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Learning Against Gamification -- Molly Worthen
Episode 1514th May 2026 • Plumbing Game Studies • Graham Culbertson
00:00:00 00:44:58

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Molly Worthen joins me to discuss her recent NYTimes article "You Can't Game Your Way to a Real Education," which argues that the gamification of classroom learning stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how students learn. We discuss the broader adoption of tech in classrooms, the way that standardized testing can be thought of as a game, the danger of frictionless edutainment games, and the place for games in real learning.

You can read the article here (behind a paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/opinion/schools-edtech-laptops-games-learning.html

Molly's website is here: https://mollyworthen.com/

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