2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

On the Successful Use of Gamification Techniques; Maintaining Professionalism and High-Quality Education While Incorporating Game Design Elements

Presented at Design in Engineering Education Division (DEED) Technical Session 14

The advancement of active learning methodologies as a means to drive student engagement and information retention has led to a blossoming renaissance in the field of teaching. One such new pedagogical technique to increase motivation in young scholars is that of `gamification.’ Gamification is the process of taking elements from other forms of media (specifically those of board games or video games) and applying them in an academic setting. By incorporating these techniques, it aims to increase student participation and encouraging them to develop logistical skills or behaviors that are conducive to skilled learners. However, gamification is not an all-purpose solution that can be implemented haphazardly. This work discusses not only the potential gains when gamification is done properly, but also many of the pitfalls and potential issues that can arise when game mechanics are inserted into the collegiate classroom.

Authors

Dr. Lucas Buccafusca http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4358-8110 The Johns Hopkins University [biography]

My name is Lucas Buccafusca. I am currently a teaching faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
I received my Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earned my Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 and my Bachelor's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2013 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
My pedagogical research interests are on improving the quality of collegiate classroom environments through the use of nontraditional techniques and active participation by instructors. These include the use of failure as a teaching tool, humor and empathy as a means of connecting with students, and gamification.
My technical research interests are Distributed Control, Learning, Distributed Optimization and Nonlinear Systems. Applications of my research are primarily used for Wind Farm arrays.

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