innovative ways of showing users our physical collection. We came up with the idea of a scavenger hunt, where we hid clues all over the room, e.g. within map drawers, atlases, air photos, etc, for students to find. Rather than providing a “normal” tour of our space and services, we had developed a gamified experience rooted in experiential learning where participants would be working in groups to find the next clue. Seeing students opening map drawers, exploring our physical collection, and having to work through a variety of customized geography-related riddles and clues was terrific.

To view the template that we created, with the questions and answers, see the following link: GSG Scavenger Hunt: 2018 Mini-course Edition

Mentimeter Microlesson

For one of my classes (ISI 6371: Learning and Instruction), I recorded a “microlesson” (i.e. 10-minute video tutorial) explaining how to use the application Mentimeter.

Mentimeter is a Web-based presentation platform similar to Google Slides, but further emphasizes interactivity. You can use it to take live polls in a class, administer an interactive quiz, have a class enter in terms to populate a word cloud, and many other interactive functions. It is a great tool to promote active learning, where the learner takes a more active role in their instruction. 

It was also a good opportunity to become familiar with the recording software Screencast-O-Matic, which I used to record the video tutorial. Creating such asynchronous learning resources offers a different medium for learners to receive their instruction, and can also be viewed multiple times, paused, replayed, etc.

To view the video, please see here (https://youtu.be/p4pRsJ3nE8A):

Presentations on Gamification

For another assignment for Learning and Instruction (ISI 6371), I watched a 2-hour Lynda.com lesson entitled “Gamification of Learning” and presented a summary of the lesson to the class. I learned the theory behind the practice of gamification, including scaffolding, self-determination theory, and episodic memory. I also explored these gamification dynamics:

  • Race and escape (e.g. Mario Kart)
  • Collecting, acquiring, and allocating resources (e.g. Settlers of Catan)
  • Mystery and discovery (e.g. Myst)
  • Strategy (e.g. Chess)
  • Constructing and creating (e.g. Minecraft)
  • Pattern recognition (e.g. Candy Crush)

I finished the presentation with an interactive Jeopardy-style game going over gamification principles and hammer home the message.

Lastly, for an presentation for my Information & Society (ISI 5301) class, I decided to base my presentation on why board games are viable learning resources and therefore belong in libraries. It may come as no surprise by now that I am a avid board game fan and own an extensive collection. I enjoy these games for their social element, but also because I do enjoy the challenge they present and that success often comes from strategy, careful planning (e.g. making a choice between many possible actions), and/or managing resources.