CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING A GAMES-BASED APPROACH TO ONLINE TEACHING BY CREATING A NEW SET OF BEST PRACTICES

As technology changes, needs of today’s users change also. Currently, academic institutions provide adult learners with a variety of technologies. These students have a choice of attending traditional (physical classroom) classes or online classes. Nonetheless, courses are now being taught in either a physical classroom or online, but the learning outcomes are the common denominators that instructors need to have their learners achieve. If adult learners chose online learning, both the learner and the instructor must keep up to date with the ever-changing technology. For new online learners, this new type of learning may be a challenge for them. Thus, there is a need for preparing adult learners to not only know content knowledge, but also how to apply it. Specifically, these returning adult learners may not be adequately prepared to move from the traditional Face-to-Face (F2F) physical learning environment to an online learning environment as easily as they may anticipate. Also, it may be important to engage these traditional students in the online learning environment with more motivational and engaging methodologies. Thus, this paper will explore the lessons learned from creating additional set of learning activities to engage these learners, in addition to helping them to master their content knowledge and achieve the specific learning outcomes. One of these learning activities is the incorporation of a games-based format of learning, just as the game used on a current TV how known as Jeopardy. The use of this popular TV show quizzing format may help one to retain content knowledge as well as apply it to other instances as a form of learning, as well as motivating the student.