Teaching inductively: games in the tertiary classroom

Abstract

Inductive teaching methods, where students construct models rather than being told facts, are aids to deeper learning, but are notoriously difficult to incorporate into mainstream tertiary teaching. Games present a relatively painless path to engage and motivate students to actively participate in the learning process. This paper presents a brief reflection on the background of, and motivation for, using games as tools for inductive teaching. The intent here is to provide examples of how games can be incorporated into a curriculum, along with some commentary on the challenges which may be encountered during development and implementation, based on the experiences of the author.