Game-Based Learning in Action

Matthew Farber, Ed.D. is Assistant Professor in the Technology, Innovation, and Pedagogy Program at the University of Northern Colorado. His research is at the intersection of teacher education, learning technologies, and game-based learning. Dr. Farber has been invited to the White House, and he has been interviewed about games and learning by NPR, Fox News Radio, USA TODAY, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also an Edutopia blogger, a Certified BrainPOP Educator, and he is in the iCivics Educator Network. His first book, Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning, Revised Edition features a foreword from USA TODAY's Greg Toppo. To learn more, visit: MatthewFarber.com.

List of Figures – James Paul Gee: Foreword – Acknowledgments – Introduction – The Tribe – Learning from the Experts – Games in School – "The Godmother of Educational Gaming" – "For the Next 3 Hours, You Have a License to Snoop Around the House" – "Life Just Got Epic!" – Playful Learning – Gameful Learning – Games as High Quality Curricular Materials – "How Can I Twist This Game to My Purposes?" – The Case for Experiential Learning – Open-Ended Assessments for Open-Ended Games – The Role of the Game-Based Teacher – Conclusion – Index.

“Matthew Farber’s book sheds a fascinating light on a dispersed group of educators who bring radical educational practices into conventional settings. More importantly, this book portrays how this small but effective global community supports one another, both personally and professionally, and provides the foundation required to integrate games-based learning into on-going coursework. For those new to games-based learning, Farber shows us how classroom learning can be transformed when educators work together to understand their students then design curriculum that speaks to their passions.”—Barry Joseph, Associate Director for Digital Learning at the American Museum of Natural History

“Following a group of innovative tech-savvy teachers, Matthew Farber unearths a close-knit tribe of passionate educator-scholars actively using games in their classrooms. This community applies scholarly research on game-based learning to their own teaching and presents their results at academic conferences and teacher workshops. Farber’s book introduces you to the teachers, the tools, and their techniques, and ties it together with current cutting-edge research. At the end of each chapter you’ll find yourself excited to dive into an overflowing toolbox of techniques to try, games to play, and papers to read. Farber covers a vast landscape, pulling resources together and presenting them to you in a thorough and easy to follow format. Press start!” —Mark DeLoura, Engineer, Game Developer, Former Senior Advisor for Digital Media in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy