About two weeks ago, I started doing some research on the topic of assignment 2, which I will explore with my classmate Jenna Planden, and came across Katie Salen Tekinbaş’s findings and contributions on the topic of gamification in learning, and decided to base assignment 1 on her work.
Katie is a professor and Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, and her work explores the connections between game design, learning, and online communities, particularly how digital play can strengthen social relationships and contribute to the positive development and wellbeing of young people.
Besides doing extensive research on gamification in learning, she made an effort to put her ideas into practice. She led the design of Quest to Learn, a New York City public school launched in 2009 whose curriculum was intentionally designed around principles of game and play. The school’s approach has students solve problems, collaborate, experiment, receive feedback, and think like designers. She also led the original design of Gamestar Mechanic, which teaches young people about game design by having them actually design games.
How does her work affect what’s happening now? Her ideas connect directly to current interest in gamification/game-like learning, learner engagement, collaborative digital environments, and designing learning experiences that move beyond delivering information online. Her current work continues to build on her ideas about game-like learning by exploring how online environments can create meaningful, engaging, and learner-centred experiences. She examines how principles of play, challenge, collaboration, feedback, and problem-solving can shape the learning experience itself. Her more recent work also considers how online play communities can encourage peer mentorship, social connection, and youth wellbeing. This demonstrates the continuing relevance of her work as educators increasingly look for ways to create digital learning environments that are equitable, supportive, and socially connected.
What view of learning does she advance? Her work presents learning as an active process in which knowledge develops through participation, experimentation, and interaction with others. Learners encounter challenges, make decisions, test possible solutions, receive feedback, and adjust their thinking based on the results, which encourages learners to take an active role in constructing meaning. Salen Tekinbaş shows that the value of games lies in their ability to create conditions that encourage agency, persistence, reflection, collaboration, and continuous learning.
Links:
Katie Salen Tekinbaş’s Publications
Katie Salen Tekinbaş’s LinkedIn
References
Tekinbaş, K. S. (Ed.). (2011). Quest to learn: Developing the school for digital kids. MIT Press.
Tekinbaş, K. S. (2026, July 24). Protecting the right to play in an age of GenAI. The Fulcrum. https://thefulcrum.us/education/protecting-right-to-play-age-of-genai
Tekinbaş, K. S. (2026, July 17). Online spaces for children don’t have to be outlawed. They just have to be safe enough. Science Politics. https://sciencepolitics.org/2026/07/17/online-spaces-for-children-dont-have-to-be-outlawed-they-just-have-to-be-safe-enough/
AI Use
I planned to use Google Gemini to help locate the author’s professional website and LinkedIn profile. I also planned to use ChatGPT to review my writing for grammar, clarity and overall coherence.
I checked and verified the information Gemini provided and found it to be accurate. I uploaded the assignment rubric to ChatGPT and asked it to analyze my work against the criteria. It suggested a few changes in wording, but I chose not to incorporate any of them. Quite often I feel the words it suggests do not match my voice and my writing style.
Using AI in this process was particularly helpful as a tool for checking the coherence and organization of my writing, and to help me find the websites I was looking for more quickly.