My class is a petri dish. I drop in ideas and methods backed by research and use the time I have to create a highly knucklehead resistant strain of academia. From time to time I find something that works and begin anew, using the working technique as a base for creating an even more evolved form of teaching and learning. I think the addition of gaming as a framework is one that is going to stick. I turned my entire class into a game. It didn’t go perfectly and it still isn’t finished, but the early results are showing me high engagement and interest–even if the topics don’t always get them fired up.
I called it Dominion and blogged about it months ago. Recently I discovered that there is a SyFy channel show called Dominion slated to come out in June. So much for calling my class that. Its probably for the best, because I’ve moved away from the in-character concept of Dominion slightly. With a strong background in RPGs I expected my students to be able to assume the role of a character within their class game, but gave them neither the tools or incentive to do so. Instead I am going to focus on project based learning built around the competition of gaming.
Thanks to one of my newest co-workers, my newest thematic focus is tribes. I want to pair that with mythology in order to develop a game for the summer and fall that works so well that it convinces students to come back for more. Summer is coming, so maybe I’ll finally have time to focus on that enormous yet fulling task.