Should learning be fun?

Many years ago, when an ex colleague found out that as well as tests based on quiz shows I was also getting my students to play games in class in order to teach the ‘serious’ subject of marketing, I was berated with the phrase “I’m not there to entertain them”. After all, marketing is a serious matter, not frivolous. The impact of plastic pollution on the global environment is not a light-hearted jaunt and you rarely find, with the possible exception of Stephen Brown, journal articles that stray from anything other than a strict academic approach.

Yet, there is a general consensus amongst students that they don’t like ‘boring’ lectures, or seminars where they simply go through the motions of answering a case study. The pedagogic literature has moved towards various forms of active learning, encouraging greater participation and the development of higher order thinking skills. At the same time there has been a growth in the concept of gamification, from Lego® Serious Play® and escape rooms to computer simulations.

Yet there is still resistance, often of a pragmatic nature. How much easier is it to design a course around a core text. How much more efficient to use already existing materials. How much simpler and expectation-meeting to provide information and then ask students to apply it by answering questions. However, in 26 years of teaching I have seen students become less resilient, less able to take responsibility for their own learning and less able to apply creative thinking to problem solving with often quite mechanistic engagement (yes, I am generalising, but sadly the outliers are also diminishing).

Little of this is their fault, given how successive Governments have narrowed curricula, specified process and focused on outcomes to meet national standards. So isn’t it our responsibility to set these birds of learning free from the cages of rigid education so that they might soar to heights of understanding and swoop across the changing landscapes of curiosity (I fear this metaphor may be getting away from me).

You only have to look at the impact of social media and the nature of its content presentation to understand that knowledge and engagement are now governed by different features. This is the lived experience of the vast majority of the students we deal with and we have to be able to change. The idea of active learning, problem-based learning and gamification are spreading fast, but I think we should also consider the positive benefits of having fun: pleasure; anticipation, memorability. Thus, I find myself, as I write this, surrounded by cards, dice, playing pieces and enough money (sadly not real) to buy a small island. Desperately trying to make sure that my marketing boardgame (#1 Tycoon) is not too hard or easy and that, by the end of it, students will at least have been able to familiarise themselves with some basic marketing terms and concepts, in a way that is enjoyable.

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Roger Saunders is a Teaching Fellow and Associate Professor at Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University. He’s been teaching for 26 years and specialises in Marketing and Advertising, though his research interest is in teaching and learning – particularly gamification and playful learning.
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