Gamification refers to the application of game design principles to a non-game context, infusing education with curiosity, imagination, and play. The Beam Library at Oklahoma Christian University has gamified research instruction and theological education, creating transformative learning spaces where desire drives students to explore, overcome challenges, and earn rewards. Chris Rosser will demonstrate three examples of gamified instruction within curricular and co-curricular contexts. First, Chris describes gamified theological education in his Bible and Classical Literature course, which normalizes experience of the Bible as 'strange' by framing students' journeys through texts around Joseph Campbell's construct of the Hero's Journey. Second, Chris will discuss an escape-room style, online, gamified library module that teaches and assesses information literacy outcomes as students escape from a virtual library. Third, we share results from a co-curricular Inquiring Minds badging initiative, in which we partnered with faculty to provide gamified learning for locating, evaluating, and using resources to empower research. Gamification offers a powerful means for rethinking how we do teaching and learning in today's technology-driven environment.
