Language and Literacy: Reading Strand

  For students to develop their reading skills it is important to exercise the skill of reading for a variety of purposes.  According to the Ontario grades 1-8 language curriculum (found here) this means reading for "self-discovery, self-enrichment, and for the sheer fun of it" (p.10).  The curriculum goes on to highlight how this is particularly important for younger students, as it can form the bedrock of their attitudes and habits towards reading.  From a young age I have been exposed to books and to reading in a environment that has always been enjoyable.  So I can agree that making a good impression at a young age is incredibly important.  However, the momentum should not stop there, reading should always be presented as an avenue for student discovery and enjoyment.  How do you do this?  How can you make reading an enjoyable process that encourages student self-discovery?  Well there are many methods out there but I wanted to take the time here to discuss a method which I have been researching and writing about on this blog for the past month.  I am talking about using pen and paper role-playing games to teach reading skills to students.

Sargoth. (March 2009), Role Playing Games at Burg-Con [Online Image]. Retrieved from Wikipedia.

  Now many of my readers might not be familiar with what a role-playing game (RPG) is, so I will briefly describe it here.  A role-playing game involves a group of players taking on the role of fictional character that they have created.  One player takes the role of a game master (GM), who unravels the story to the players orally, describing events, places, and choices the players have.  The players who are taking the role of these characters respond to what is presented to them by GM.  There are many published systems out there that add their rules and settings but that is the basic concept.  A few staples of pen and paper RPGS are the game manuals, character sheets, and dice.

  So what does this have to do with the reading strand?  I am here to argue that integrating RPGs into the classroom is an excellent way of not only incorporating the reading strand, but others as we will see in later posts.  For the reading strand I would like to share an interview with teacher Kade Wells.  Kade Wells is a Texan teacher who used Dungeons and Dragons (a highly popular RPG) in his 9th grade language arts class to great effect.  You can find the interview with Wells here (the interview starts at 21:55).  Wells describes a classroom plagued with apathy, completely unenthusiastic about reading.  Wells describes that having his classroom create characters in a RPG context created a buy in, where students were reading for their own sake because they wanted their characters to do well.  These students were reading game books, manuals for Dungeons & Dragons, and if you are unfamiliar with them these are not small books, these are about 300 page sized tomes with columned text.  Certainly not easy reads even for a grade 9 class, but these students became eager to read them and would wonder how they could find specific things in the text, so would use things like indexes and the table of content to find what they were looking for.  Coming from students who had no interest in books or a history reading, this is big to have students discover how to effectively use things like an index on their own.

  I therefore think that RPGs are great on their own for teaching students how to read dense manuals and unpack rules through skimming and cuing.  We can even see that students are actively reading out of a sense of discovery and for fun.  Of course this cannot meet the requirements for the whole reading strand, students must read for a variety of purposes.  I believe though that a teacher can build these other expectations around the game while still maintaining student enjoyment, discovery, and engagement.  For example students are expected to read a wide variety of texts, well since RPGs are often set in fantastical settings, why not incorporate myths and folklore into the game, have them interact with those texts as if it were something occurring to their characters.  I also believe that reading strategies can be easily incorporated into a RPG by bringing in prior knowledge, questioning (something routinely directed towards the GM), drawing inferences, connecting, evaluating, and most importantly creative thinking.  Although information and instructions in RPGs are conveyed through the manuals and orally form the GM, there's no reason why information cannot be conveyed through other written or graphical means.  Such as through text that might appear in the game world, written stories or events that impact the student's characters, even the reading and processing of information on character sheets is a good example.  If the curriculum says that baseball cards can be used in a classroom (p.11), I see no reason why character sheets can't be.

  As educators we must try to create creative ways for students to engage with reading.  I do not think this is the best way, but I think it that it can be incredibly effective at engaging the students with a variety of texts for different purposes.  Feel free to explore other parts of my blog to find out how else RPGs can be used in a classroom.

James Jones. (April 2009), Dice and Character Sheet [Online Image]. Retrieved from Wikipedia.

Assesment Blog Post 1

  Over the years of your education you are constantly faced with assessment, either from your teacher, peers, or yourself.  Growing up in the public school system in Ontario from grades K-8 I do not remember receiving a very diverse means of assessment.  Most of my experiences with assessment from grades K-8 were test oriented, or based on the teacher's evaluation based on a rubric.  I don't feel like this form of assessment was incorrect, far from I think it is necessary, but it was the only form of assessment I remember from those grades.  It wasn't until high school that I had the chance to experience student self-assessment on our work.  However, this form of assessment was rare possibly due to a lack of trust the teachers had in honest student assessment.  It was not until university where it was common to self-assess your performance in seminars and give yourself a grade.  It was also not until university where I felt like peer evaluation actually mattered, mostly for seminar facilitation.  That being said teacher or professor led assessment and evaluation through papers and tests has been the dominant form for assessing my academic performance.  This is not to say that I disliked this method of assessment, I love tests and papers with rubrics but as a student teacher and as someone who has interacted with teachers from many different backgrounds I realize it has not worked for everyone.  

  I still believe that the current methods of assessment still strongly involve the use of tests and rubrics for projects that are evaluated exclusively by the teacher.  However, I also think that we are shifting away from that as the main focus.  I think there is more methods of assessment out there then there was when I was growing up in the elementary school system.  I think that there is more room being made for student self-assessment and peer evaluation.  I also think that anecdotal observations are playing a stronger role in how teachers evaluate a student's performance.   In most Ontario public schools there is likely more diversity in how students are assessed than I can currently think of.  Just based on my own classroom observations I can say that homework worksheets for subjects like math and geography are still common and larger culminating projects for classes like language arts and geography are still used.  Rubrics are things that, based on my observations, are noticeably absent.  Meaning that students are not provided rubrics for how their assignments will be assessed by the teacher.  This may be just due to that fact that I have yet to see them being used, or that perhaps there is a less rigid means of assessment being exercised.  Worksheets are reviewed and graded by the teacher and given back to the students, likely with some feedback and writing on where the student did well or needs improvement. 

  I know that assessment has largely moved past the use of tests and rubrics exclusively, and there are more diverse means of assessment being used by Ontario teachers.  Currently though I just feel ignorant of what kind of advancements have been made since my time in the Ontario public school system.  I look forward to growing my knowledge on this topic and later writing about how my readings on assessment have changed my beliefs and maybe helped enlighten me to methods that I have never considered before. 

 

Math Reflection Week 6: Math Curriculum

  One of the activities that really stood out to me today in class involved us using paper cut outs of math curriculum expectations and matching them to example activities.  A picture of the activity and the cut outs is posted below, and if you're curious you can also read the Ontario grades 1-8 math curriculum here.  I performed this activity with a partner and even with two minds working on it it was still surprisingly challenging.  This is due to the fact that some of the curriculum descriptions and expectations sound a little vague, and you think that these examples could fit into more than one grade level.  Usually it gets tricky when deciding between two grade levels that a nearer to each other, like grades 7 and 8.  Although I like how this activity had us reading through the curriculum and getting a better understanding of the goals for each grade and how assignments meet those goals it still came across as a little strange to me.  This assignments is a test of our knowledge of the curriculum and mathematical processes.  It assumes we are unaware of what grade level we are designing activities or lessons for, so we mix and match.  In reality I do not think that this would come in handy.  For example if you are hired to teach a grade 6 class you would focus on the math requirements for grade 6.  I think it would have been more useful and applicable if we were given a single grade and many different activities and were required to find the one that just applied to that grade level.  It was a little bit of an overwhelming mixing and matching activity with all the different grade requirements.  I would still considering doing a mixing and matching activity using paper manipulatives like this for my class though.  

 

Michael Feagan. (Sept. 20 2016). Math Curriculum [photo].

   Over the past week I also got the chance to try another math game.  This weeks math game that I tried was called Dirt Bike Proportions.  It's a simple game in which you race dirt bikes, and your dirt bike goes faster is you answer a multiple choice question on simple proportional fractions.  When you answer a question correctly the bike moves forward, when incorrectly it stalls.  At the end of the game it tells you what questions you got wrong and the correct solution.  It is similar in terms of game mechanics to a game a played a few weeks ago but did not write about, Integer Orbits.  Although I think using games for math classes is a great idea, I also think that you need to keep the games fresh on a deeper gameplay level, not just changing the theme and the curriculum.  

  I had a great math week overall, getting the chance to try and improve my knowledge of curriculum expectations is always welcome as that is something I will always be doing in my professional career. 

TPACK Quest

  Over the past few weeks I have been steadily progressing to completing all of my badges, symbols of my course achievements.  The first one I wish to discuss is my badge Cup of Wisdom.  The Cup of Wisdom is rewarded for completing all of the weekly online tasks that help to support my background knowledge with various technologies.  I think my favorite activity within the Cup of Wisdom was the PBL Badge, simply due to the large amount of choice we had in online teaching tools to explore.  I personally loved learning about the timeline tool Timetoast and the trading card tool.

 

  The second badge I wish to discuss is the Genius Hour Badge.  We have talked a lot about genius hour over the past few weeks, but getting a chance to experience is something I'll never forget.  I will defiantly look into using the concept of genius hour in my classrooms going forward, as I think it is an excellent opportunity for students to express their interests and get some self-motivation.  I also really benefited from my own genius project looking into role-playing games in the classroom.  This is a topic I might not have researched otherwise, which is a shame because I got a lot out of this activity.

  The third but potentially most important badge I have received is the Professional Order of TPACK Badge.  This involved coming to class consistently, tweeting regularly, and collaborating in all in-class learning activities.  This badge represents my professionalism, collaboration and dependability.  As a teacher I think it is a good idea to try and incentivize student punctuality and participation.  This badge does a good of keeping students accountable. 

Genius Hour Learning Object

  Earlier in one of my weekly reflections I had mentioned the creation of a learning object for my implementation of role-playing games in the classroom.  This learning object was a timeline of the events during the opening year of World War One using the website Timetoast.  You can find the timeline for this here, I would personally recommend viewing it in list mode rather than timeline as it looks neater.  As I said I would use this tool to have students make their own timelines for specific historical events.

Genius Hour TED Talk

  I have finally finished my TED talk all about my genius hour project on how RPGs can be used in the classroom.  I have embedded the Youtube video of my TED talk below.  I unfortunately filmed it with a big of a cold so my voice is a little scratchy.  Still I enjoyed this whole genius hour project I did.  I'm still considering doing continual updates on it, discussing how RPGs can be used within the classroom.  Perhaps devise some more activities or ways of organizing the class around RPGs and post them.  I would of course appreciate any constructive feedback on my TED talk or on any of my other posts for my genius hour.  I hope this was as enriching of an experience for you as it was for me.  Enjoy my TED talk!

Language and Literacy: Media Strand

Critical Interpretation and Sourcing

  One of the most important aspects of media literacy for me is critical interpretation.  So what is media literacy and how is it critically interpreted?  According to the Ontario curriculum Media literacy is "the study of the art and messaging of various forms of media texts" (Ontario Curriculum Grades1-8: Language, p.13).  This means the study of any media that intends to communicate a meaning to an audience whether it is done through texts, graphics, sound, or digitally.  So then what does critical interpretation of media mean?  Critical interpretation means the ability for students to differentiate between fact and opinion, evaluate the credibility of the sources, understand biases, what audience the media is targeted to, and why the media was produced.  It is these critical thinking skills that to me are the most important to get right when teaching media literacy, as it can help form the foundation for how your students take in all forms of media.

  In class we viewed a short Taco Bell commercial, in which elderly people act "young" while enjoying Taco Bell.  You can find the video embedded below.  What I liked about this exercise is that it deals with something that people experience every day: advertisements.  Having students watch, read, or view advertisements is an excellent way of interpreting what a target audience is and why it was produced.  This activity could also be taken a step further.  It has become a recent trend among online news sites and even magazines to have sponsored articles rather than intrusive ads.  These could make excellent examples of how to critically interpret media.  I would have the students read the sponsored article without telling them it was sponsored by a specific corporation or organization.  After they had read it and had received their opinions on it, I would then reveal that is was sponsored, and then re-evaluate what they thought of the article now.  This would be an excellent lesson in discovering biases, evaluating credibility, sourcing, while also continuing to question who the media was produced for and why.


  In our digital age where we are bombarded with information on a daily basis it is critical that we develop good critical interpretation skills for our media.  We must be able to educate students so that they are properly prepared to evaluate all this new media from its biases to its intended audiences.  From my experiences and time spent in my tech class I have learned of scavenger and treasure hunting activities.  Both are exercises in researching, sourcing, and evaluating credibility.  The only difference is that scavenger hunts provide students a webpage to search through and a treasure hunt gives students a search engine to use.  I would love the chance to use a scavenger hunt activity to teach media literacy, by providing a webpage, a quote, and a claim associated with it students would have to go to these pages I provided and search them to see if these quotes and claims are valid or not.  The activity can also be expanded upon by requiring additional independent research to determine its validity, potentially due to me leading them to sites with bogus information.

  Overall I believe that media literacy and the ability to critically intemperate different forms of media is a important life skill in the 21st century.  As educators we must find new and engaging ways we can use different media to illustrate these skills.

Genius Hour Week 4: Reflections and Final Thoughts

Over the past few weeks I have thoroughly enjoyed researching the topic of role-playing games (RPGs) in the classroom.  I have found many resources to help explain how others have done it, and really enjoyed coming up with my own lessons or methods of integrating RPGs into the class.  For this post I will be reflecting on my experiences with this project, some implications of my project, and in general going over some things I may have missed.  

Due to trying to be concise I have glossed over some aspects both of RPGs in general and their application in the classroom.  I thought it might be helpful here to briefly go over some RPG mechanics and give my own personal recommendations for those interested in entering the hobby just for fun or bringing it into a classroom.  As I have stated RPGs are all about creating your own character and playing in a group of other people who have done the same.  There is one person, often called the game master who unravels a narrative and presents options to players and their characters.  In most RPGs when players commit to an action they often roll dice to determine the outcome and the result is often modified by the character’s stats.  This ends up adding some controlled randomness and necessitates improvisation both for players and game masters.  That is pretty much it for core concepts while trying to be as concise as possible. 

I will now take the time here to provide some personal recommendations and suggestions for RPGs that are good introductions to new players, or would make for an excellent classroom tool.  First and foremost I have to bring up Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), as it is by far the most recognizable RPG out there.  While I think this might help introduce educators to the concept of RPGs I believe that most editions of the game are too cumbersome for a classroom of students grades 1-8.  It is a little too rules heavy to allow for that ease of entry and student buy in.  You want a system that will not frustrate or confuse any of your students.  This is why I had recommended Dungeon World in my last post.  The rules are simple and encourage player creativity and ingenuity in resolving issues.  My second recommendation might come across as bizarre sounding, but if you’re a fan of the movie WALL-E you’ll love it.  The RPG is called Engine Heart where the players create and play as their own robots.  I compared this to WALL-E because these robots are not big or powerful, they’re simple robots designed usually for one or two basic functions, like a robot that collects and incarnates trash, or a robot that greets people.  The rules are quite basic and easy to pick up, it does involve dice but only 10-sided dice.  Besides that the game system is free, you can get a pdf of the rules and character sheets from their websites.  I think this game could work particularly well for younger grades, and might be a great interactive activity to discuss human impact on the environment, much in the same way the movie WALL-E did.  These are just some of the easiest, most accessible, or popular RPGs I could think of.  I might expand this blog further as I discover and read more RPGs that could work for a classroom or go into greater depth reviewing and describing the RPGs I have mentioned and the uses for them in a classroom.

So now that we are at the end of this project, what have we learned and what implications for learning did we discover?  First and foremost I think that this activity highlights the need to engage students in interesting and novel ways.  Children have a natural drive to play, and I think we would be missing out as educators if we did not harness this drive to play to also help them learn.  I think that as a teacher if you are planning on integrating RPGs into the classroom you have to do so in a way that is engaging and inclusive (make sure it’s something that all students can enjoy and participate in) but above all helps to reinforce traditional curricular lessons or incorporates curricular standards into play.  I believe that RPGs can help to teach and reinforce knowledge on social skills, arithmetic, probability, reading, writing, media literacy, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.  There are some issues that educators or those familiar with RPGs may raise, two of which being time and size.  RPGs are often very time intensive activities, and are usually designed to be played with 4-8 people including the game master.  In a classroom setting the best way to account for the issue of time is quite simple.  Just plan out a lesson that would take the appropriate classroom time to complete and weave the RPG around that.  The issue of time with RPGs is something that as educators we deal with for every lesson and is something that we plan and account for better with experience.  The issue of size is something more complicated.  If you have a class of 30 students that far exceeds the recommended players for an RPG.  This is where the teacher must get creative, either by creatively working in RPG elements into traditional lessons thus having it function little differently than a normal classroom.  Or have students break off into groups and decide a student who can keep track of rules along with a character, like a smaller scale game master.  Or ideally but perhaps unrealistically have students simply take turns, this method would of course be a larger test of patients and may eat more time.  

Overall I don’t think there is any one right answer of how to bring RPGs into a classroom; you have to find the method that best works for you and your class.  Experimentation is necessary.  I just hope that I managed to get some people thinking about this topic, got people curious, and got people wanting to explore the potential of RPGs in education.  One of the final things coming up for this genius hour project will be a TED talks.  It will nicely summarize my studies and research on this topic, along with my methods, reflections, and where we can all go from here.

Genius Hour Week 3: Final Results

Over the past few weeks I have spent my time just researching and collecting data on the subject of how to integrate role-playing games (RPGs) into classrooms in a meaningful and engaging way.  Well I am happy to say that those weeks of research and planning have paid off.  Due to my readings I am going to present two models of how one can use RPGs in a classroom.  Why two?  Based on the readings I have mentioned earlier in my blog there is a divide between simulation games and role-playing games in classrooms.  You can go back to my previous blogs on my genius hour to be filled in on all the details, but it’ll suffice to say that simulation games are meant to deal with real world events with a competitive edge, while RPGs are fictional and cooperative.  You can read my past posts to know why I have a problem with these definitions.  So here I will attempt to offer an activity which tries to combine the best aspects of simulation games and RPGs, while my second one will be a model that can be used to try and integrate RPGs into all aspects of the classroom throughout the school year.  My hope with this is that the first model will serve as a nice introduction to teachers, while the second one will be a more fully integrated approach.

My first model is more of a unit long activity designed for a grade 10 twentieth-century Canadian history class.  As stated earlier it is a combination of simulation and role-play games, designed to encourage cooperation, competition, inform students of real world events and people, and allow students to take on a specific role and character.  The foundation for this activity is the board game Diplomacy which was published back in 1959.  Diplomacy is a board game for ages 12 and up, and focuses on the themes of alliances, negotiations, and strategy of World War One.  I have taken a picture of the game board, the rule book (only a 23 page manual with many examples, illustrations, and diagrams), the pieces in the starting positions, and the individual player maps which you can see below.  

 Michael, Feagan. (October 12, 2016). Diplomacy Game [Photo].

The game is broken up into 4 main turns (diplomatic phase, order writing phase, order resolution phase, retreat and disbanding phase) which after getting used to it may take students about 10-15 minutes to finish all 4.
  

This is how I would integrate this game as both a simulation and role-playing activity into a classroom.  I would divide the students into groups based on one of the seven countries in the game (Britain, France, Germany, etc.) and each student would take on a specific governmental role with their own specific responsibilities.  An example of this would be a student in the French group being assigned the role of Head Diplomat, it is his/her responsibility to go around and negotiate during the diplomatic phase with the diplomats of other groups and report the progress back to their group.  Or another good example would be a student who has taken the role of a German general, and it is their responsibility to write orders for the armies.  It is the teacher’s job to act as a mediator or “gamemaster” to manage time, collect and read orders, resolve issues, and make and enforce the game rules when necessary.  So far this is a strong simulation game, with lots of competition, a little cooperation within groups, dealing with a real world event, and the teacher takes on a small observational role.  Where this gets a bit more interesting is that students should not just take on the role of diplomat or general, but rather should take on the role of the historical character who occupied that position.  For example a student who takes on the role of a British general is not just a British general, but rather could be playing the role of Arthur Currie.  As part of an assignment tied in with this activity the teacher would give the students a historical actor who occupied the same role they are in.  Then have them research that person so that they can present their findings to the class, but also to best embody that role during play.  I think the best way to do this is by using a trading card web tool such as the one found here to highlight the background and motivation of their historical person that they’ll play as.  Other web tools and learning objects can be tied into this lesson as well, such as timelines.  I have gone to the effort of making a timeline of the beginning of the war in 1914 here, and students could potentially make their own using this tool.  Perhaps one based off of the real history of WW1 and another based on the sequence of events of their game to help illustrate the cause and effect of historical events.  I think this could be an excellent assignment that integrates simulation and role-play elements into a unit while engaging students and encouraging self-motivated research.  I think a similar activity could be continued for a grade 10 unit on World War Two using the popular game Axis and Allies, but that’s a whole different idea for another time.

Now I must discuss how RPGs can be integrated into a classroom for more than just one activity or unit.  This was a hard question to find an answer, not because there weren’t any answers, on the contrary it was the opposite.  There were so many different ways that teachers have integrated RPGs into their classrooms.  Some teachers used them for a lesson or a unit, much like my previous example.  Some teachers like Nix took RPG elements like characters, experience, and loot to inject into their entire class.  Other teachers like Kade Wells took the whole system of Dungeons & Dragons and integrated it as a classroom activity.  There are therefore a lot of different methods of integrating RPGs into classrooms and I strongly encourage anyone who is interested to do some research and come up with a model that works for you and your class.  For me I would introduce the concepts of role-playing to students through language arts and drama to help gauge interest.  This would probably take the form of students making characters in a fantasy setting using any of the wonderful RPG systems that are out there.  I am personally partial to DungeonWorld for its open license and easy to access rules.  I would then try to develop all of my lessons from other subjects such as math, geography, or science to feed back into this game.  This can be done by using examples from the game, such as probability questions for math based on dice and numbers found in the game, or a geography lesson where students are encouraged to craft a mental map based on places travelled in the game.  Or a simpler way of integrating it would be to offer game rewards (such as character experience or items) for students who completed traditional math, history, or geography work.  However, I must state that I would try to be as flexible as possible with how it is integrated.  I would use either the lesson specific model discussed earlier, or the fully integrated one, it depends on the class and what your objective is.

I hope this has been illuminating for you all.  This project is still not quite done yet.  I will have a TED talks on my findings and one last post reflecting on the implications of RPGs in classrooms to come, so keep an eye out.

Genius Hour Trailer

After working with and gaining some familiarity with Powtoon I decided to make my genius hour movie trailer using it as well.  I quite enjoyed the process as it allowed me to get more familiar with the service and try and refine some things that were done in my genius hour introduction.  Down below you can view my genius hour movie trailer, which introduces my concept and goals for my genius hour project.  Keep in touch because I will soon be posting my last two genius hour blog updates and a TED talks on my genius hour all about role-playing games in the classroom.

Genius Hour Powtoon Intro Movie

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working with Powtoon to make a introductory movie to the concept of genius hour.  Below you can find the result of this effort.  It is a brief video with some music and narration.  I think Powtoon can be an excellent tool for making engaging presentations, something that teachers should look into for lectures and as a tool for student presentations.  Over the next week I will also be posting a Powtoon movie trailer for my own genius hour project.  So keep an eye out for more updates to my genius hour project about role-playing games in the classroom, and enjoy the video.

Genius Hour Week 2: Finalizing Research

For this week, as planned in my timeline, I have continued with my research and have tried to narrow it down and be more selective.  For this week I have found two interesting blogs that deal with role-playing games (RPGs) as a learning tool in the classroom.  Both of these I feel like will be a welcome addition to the sources I currently have, adding some more real world examples and experiences.  However, after last week’s post where I discussed an article’s definitions of simulation and role-playing games, I find it necessary to briefly provide my own definition of what a role-playing game is.  

For me a role-playing game is inherently focused on the development of an individual character, the cooperation of that character with other people’s characters, and someone taking on the role of a dynamic and involved storyteller who unravels the world and events to players.  The problem I have with the definition of RPGs discussed last week is that they do not necessitate a fictional or fantastical setting.  I have read and played many RPGs that have set themselves in highly realistic settings.  For example there is a game where you play as Mormons in the American Wild West called Dogs in the Vineyard.  So I find the distinction of RPGs being fictional to be a little antiquated with the state of thriving indie RPGs filling niche settings and markets.   Now that I feel like I have adequately discussed this I will move on to discussing some new sources.

There were two blogs that I researched and wanted to highlight with this post.  The first one I wish to discuss focuses on a sophomore world history teacher at Native American reserve in Montana named Taylor Nix.  You can find an article talking about Nix’s classroom here and Nix’s blog here.  Nix states that his class was plagued with apathy and wanted to do something to liven up his classroom and engage his students.  Nix began by having his students take on the roles of characters who were adventurers seeking information about different civilizations throughout history.  His students were divided into one of two groups, created characters, and they chose classes or roles to fill within their group.  Once a week Nix would post quests at the back of the classroom, some were to be done individually and others to be done in pairs.  These quests would yield experience and items which would make their character more powerful.  This all culminated into what Nix describes as a “raid” at the end of the unit.  This “raid” was organized like a Jeopardy game with five columns of increasingly difficult questions.  The two teams would them compete to win the raid by answering questions correctly as prep for a test, and after the question was answered correctly the characters could fight a culturally specific monster using the results of dice to determine a winner.  After the raid Nix had the students fill out a “field report” about their adventures, which in reality was just a standard test.  For me this is an intriguing concept, I like how Nix was able to really integrate the concept of an RPG into just about every aspect of his class.  The rewards that were given for completing quests and raids would serve to entice the students and to make later raids easier.  And since there are two groups for the final raids, but the quests are often done individually, there is a certain pressure to do well on the quests so that you may best help your group during the raid.  There is no mention of how these quests or assignments were graded, but I think it might be an interesting idea to award better gear or more experience as part of getting a better grade.  

The other article I have does less to discuss the details of how to integrate RPGs into the classroom and is more about how it affected students as an extra-curricular activity.  Brian Foglia is writing about how Dungeons and Dragons or D&D (a highly popular RPG which has been around for decades) has helped students in his non-profit democratic school in South Jersey.  Foglia discusses how his school’s D&D club has helped students develop skills including creativity, memorization, social skills, arithmetic, probability, reading, writing, and as Foglia highlights as the most important, patience.  I find that this article does an excellent job of highlighting the skills that children would be exercising from an average RPG session.  There is also one thing that Foglia writes that I find really resonates with me:

“I hope parents will come to accept that their child’s natural desire to play is a boon, not a hindrance, to his or her education. It’s the drive to seek fun and novelty that motivates us to grow and flourish. Games are educational because they inspire us to delve into new environments and challenge ourselves — what better way to spend their time at school?” 

I hope that this genius hour project can help and illustrate this fact.  In the coming days I will be posting a model that will help to explain how I would intend to implement RPGs into a classroom.  After spending some time thinking on the subject I am considering making two models.  One would be a blend of simulation and role-play games, something that might be more accessible for some educators.  It would be an activity that would likely only last one unit.  The other model will be a stronger commitment to integrating RPGs into the classroom throughout the year, something similar to what Nix and Wells have done with their class.  I look forward to writing about it and hope that the results will be illuminating for you all.