Juan Pestana in the News [video]

Featured Faculty: Juan M. Pestana

Teaching @ Berkeley interviews Professor Pestana on Gamification. Pestana, faculty member in CEE's GeoSystems program, chairs Berkeley Academic Senate's Committee on Teaching. He is also a recipient of Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award (2010).

Innovative educator LaVaque-Manty defined gaming in an academic environment as having these elements:

  • “multiple paths to achievement (not everybody has to do the same assignments),
  • safe failures (allowing students to practice the assignment instruments imposed on them before making them high stakes), and
  • “leveling up” instead of “getting points taken off.”

Gamification strategies can be incorporated into a course without having programming expertise or needing to develop an elaborate game environment.

See What is Gamification? (Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning)

 

 

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