NCTIES2023

Are you struggling to reach students who complain reading is a waste of time? Do you hate giving yet another multiple choice test?

Why not try a new method to assess your students’ knowledge while tapping into their natural creativity?

A large majority of today’s students are gamers and learn best through digital interaction and game play. By having students participate in a role-playing game (RPG) style assessment activity, you can assess your students’ mastery of the content, while engaging their creativity and increasing their enthusiasm for your topic or subject.

Role-playing games allow students to immerse themselves in an adventure in a way that builds leadership skills, peer relationships, and creative problem solving. Students can participate in RPGs as game players or as the Game Master (GM) who designs and leads their own game. RPGs can be used in a classroom setting for assessments or even in an afterschool program.

During this session, attendees will be introduced to a method for implementing role-playing games in the classroom that can serve as summative assessments and build social/emotional learning skills. This session will focus on providing teachers in middle and high school with adaptable RPG guidelines, scripts, game maps, resources, and assessment strategies. It will also discuss strategies for guiding teachers and students through designing their own age/content appropriate RPG games.

This RPG style assessment activity can be adapted to meet the needs of upper elementary students. Information will also be shared concerning methods to incorporate Science, Math, ELA, STEM, Geography, Writing, and other key standards into each RPG. This assessment tool could be adapted to fit a wide range of students’ development and social needs.

The session will begin with a short explanation of RPG style games. Attendees will then be given time to engage by playing through parts of a Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief book-based RPG used in a middle school classroom. After reviewing the sample RPG project and resources available to teachers, attendees will be given an opportunity to begin planning their own RPGs to use in their classrooms and time will be provided for questions. The information for the session will be shared on Google Slides, allowing teachers to have future access to the resources shared during the session.