Reacting games

Reacting games are educational role-playing games set in the past, with a focus on student debates about great texts.

History

Reacting games developed as a genre of experiential education games in the United States in the late 1990s from work done by Mark Carnes at Barnard College.[1] The prototype for these games is the Reacting to the Past series originally published by Pearson-Longman and currently published by Norton. This pedagogy was originally developed for use in freshman seminar and history classes[2][3] and quickly expanded into religion,[4] political science,[5] and science.[6][7] Unlike the video games that are central to the serious games movement, reacting games rely almost entirely on reading, writing, and speaking.[8] The dissemination of this pedagogy has largely been through annual national conferences held at Barnard College and regional conferences held at institutions throughout the United States.[9]

Attributes

Reacting games have the following attributes:

Reacting games might also include the following common elements:

A growing number of reacting games also make use of in-game currency or Personal Interest Points (PIPs).

Game Length

The earliest reacting games all centered around a single, classic text and were played during half or a third of a semester. As the format of reacting games evolved, the requirement for a classic text was dropped and shorter games emerged. A grant from the National Science Foundation launched a dozen new game prototypes with a shorter format.[10] These are sometimes referred to as "sample-size" (or "micro") and "chapter-length" (or "mini", though mini-game often means something else) games. The sample-size games (for example, The Pluto Debate) are useful for conference workshops or for first-time reacting game players. They are meant to introduce the game format as much as they are to teach the content. The chapter-length games (for example, USDA Food Pyramid) are meant to replace a single textbook chapter and typically span a week of class.

Relationship to Other Games and Simulations

Case studies

Case studies have long been used in the medical, business, and legal education. They might involve discussion, debate, problem-based learning, or role-play.[11] By contrast, reacting games require debate and role-play. Unlike case studies, reacting games also must be set in a true historical setting.

Live action role-playing

A live action role-playing games (LARP) has participants assuming roles and playing them out in costume. While reacting games do indeed have students playing historical roles, this rarely involves costumes. Reacting games are used for education while LARP is primarily used for recreation. In addition, while LARPs usually include a fantasy element, reacting games are historical.

Educational debating

In educational debate (or debate team), students competitively debate a topic following explicit rules. While educational debate involves only two teams ("for" and "against"), reacting games can involve multiple teams, including an undecided, indeterminate set of players. Educational debate also involves no role-playing and is not set in a historical setting. In addition, while debates focus on a single issue, reacting games feature multiple intellectual collisions, which necessitates shifting coalitions of players. Thus, those that are "for" and "against" change with each successive issue.

Model United Nations

While reacting games and Model United Nations have many similarities (e.g. educational usage, roles, factions, voting) Model UN simulations frequently focus on a fictional, rather than a historical scenario.

Historical simulation games

Historical simulation games are designed to model historical events. Both tabletop and electronic forms can be used in classes with the intent to challenge students to work through difficult scenarios and explore possible alternate historical outcomes.[12] Reacting games may contain components of historical simulation games including random events and alternate historical outcomes, however, they are more typically focused around the clash of ideas and people than the direct modeling of military or historical events.

Economics simulation games

Economic simulations are commonly used in economics courses to model the outcomes of decisions made by groups of students in competition. Reacting games may include aspects of economic simulations: for example, the acid rain and the European environment game[13] incorporates pollution credit trading as a primary game mechanism.

Assessment

Psychological studies of students participating in reacting games have shown students to gain an "elevated self-esteem and empathy, a more external locus of control, and greater endorsement of the belief that human characteristics are malleable compared with controls."[14] Additional assessments are being conducted to gauge science content learning in some reacting games.[15]

Published Reacting Games

The following reacting games have all been published by Pearson-Longman.

Notes and References

Notes
    References
    1. ↑ Setting Student's Minds on Fire, M.C. Carnes, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 6, 2011, http://chronicle.com/article/Setting-Students-Minds-on/126592, Retrieved June 21, 2012.
    2. ↑ "A History Professor Engages Students by Giving Them a Role in the Action." The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 16, 2001. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/A-History-Professor-Engages/2778/ on August 7, 2012.
    3. ↑ Courage, Richard. "Getting Into History by Getting Into Character." New York Times, June 23, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/23/nyregion/getting-into-history-by-getting-into-character.html on August 7, 2012.
    4. ↑ Porter, Adam."Role-Playing and Religion: Using Games to Educate Millennials." Teaching Theology & Religion 11, No. 4. (2008), 230-235.
    5. ↑ Gorton, William and Jonathan Havercroft. "Using Historical Simulations to Teach Political Theory." Journal of Political Science Education 8, No. 1 (Jan 2012).
    6. ↑ Henderson, David E. "Implementing Methodological Secularism: The Teaching and Practice of Science in Contentious Times," in Secularism & Science in the 21st Century (2008).
    7. ↑ Debating Pluto:Searching for the Classroom of the Future and Ending up in the Past, A. Crider, Astronomy Beat, 72, 1.
    8. ↑ Colleges' latest thrust in learning: Video games, USA Today, November 29, 2011, http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-29/video-games-college-learning/51478224/1, Retrieved August 7, 2012.
    9. ↑ Mob Rule, Political Intrigue, Assassination: A Role-Playing Game Motivates History Students, July 9, 2012. http://chronicle.com/article/Mob-Rule-Political-Intrigue/132767/, Retrieved August 7, 2012
    10. ↑ Collaborative Research: Reacting to the Past Pedagogy for Science Education (2009). National Science Foundation, Award 0920441, http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0920441 Retrieved June 21, 2012.
    11. ↑ Case Types & Teaching Methods: A Classification Scheme, National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/collection/method.asp Retrieved June 21, 2012.
    12. ↑ Simulation Games and the Study of the Past: Classroom Guidelines. http://gamingthepast.net/theory-practice/simulation-games-and-the-study-of-the-past-classroom-guidelines/ Retrieved August 7, 2012
    13. ↑ Acid Rain and the European Environment, 1979-89. http://reacting.barnard.edu/acid-rain-and-european-environment-1979-89 Retrieved Aug 7, 2012
    14. ↑ All the world’s a stage? Consequences of a role-playing pedagogy on psychological factors and writing and rhetorical skill in college undergraduates. Stroessner, Steven J.; Beckerman, Laurie Susser; Whittaker, Alexis. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 101(3), Aug 2009, 605-620.
    15. ↑ Collaborative Research: Reacting to the Past Pedagogy for Science Education (2009). National Science Foundation, Award 0920441, http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0920441 Retrieved June 21, 2012.

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