Has anyone had experience using RPGs as a method to teach curriculum? How was the experience?
Some time ago I stumbled across an episode of the Dragon Talk podcast that introduced me to the work a gentleman named Kade Wells was doing to incorporate D&D into his English classes. I was intrigued and a seed, although it lay dormant, was sown.
Recently, I happened upon an article extolling the benefits of RPGs that referenced the work of Mr Wells and Sarah Roman amongst others (and who just so happened to feature on a follow up episode of Dragon Talk) and that seed began to grow. The idea had now firm hold of my imagination and I began mulling over ways I might be able to try something similar.
One of the classes I'll be taking this year presents an opportunity to run a pilot. A lot of the examples I found have (understandably) involved English or literature. I'm looking at using RPGs (Starfinder in particular) within a Mathematics class of approximately 10 students.
Without bogging this post down with too much detail at this point, my plan is to run a slightly modified version of Starfinder for streamlining (if only the Beginner Box was out 6 months earlier!), built around the various SFS quest scenarios, with aspects of the game being called upon in lessons (collection/display of data for analysis, calculating probabilities, etc) and the completion of lessons/activities having an impact on the game (think extra credits, skill check bonuses, etc).
Would love to hear any experiences or input.
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I ran a Pathfinder elective for a year at the middle school where I teach. Most of the kids had no experience with paper-and-pencil RPGs and very little with RPG-style video games.
We started with some math activities involving dice and probability... roll a d6 10x, now find the average, graph it; roll a d10 10x, find the average, graph it; roll a d20 10x, find the average, graph it; what can you say about the results you get from each die? Also practive with die formulas... 2d6+1, 3d4+3, etc.
Then we got to combat, but SUPER simple. I gave them pre-gen monsters like orcs and goblins with just AC, HP, hit and damage. They battled and this gave them practice rolling dice, determining hits and misses, and tracking HP.
Then we generated characters using the Beginners Box. For the first one, it was totally step-by-step, whole class... roll 4d6, drop the lowest, that's STR; roll 4d6, drop the lowest, that's DEX... As a teacher, I checked those character sheets for completeness and correctness. Then they got to make their own, and I scored those too.
Once they had characters, they were ready to play real modules. We used A LOT of Pathfinder Society modes because they were nice an short. The Quests might even be better. I preped them a lot like PFS, too. I asked for a group of volunteers (like 5 kids), invited them to come in on a Saturday, bought them pizza, and ran them through a module. After we played, I gave them a copy and we read through the module together and debriefed. The next week in class, those kids GMed for groups of 4 or 5 other kids. I circulated and helped as needed. I also had to debrief with GMs to see how their "leadership" experience went.
We played several mods - enough for them to level up - and then we got ready to write our own mods. Everyone got copies of 2 mods and we deconstructed them - there's an intro, there's a thug fight in the beginning, then some investigation, maybe a trap, another fight, and then the boss. So we created a template and the kids created their own. The did brainstorming and peer editing and everything just like it was a narrative writing assignment or a report. I can't remember everything, but we created an intro page template with a summary for the GM and hooks for players, an area map page templates, encounter page templates with space for box text and monster/trap stats. Once "complete," they pitched their mods to their groups and picked one to run/play, and afterwards they did a little re-writing. A few of them were actually quite good by the end.
The other thing we did was to watch quite a few fantasy movies in class - Hobbit, LOTR, Willow, Dark Crystal - and did some analysis. We talked about themes, archetypes and patterns, story arcs, etc. We also talked about how magic was portrayed, good vs. evil, etc.
If you don't have Starfinder Beginner Box yet, you are probably going to want to simplify the rules a bit, and probably choose a set of 3-4 easier classes to confine them to, at least at first. I'd indefinably go with Starfinder Society Mods, both for length, structural simplicity, and in case any of them eve make it to a Con, they'll be Society-ready. I'd also show a few Sci Fi movies or TV shows - Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc. - and have the same discussions about Science Fantasy vs. Hard Sci Fi (like the Expanse), humancentric vs. lots of aliens, magic and psychic powers, etc.
It was a really good experience for me, and, looking back, ends up being some of the highest level application teaching I've ever done because kids were really breaking concepts down and creating something new (Do you know Depth of Knowledge? This was absolutely DOK 4). Good luck!
Thanks, Mosaic. And thank you for taking the time to reply in such depth.
It sounds like it would have been a fun and productive class. I appreciate your suggestions and advice.