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Watch a group of teens immersed in a popular video game such as Among Us and you will see a textbook definition of successful engagement. Well-designed games ones with clearly stated goals, an emphasis on storytelling, an allowance for productive failure, and an emphasis on supportive teamwork and inclusiveness can point the way to a better classroom environment, too, says University of Alabama at Birmingham s Lauren Rast, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics.
Rast is a UAB pioneer in a mode of instruction called gameful learning. Faculty in the Department of Physics already have applied gameful learning in their increasingly popular online courses. And in a series of workshops for high school physics teachers inspired by her own work as a computational physicist, Rast has helped teachers share the benefits of gameful learning with teens around Alabama. Her Coding with Physics courses also promote self-efficacy an