KyEdRPG Spotlight: Dan Burkey and using TTRPGs as "Structured Improvisational Art"

 

Headshot from Dan Burkey's website.

I first met Dan Burkey virtually.  Dan, who has a strong background in theater and performance,  reached out to share about his artist-in-residency offerings in northern Kentucky, but more to the point, he had come across my work with "Polyhedral Pedagogy" -- using tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) in education.  As it turns out, Dan had also been using TTRPGs with students as part of his substitute teaching, and he regaled me over Zoom with some of his tales.   We finally met in person when he attended a "Dungeons & Desks" professional learning day I co-facilitated in Louisville, part of an ongoing regional series.

Dan contacted me recently to let me know about an educational resource document he had made along with the latest success he was having implementing a simple TTRPG rules system with students.  With that, I knew we needed a full-blown interview!

Enter Dan, stage right...

Dan, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Please share your educational and artistic journey. 

I graduated from Centre College in 2009 with a degree in Dramatic Arts, a rough cut of my first feature film (a noir adaptation of Euripides’ Medea) and a strong Liberal Arts interdisciplinary mindset. It was the middle of the Great Recession, and I started substitute teaching while I worked on various creative projects and sorted out what might come next. With my theatre background, I couldn’t help finding ways to liven up sub plans every day: singing, juggling, showing up in character as an eccentric scientist, etc. This caught the attention of the Étude Group schools, a public charter network in Sheboygan, WI, that focuses on project based learning and arts integration. In 2014, they brought me on as an artist-in-residence to work alongside teachers to interpret academic content through a dramatic lens. I earned my teaching certificate in Theatre Education from UW-Milwaukee, then continued at Étude as a certified drama teacher for 6 years- mostly at the K-8 level, but also some high school classes. I taught drama, filmmaking, animation, script writing, and game design, usually working with grade-level teams and other arts specialists to weave together form and content. Our projects included student-written plays about settlers coming to Wisconsin, games designed to simulate bird migration and population dynamics, and creative drama journeys through the human body with the Magic School Bus, among many others.

In parallel with my work at Étude, I was developing my career as a theatre director. I started Mad Yarn Theatre Company to produce offbeat plays at Paradigm, the local coffee shop and hub of Sheboygan’s creative community. We became better known for our MadCap 24-hour Play Festival, where teams of writers, directors, and actors created plays from scratch in a single day. I also worked with Warped Dance Company over several years to develop an aerial dance adaptation of The Nutcracker (in the process I invented and performed a new form of aerial unicycling).

After the pandemic and the birth of our first child, my wife and I moved to Northern Kentucky to be closer to family. After a couple years finding my footing in the area, I started working as a teaching artist with American Legacy Theatre and The Carnegie, and I remembered how much I love collaborating with other educators to bring vibrant learning into their classrooms. Last year, I was accepted to the Kentucky Teaching Artist Directory, which means that schools and libraries can apply for Kentucky Arts Council grants to bring me in for programming. I typically consult with teachers to create and facilitate drama, creative writing, and media arts (including game design) experiences that are tailored to their specific classrooms and curriculum.

This year, KAC grants are funding three of my projects: guiding students to make and perform a dramatic sequel to The Giver at St. Cecilia in Independence, introducing tabletop game design concepts to patrons at Campbell County Public Library, and making storybooks come alive through creative drama with youth at Kenton County Public Library. In addition to grant-funded work, I can also contract separately for residencies with schools and nonprofits. So far, my work has taken me to Kenton, Boone, Campbell, and Pendleton Counties, but I’m open to working within about a one-hour radius of Covington. There’s more information on residencies at my website, danburkey.com.

When I’m not doing a residency, I continue to practice substitute teaching as a structured improvisational art form, along with various writing and game design projects.

What a lovely set of experiences you've had!  Tell us more about your personal experience with playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs).   What was your first TTRPG?

My first TTRPG was a homebrew fantasy thing my high school friend made up on a road trip. It had no dice, and as GM he would just say how he thought actions would resolve. We also did a lot of freeform boffer LARP- live action roleplaying while fighting with foam swords. This guy in our class was seven feet tall and his actual name was Hrothgar; he played a troll and wielded a war hammer made out of a couch cushion folded in half and covered in duct tape on the end of a long PVC pipe. We were the coolest people we knew.

I didn’t get back to TTRPGs until about 10 years later when I became a drama teacher. I was looking for ways to scaffold character creation for improv and scene devising with middle school students.  A friend introduced me to Fiasco, a GMless indie RPG by Jason Morningstar, and we tried it out at game nights with a couple other teachers. Content-wise, the game is hilarious but not appropriate for middle school (it’s designed to emulate a Coen Brothers style crime caper gone horribly awry). But its mechanics opened my eyes to some brilliant ways to start a story: a network of character relationships, a shared problem, and some objects and locations to get the imagination running. The game’s rules actually shaped my approach to playwriting and improvisation. The latest version trades out dice and roll tables for a card-based engine that smooths out setup and features a “Let’s Not” card (like the X-card safety tool) to empower players to reshape any story content that gets in the way of safe and enthusiastic fun.

These days, I have three small children, so most of my roleplaying is freeform improv adventures in the yard chasing bad guys and pirates. My oldest is getting big enough to enjoy more structured games, so we’ve tried some simple RPGs, including Super City with the VRBS system.

You mentioned that TTRPGs opened a door for you to teach improv and scene creation with students.  Can you tell us more details on how you made that work? 

When I first got the idea for using TTRPGs in the classroom, I was teaching a middle school drama class and using the technique of improvisational devising to create scenes. Instead of having one playwright create a script and then give it to actors to perform, the devising process shares the story creation work with the whole ensemble. In our version, each actor created a character, then we put those characters into different situations to see how they would respond. I wanted to get students thinking about their characters’ lives beyond a job description, so I looked at the idea of character sheets from the TTRPG space. You could call this “Elemental Infusion” on the classroom RPG spectrum- we used the character sheet to fill out character ideas, but we didn’t run the whole creation process as an RPG.  [Dan is referring to the Depth of TTRPG Infusion Framework from my book. -- Adam]  I started researching other ways we might bring together drama and TTRPGs.

Last fall, I got to do an arts residency with students at Prince of Peace Catholic School in Covington, and I really got to put my research into practice. We played the game Super City by David Garrett, and adapted it to fit the settings and problems with their science and social studies units. This was in their STEAM class, so after the residency, they used the stories from our games to inspire visual art pieces.

You’ve already mentioned VRBS and an example TTRPG that uses that rule set, Super City. From our previous conversations, I know it was created by David Garrett, the system is free under Creative Commons, and that you are a big fan of it!   Can you tell us more about how VRBS works, and the advantages of VRBS over other TTRPG rules or systems?  

VRBS – by the way, I usually pronounce it “verbs,” but I saw an old blog post that said it originally stood for Virtual Reality Battle System – presents the ideal balance of flexibility and structure to teach students the core loop of traditional TTRPGs. Players take action to respond to a problem in character, roll dice to find out how well it worked, and take turns until the team solves the problem or fails. For years, I couldn’t find anything in the goldilocks zone between games with daunting three-pound rulebooks and games that assumed too much improv skill and previous knowledge of RPGs to work with beginners (especially without a GM). A typical VRBS game (rules, scenario, character sheet, and space for note-taking) fits on two sides of a sheet of letter paper, but it gets players straight into the action.

Instead of traditional stats, each character starts out with 3 verbs they are good at doing. In Super City, David Garrett’s game about students at a superhero school, these are themed as your character’s superpowers. So maybe you start with Fly, Blast, and Lift. The scenario has roll tables for setting, problems, and citizens to save, so you roll up a situation and someone describes it (the game can be played with a GM or with players sharing the GM role). On your turn, pick ANY verb and say how you use it. If it’s a verb on your sheet, you have better odds of success, but you can try anything you can imagine. In our example, you could Blast the giant robot’s processor and get a bonus to your resolution roll. Or could try to Interrogate it, which would be riskier because you don’t already have that skill.

Resolution happens with a 1d6 system, which makes it accessible to anyone who can find a standard die. Add any bonus points from the verb you used to your roll. Whether you succeed or fail, you get to describe what that success or failure looks like. A total of 5-6 is a Success. A 7+ is a Big Success- describe how it’s even better than you expected, and add one point to the team’s Energy pool (Energy is a team resource- if it runs out, the scene ends in failure). Rolling a 1-4 is a failure. When you fail, lose one energy, describe how something unexpected happens when you do the verb, and gain a bonus point for the verb you failed at.

The fail-forward mechanism is where the game really shines as a learning tool. Characters (and all humans!) learn through their mistakes. This is what makes stories interesting. The game highlights this important storytelling lesson; it rewards players with improved chances on future dice rolls (an extrinsic reward) and the chance to describe their character’s failure and how it affects the story (an intrinsic reward). If you try a new verb and fail, you get to add it to your sheet with a bonus point. The only way you can get new skills is by trying something new and failing at it!

VRBS is adaptable by design, thanks to the System Reference Document (SRD) that powers the mechanics of the game. D&D is like a luxury sports car: to tinker with it you need to consider a lot of different systems and mechanisms that all interact to make it work. VRBS is like a hot rod: there aren’t a lot of moving parts, so anyone with a wrench and a blowtorch and a free Saturday here and there can modify it and make something unique that will run pretty well. So I’ve found lots of ways to hack it for the classroom.

It sounds like VRBS would be great for younger students, but have you also used it with older students? Can you share other examples of how you’ve used VRBS in schools?   

During my residency at Prince of Peace, I ran Super City with two groups of students during their Art and Technology block: a 3rd-4th grade combined class and a 5th-8th grade class. I wanted to support students in independent GMless (or, more accurately, co-GM) play, so I divided the duties of the GM into four roles. Each role received a card listing their duties and a tool to help carry them out:

• The Scene Setter used roll tables to choose the next scene situation and was also in charge of describing it.
• The Note Taker summarized main events for each scene so that stories could be adapted into comic book form later.
• The Goal Setter used a problem progress bar tool I made (not native to VRBS, but helpful for collaboration) to set a difficulty (number of successes) for each scene’s problem. 
• The Peacemaker resolved disagreements using the questions: Does it follow the rules of the game? Is it helping all players feel safe and comfortable and have fun? Does it make sense in this story world? 

[Dan is describing an innovative "Student-Led" role-playing experience, one of the "degrees" from my Degree of TTRPG Facilitation Framework. I love how he's taken what can be a complex task and structured it in a way to "share the burden" amongst the students!  -- Adam]

We also used a version of Beau Jagr Sheldon’s Script Change tool to empower students to pause the game and call for a re-do on choices that overstepped the boundaries those questions imply.

We started with a couple play sessions to learn the game- once with me as GM, and once with the shared GM roles in place. Then we started folding in academic content. Using a Chalk Talk routine, we brainstormed setting, character, and problem ideas to get characters interacting with ideas from science and social studies units. The 3rd-4th grade class was studying US regions, so students’ ideas included landmarks (San Andreas fault, farm in Kansas), jobs related to regional resources (lifeguard, miner), and natural disasters common to different areas (earthquake, tornado).

In 5th-8th grade, students were learning about cell structures in their life science unit. We generated ideas that used a city’s buildings and institutions as a metaphor for a cell’s organelles based on their functions. Combining different students’ ideas, Cell City became an archipelago of island neighborhoods in a sea of cytoplasm, surrounded by a seawall representing the cell membrane. It included an Endoplasmic Reticulum Airport for transporting goods between the islands, a Ribosome factory that supplied local KroGoo stores with food goo, a Mitochondria power plant, and it was controlled by a nucleus: a giant neon sign that sent out reminders about the laws of the city (the DNA). After a few sessions of adventures with individual super squads, we finished with a whole class showdown when the Nucleus got a virus that sent the Nuclear membrane guards to attack the whole city, while at the same time a giant bacterium was attacking the cell wall. Students were invested in the story and characters because of their independent play sessions, but the whole-class session allowed everyone to share out their character actions and pursue shared goals. As a facilitator, the whole class session gave me an opportunity to assess how students were approaching gameplay, and also call out great examples of the Cell City metaphor in action.

I also had a chance to adapt Super City for an AP French class at Boone County High School during a residency with American Legacy Theatre. We started out trying to do more improv-based work, but we ran into some challenges. It was a tiny class divided between three fluent heritage speakers and two non-native speakers. As a result, class discussions often involved three students chatting comfortably in French while the other two struggled to keep up or get a word in. The uneven comfort with conversation was especially challenging for improv, with the triple challenge of understanding a scene partner, deciding what to say, and how to say it in French. 

The TTRPG structure brought us a softer approach: giving each player a turn to describe what they are trying to do, then roll the dice to determine the outcome and describe what it looks like. This gave a natural rhythm of spotlight shifting that allowed everyone to share and get help when needed without feeling like it was interrupting the flow of the story. Since the current vocabulary unit was about Self-Discovery (describing strengths and weaknesses, comparing the inner and outer self, etc.), I translated and expanded the Super City character sheet to include descriptions of each character’s secret identity to target the unit’s grammar and vocabulary in a new context. It worked especially well with the small student-teacher ratio. I could see this being a good rotation station style activity in a larger foreign language class (a great way to practice transitive verbs in particular!).

I put an outline of my hacking process and links to the tools I created into a document and resource folder to help other educators hack VRBS games for their classrooms. Hopefully others can join the quest!

In June 2025 you attended a “Dungeons & Desks” PD facilitated by Kalli Colley and myself.  You told me in previous talks that you found it valuable, which I'm glad!  How did something you learned there help you in your educational work?   

For starters, it was a great example of hands-on PD that uses the methods to teach the methods. We were playing educational games pretty early in the session, cycling through small-group and whole-group discussion as we reflected on the rules and the various stages we played through. One of the example games that stuck with me was a simplified D&D-powered scenario that recast the dynamics behind the Mayflower Compact into a space mission. In the scenario, a small group of scientists doing planetary research ends up stranded with a larger group of workers who just want to survive. The experience showed the power of pre-generated characters and Auto-GM scenarios for guiding a story.  ["Auto-GM" is another example from the Degree of TTRPG Facilitation Framework. -- Adam]  By bolting down a lot of variables in character creation, it opened up focus on the debate at the heart of a significant historical moment. I recently heard a talk by Susan Haarman through Tabletop EDU, who described the gaming table as a micro-democracy, and connected gaming to John Dewey’s idea of a “dramatic rehearsal” for civic life. Putting those two ideas together, I like the idea of a whole-class campaign structured like a representative democracy.

Coming from a drama background would be a huge asset for playing or running TTRPGs.  If nothing else, I would think it gives you confidence to model for, and lead students in, role-playing and structured imaginative storytelling.  But what if we don’t have a background in theater?  If we are educators wanting to use TTRPGs but we aren’t actors or directors, what can we learn from the dramatic arts? 

I think the biggest thing I bring over from drama is a sense of playful collaboration. Inside the magic circle of a game or the given circumstances of a scene in the rehearsal room, we have a lot of freedom to try new things, make mistakes, and then try something different. We get comfortable doing silly acting exercises, then use the safety of that space to experiment with ideas for telling the story. As a director, I try to empower my actors to make their own choices by helping them understand the stakes and situation their character lives in. Then I can ask them what they would do instead of telling them what to do. 

Some of the best GM advice I’ve read is to ask your players questions about the world, and then incorporate their ideas into play. It lightens your cognitive load, honors the creativity of the people around you, and gets others invested in your shared journey together. It’s equally good advice if you’re a teacher, a director, or any other role where your leadership guides someone else’s experience.

A side note on the subject of verbs: one of my favorite drama tools is action analysis (sometimes called beat analysis). Actors can break down a scene based on their character’s motivation, objectives and tactics, each expressed as a verb. I think this process primed me to see the VRBS system as a bridge between TTRPGs and dramatic storytelling.

How have students reacted to your educational TTRPGs?  How do you know their learning is more vibrant, deeper, memorable?

We closed each game session with a Stars and Wishes share-out, and students were always excited to share the highlights of their characters’ actions throughout the session. I was also intrigued by the way that the Cell City setting worked for students in various stages of the middle school developmental mind warp. For kids in the thick of the change, who often struggle with abstract thinking, there was a concrete task to latch onto, with a small menu of go-to choices to lean on. At the same time, the setting creation process let the students who were still in younger imagination-brain mode share wacky ideas and allowed students who had crossed over and regained their capacity for metaphorical thinking to apply it in a way their peers could relate to.

In the AP French class, I could tell the TTRPG was an effective learning tool because everyone was naturally applying their language content in a new context. Students at all levels of fluency were seeking out new vocabulary words to describe their superpowers and their impacts on the story world.

What’s next?  What would you like to try with TTRPGs in classrooms that you haven’t done yet?  

I have so many ideas! The structure of whole-class and small group play could be used to simulate representative democracy in a whole class setting. We saw a little of that with different superhero teams joining together, but it would be interesting to lean into that dynamic more specifically.

After reading Hamlet’s Hit Points by Robin D. Laws, I think it would be interesting to adapt the VRBS system to explore different ways an existing literary or dramatic scene might play out. The book shows a way to analyze a text by finding the inflection points of a character’s rise and fall. It would be interesting to actually roll some dice on an action at each inflection point and see where you end up.

My two-year-old daughter loves bugs, and as we were watching some ants together I got the idea to use nature observation as a tool to identify animal-action verbs for a game of heroes who merge with other creatures.

In a math class, I think there’s also a lot of potential in examining different probabilities in various card and dice resolution systems. It could be used to make stronger choices for a crunchy RPG session, or it might be used to show how designers choose different layers of probability to match their system to the stories they want to tell. Stories of bold risk-taking often use luck-pressing systems, card-driven prompt games offer variety in a predictable structure, and stories of gradual personal growth often give level-up bonuses to make success more likely over time. This might be a good hook for students with literary strengths who might have trouble relating to the world of numbers.

In any case, I’m always open to the adventure of making new discoveries with other educators. One of my secret powers as a teaching artist is sharing the planning load for weird new ideas, then helping unpack the surprises that emerge.

Dan, I am thoroughly impressed by your structured Polyhedral Pedagogical approach! A school would be lucky to have you as a teacher or as an artist-in-residence.   I usually end these KyEdRPG Spotlight interviews with a variant of the same question:  What advice would you give to a teacher who wants to start using TTRPGs in their own classroom?

First, don’t feel like it has to be a huge undertaking to plan. If you can engage your students in building out the game world with you, they will be more invested in it and it’s less prep up front. Build onto students’ ideas and ask questions that lead toward specificity and imagery, or show where the danger is in a place or situation.

Second, make sure to model the gameplay as a whole class before breaking into smaller groups. Take a day to teach the “what is this thing we’re doing” and another day to layer in any tools you are using to support GMless or co-GM play. I like to use a giant die we can toss to whoever is taking a turn in our first learning session.

Finally, remember to have fun and show that you’re having fun! Your energy and enthusiasm feed your players.

A big thanks to Dan Burkey for taking the time to be interviewed!  If you would like to work with Dan, be sure to reach out via his website.

Kalli and I will be leading our next educational TTRPG session as a FREE two day workshop at the Frazier Kentucky History Museum on June 11 and 12, 2026.   For more details and a registration link, visit here.  Hurry -- seats are limited!

Creativity, AI, Utopias, and the Cultivation of "Guild-Like" Powers

Yesterday, I was part of a recording session for the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, co-hosted and produced by Dr. Matthew Worwood and Dr. Cyndi Burnett.  (Special thanks to both of them for having me as a guest, and please consider a subscription!)  It was an invigorating conversation, and a topical one, as valuing human creativity in a world of artificial intelligence seems to be something that has a particular urgency in the here and now.   Let's examine AI and creativity separately first.

Dr. Cyndi Burnett, right before the recording began.  I was part of the photo collage of guests, celebrating the podcast's recent fifth anniversary!

When we examine a snapshot of artificial intelligence today, it seems necessary to pull out the quote marks.  We may take some comfort that for all of AI's remarkable speed and agility to "write" or "draw" or "ideate," it is essentially a highly efficient pattern-maker and builds its product-making programmatic skill on the backs of human ingenuity, and a fair share of its generated images and videos still fall into the AI slop category of questionable quality.  (Whether those platforms fairly compensated or even appropriately cited the human ingenuity that trained it, or whether AI is worth the environmental impact, is a whole other ball of wax I'll set aside for the moment.) However, people have also argued what products humans have made are deemed worthy of the label "art" for thousands of years, and here begins a deluge of debates as we consider AI's output alongside humanity's.  Are we as humans not also a product of our times, influenced (subconsciously or not) by all that came before us?  How do we define the purity of a so-called "original thought"?  Can a first-grader be called a writer, even if their handwriting is uneven and their thoughts are fairly trite?  Does a text qualify as a literary novel if it is self-published, full of typos and cliches, but has a million downloads?  When do the air-quotes end and the scepter is deigned by some credentialed institution to bestow someone or something as a true writer, writing, art or artist?  If Chaucer is a rulestick with which we should judge Western literature, how do we evaluate the writing output of a human child, or a popular hack, or a machine in comparison?  

Of course, wherever you may land on the spectrum of philosophical debate on the ethics of artificial intelligence (and to be clear, I have concerns about AI on several levels even as I use it and see its potential strengths), we all must agree that AI today is the worst it will ever be, performance-wise.  We have to remind ourselves that ChatGPT -- or at least the version 3.5 that was born on November 30, 2022 -- is not even four years old.  Even if you think all it does is connect pre-existing dots and wave a wand dispensing ephemeral digital parlor tricks, ChatGPT (and its various LLM siblings) is already pretty impressive for an immature digital child-bot not old enough to be in kindergarten yet.   (For the record, my anthropomorphism -- and other juxtapositions of human and machine above -- are meant to provoke thoughtful debate that will only grow more heated as lines blur while AI capability grows.  With that said, in a world where people talk with machines that are often sycophantic and merely mimic human feelings, we need to be repeatedly reminded that artificial intelligence is not a person. It's refreshing to hear a company like SchoolAI decide to make their chatbot Dot no longer have a cute face, because "[s]tudents need to know when they're talking with AI.")

We can now move on to another question that requires air quotes: what do we mean by "creativity"? In the world of education, we sometime suffer for want of common nomenclature in defining creativity, in the same way we struggle in agreeing on the same definitions of "engagement" or "collaboration."  There often is a shoulder-shrug of you know it when you see it level of understanding, and that applies to most of us when we try to define something as squishy as creativity.  Perhaps more problematic is the onerous task of recognizing creativity in students, or even more difficult, cultivating it.  A beleaguered teacher might ask, What gives me the right to judge or teach others about creativity, when I may not consider myself creative in the first place?  To put it mildly, it's a big challenge.  And yet, I believe most of us agree that if public education is to endure and thrive, it must do a better job for its learners at nourishing the human-centered notions we value, such as joy, relationships, and yes, creativity.

The scholarship behind creativity, particularly in education, is huge, and I would not pretend I could encompass or summarize all of that brilliance in a single blog entry.  But luckily, we have a good start with my recent podcast hosts!  Dr. Burnett is the director of Creativity and Education, which offers a "Five-Point Star model" on how to pragmatically bring creativity into your classroom:  Understanding Creativity, Recognize Your Own Creativity, Support a Creative Environment, Bring Creativity Into Your Lessons, and Teach Creativity as Its Own Skill.  Dr. Worwood, along with Dr. James C. Kaufman, designed the CAUSE Model of Creative Languages (Connect, Apply, Understand, Share, and Express), and they "consider how an individual’s varying levels across these five Creativity Languages (innate, proficient, independent, basic, or dormant) may influence creative behavior, choice of domains to pursue, and potential eventual success."  Until their article, I hadn't heard of the Four C Model of Creativity (designed by Dr. Kaufman and Dr. Ronald Beghetto).  What I found useful in that Four C Model was the idea that creativity doesn't have to always be equated with genius, which makes being creative feel elitist and impossible to reach or teach.  Instead, Kaufman and Beghetto describe a continuum of creativity:

• "mini-c": anything "new and meaningful," although perhaps limited to only personal value
• "little-c": "[w]ith appropriate feedback, advancements are made and what was created might be of value to others"
• ,"Pro-c": "the ability to be creative at a professional level and in a professional venue"
• "Big-C":  something that "will be remembered in the history books"

As an educator, that already gives me relief; not every act of creation must have a "Big-C" level of impact.   At minimum, we are all capable of "mini-c" and "little-c" moments and can recognize and encourage them in others.  

But how do we foster creativity in a world where AI threatens to simplify (or, perhaps more apt, sloppify) inventive human thinking?  The theme of the April 2026 issue of Educational Leadership is "Igniting Curiosity in Schools," invoking another "c" word strongly related to creativity.  In the article "Sparking Curiosity with Applied Intelligence" by Elizabeth Agro Radday and Matt Mervis, the title draws the distinction between students passively using AI and actually applying it to solve authentic questions and problems:  "When students use AI, they rely on it to provide an answer, often bypassing productive cognitive struggle. When students apply AI, they expand their curiosity and creativity and become creators. In these cases, AI is part of the solution to a larger, messier problem that cannot be solved or answered with a simple prompt."  While they point out a study where college graduates are struggling to find entry-level positions thanks to AI phasing out such jobs, they also rightfully put some of the blame on traditional school systems. "The automation of low-level tasks," warns Agro Radday and Mervis, "the very 'clerk work' we often assign in schools, is already having a disproportionate impact on young people entering the workforce."  We need instructional environments that encourage students to be creative, not compliant cogs mindlessly completing transactional tasks.  If we keep treating students like machines, they will be replaced by them.

Naturally, this connects to late 19th century utopian novels and William Morris.  But hear me out, I can explain.

Back in 2001, I wrote a "hyperessay" for an English undergraduate University of Louisville course on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  I want to emphasize this was created in HTML when hyperlinking text felt almost transgressive, barely three years after I had gotten my first personal computer (Windows 98!).  My thesis was that you gained a deeper understanding of Twain's novel if you contextualized it within the utopian fiction written in the same time period (1871-1891) as Yankee's publication (1889).  As part of my research, I read several utopian novels, one being William Morris's News from Nowhere (1891). 

The 1800's was the Industrial Age.  For most people of the era -- like Yankee's protagonist Hank Morgan -- technology was welcomed, inspiring, and unquestionably viewed as progress.  It therefore should be no surprise that tech was not only foregrounded in many of the utopian novels of the 19th century, but that two-thirds of all utopian novels were written in the 1800's (Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias, 1962).

News from Nowhere, however, was different.  William Morris is a fascinating Britain whose influence continues into the present, even if his name may not be well known in the United States. A Romanticist, artist, socialist, political activist, and prolific multi-genre writer, Morris was a close friend of poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Morris's wife was his muse, and likely more) and a lover of architecture, medieval times, Icelandic sagas and Arthurian legends.  He was also a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, eschewing manufactured goods for handmade ones.  These passions were clear in Morris's utopia, situated in a London of the future, but with a de-emphasis on impersonal tech replaced by a strongly pastoral, bucolic setting of artisans.  That said, these utopians were not total Luddites -- they simply put technology in proper perspective. As one character puts it, "[W]hatever is made is good, and thoroughly fit for its purpose. Nothing can be made except for genuine use; therefore no inferior goods are made. Moreover, as aforesaid, we have now found out what we want; and as we are not driven to make a vast quantity of useless things, we have time and resources enough to consider our pleasure in making them. All work which would be irksome to do by hand is done by immensely improved machinery; and in all work which it is a pleasure to do by hand machinery is done without."  (A fun aside:  Morris also wrote high fantasy stories such as the novel The Well at the World's End [1896], inspired by Grail quests and Arthurian knights.  If Morris's resistance to the Industrial Age and love of Nordic sagas aren't enough clues that J.R.R. Tolkien was influenced by him, consider The Well at the World's End also has a "King Gandolf" and a horse named "Silverfax.")

Surrounded by the belching smokestacks of British industry, Morris turned toward the pleasures of the tactile and handcrafted.  One hundred and thirty-five years after News From Nowhere was published, we see Morris's aesthetic play out today.  We seek vintage forms of pleasure ourselves. Vinyl record sales have never been higher, and wired headphones are making a comeback, part of a larger "analog lifestyle" movement.  In education, many schools are banning cell phones during classtime and are having, as a recent The New York Times article put it in its title, "Chromebook remorse."  Fear and/or frustration over AI is fueling analog over digital instruction. I have strong opinions on both sides of this divide.  As a Digital Learning Consultant, I often see this as overreaction and a problem resulting from mis- or overused tools during the pandemic that have created lingering and triggering fatigue of edtech, and lament that technology isn't being implemented with the intentionality it needs to leverage student learning.  As an author who recently wrote a book encouraging tabletop role-playing games in the classroom, I also appreciate the appeal of face-to-face student interaction using old-fashioned paper and pencil (and dice!).  As a social media consumer who is inundated with AI slop videos in my feed, I can certainly sympathize with those who want a return to quaint times where we did not have such a "vast quantity of useless [digital] things," produced quickly, amazingly, pointlessly, and soullessly.  

So, in the face of such a morass, what do we do and how can we move forward? As we ultimately return to the notion of creativity, I'd like to offer one possible answer on the subject as I complete threading the multiple topics of this blog entry together (from the seemingly random Chaucer reference in the beginning to the Middle Ages to Morris to Tolkien to TTRPGs like the world's most famous fantasy-themed game).  But first, a quick flashback to our podcast recording.  Matthew and Cyndi discussed how barriers and boundaries increase creativity, even as logic presumes that it should constrain it.  I couldn't agree more.  It's the same thing that powers the best of games.  Take chess, for example.  Despite what superficially seems to be the limitation of rules that you can learn in minutes (how each chess piece moves differently on the board), the creative possibilities and strategies of playing chess are nearly endless, and it can take a lifetime to master.  We cannot think outside of the box without the box in the first place.  

Here is where artificial intelligence steps in, for good or ill. It may have its place, but we must be careful that it does not wipe away all constraints and with it, the chance for complex thinking.  AI can potentially give us god-like abilities with a keystroke, but creativity will suffer if such synthetic omnipotence is used without a greater purpose. Also, omnipotence is boring.  If a "problem" can be answered with AI that easily, what kind of problem was it really?  There is a quantum difference between solving a linear equation on a worksheet and an authentic challenge that needs mathematical thinking to be solved.  The former just needs a machine (and perhaps not even AI, but a pocket calculator).  The latter needs us.

And this is where looking back to the medieval age may give us a way through. In the spirit of William Morris, perhaps we can start an Analog Artisanal movement.  In the urgency of our present circumstances, we do not need god-like powers, but guild-like powers.  We need teams of humans, talking through our differences of opinions, working collaboratively, holding each other to the highest standards, looking for ways to apprentice the next generation to build our future world with care.  Digital tools may certainly help, and AI may become a collaborative partner of that neo-guild.  However, inspired by Morris's utopian outlook of technology, we should keep a proper perspective on how our analog and digital worlds blend, and who's in charge.

We need to celebrate and cultivate the creativity that lives within each of us, knowing that we will only hone our craftsmanship after mentorship, practice and failure.  We may still need a forge or an anvil to get there.  But we should never mistake the anvil for the blacksmith.

When the podcast is published in May, I will update this blog entry with a link!

Google Gems (and EduGems)

While Google's NotebookLM has taken much of the acclaim and headlines for how Gemini AI can transform learning, another free tool over the past year has been shaping up to be its contender:  Google Gems.   While Notebooks can offer audio and video overviews, infographics, slide decks, and seemingly new beta Studio tools every fortnight, Gems can offer a more nuanced kind of support.  Gems are customizable AI chatbots you can load up with your own vetted documents, which you then can easily share.

For a short (12:08) overview on Gems, watch this video by Eric Curts (and more on Curts in a moment):

Recently, Google for Education provided a wonderful deep slide deck of resources titled "100+ ways to use Gemini in K-12 Education."  One of the slides gives a short comparison of Gems versus NotebookLM:

A labeled screenshot of Google Classroom, labelled with the differences between Gems and NotebookLM. (Unless otherwise indicated, all screenshots are from this slide deck.)

As another way of comparing the two, here are some pertinent details:

• Purposes.  NotebookLM is usually for larger, deeper synthesis needs with multiple output opportunities, while Gems are more for specific, single outputs.
• Amount of files.  NotebookLM can have up to 50 sources uploaded; Gems can have up to 10.  However, a possible workaround for Gems is below.
• Kinds of files.  Both can use many of the usual suspects: PDFs, Google Docs and Sheets, Word and Excel, images and videos.  However, NotebookLM also allows website URLs, YouTube videos, and "copy and paste" sources, while Gems does not.  Interestingly, however, Gems will always recognize and use the latest version of a Google Doc or Sheet attached; NotebookLM only knows the "instance" version of the Doc/Sheet when first uploaded.
• Kinds of outputs.  As mentioned before, NotebookLM has a wide (and growing) set of Studio tools, starting with Audio and Video Overviews.  A Gem is more of a monotask outputter, only doing what it is set up to do.  These do not have to simply be text-based lesson plans or an email, however!  To take just two examples, a Gem could create coloring pages or a graphic novel.
• Use both!  A Gem can now have a NotebookLM added as a source file, thereby increasing a Gem's capacity of sources beyond its normal "10 files maximum."

Gems are great if you want to take the burden of prompt engineering off of the end user by writing a guiding "script," yet ensure a guard rail experience where the source of knowledge is based only on the documents of your choosing.   In effect, you are being a light programmer creating a new app, but without worrying about having to write actual code. 

Gems sit inside of Gemini itself, in its "Gem Manager" dashboard.   You can see Gems you made and saved (which you can always edit and customize further), Gems shared with you (as you can receive or give sharing rights like any other Google Doc), and of course, create a new Gem.

Writing an excellent prompt is the heart of a Gem.  For many an AI PD, I've shared Google's PARTS strategy on how to compose a more effective script (taken from this free course) by thinking of how to be more specific and detailed when thinking of each, um, part of PARTS.  However, the original handout I've used considers PARTS from the first person perspective of the prompter ("I am a third grade teacher..").   For a Gem, it may be more helpful to consider a second person perspective, like the example below.  In a meta moment, with a push of the "magic wand" button in Gems, you can also use "Gemini to rewrite [the] instructions" for you.

As I mentioned before, Gems can be shared with specific people, or made usable by all via its hyperlink.  Indeed, Gems could theoretically be shared inside a Google Classroom with students. However, the use of Gems by students in your educational domain may or may not be allowed, depending on the settings determined by your Google admin.  (For more, read this help article.)  Dr. Jim Masters, superintendent of Henry County Public Schools (KY), launched a specific Gem math tutor "grounded in learning science" with students.  Afterwards, over 250 of them answered a survey, and the results were noteworthy: "57% can now solve a similar problem independently" and "72% said [how the Gem demonstrated] breaking the problem into steps helped them most."  While some students admitted they wished the Gem would have just given them the answer (therefore admitting the Gem kept productive struggle and didn't minimize their cognitive load), many also said they still appreciated, or even preferred, the way their teachers helped them work through a problem.  The humans still matter in the loop.  "Technology can scale feedback," said Dr. Masters, but "teachers develop thinkers.  Student voice is now driving the next iteration — the same way a product team studies user experience."

When learning how to create a well-engineered Gem, a model can be helpful so you can peek "behind the curtain" and analyze its script.  (They tend to be more complicated and "code-like" than a typical genAI prompt.) There are also moments when you want to save time and simply utilize a well designed Gem made by someone else.  With that, we return to Eric Curts and his EduGems website:

The site is a collection of curated Gems, most made by Curts himself.   The Gems run the gamet  -- some educator-facing, some for students to use directly, and for various contents and needs.  There's a category that really caught my attention (for obvious reasons) called Engagement and Games, with Gems such as "CYOA Story" and "Historical What If."  Let's look at one called "Gamified Learning":

Along with a short description of each Gem, you have two choices.  You can interact directly ("Use the Gem") or "Make Your Own Copy"; the link is a force copy that will automatically save it into your own Gem Manager.   Note that once you have your copy, you can preview its prompt and potentially customize it.

Here is the Gamified Learning Gem "ready to use." Note that you have to give a Gem some kind of indication that you want to start -- typing "Hi" or "Begin" is fine.

When interacting with a copy of "Gamified Learning," you can see the Gem in editing mode.  Note the full prompt on the left and the chance to preview the Gem on the right.

EduGems also offers tutorials, and a Google Form where you can submit your own Gem for potential inclusion on the site.

Google Gems offer a handy way of reusing an excellent prompt over and over and easily make a sharable chatbot based on key sources you trust.   Even if you don't use Gems often, deconstructing a well-made one can teach you a lot about AI and prompt engineering.   Thanks to Google for making another highly useful free tool.  And special thanks to Eric Curts for curating an educational Infinity Gauntlet website of inspiring Gems!

"Tabletop Role-Playing Games in the Classroom" is now in print!

In August 2023 -- a year after launching Kentucky Educators for Role-Playing Games -- I began writing a book.  It was born from a pragmatic perspective; I had spend a lot of time and energy curating resources and stories for KyEdRPG, so why not package it for an outside audience?  But as I began, I had no idea if it would ever be published, much less seen by more than a handful of friends.  

Six months later in February 2024, the first complete draft of my manuscript was ready, but more importantly, I found a publisher in McFarland as part of their "Studies in Gaming" series.  I am so thankful that Matthew Wilhelm Kapell (series editor) and Layla Milholen (executive editor) gave me such early affirmation, and helped guide my book to publication.  Friends, educators, and rollers of the dice, I give you: Tabletop Role-Playing Games in the Classroom: Infusing Gameplay into K-12 Instruction!

When I received my author's copies a few weeks ago, I did an "unboxing" video, and perhaps befitting the holiday season we are in, I was once again full of gratitude and thanks.  

My Acknowledgment section is long and full of names, but in this blog entry I'll add one more:  Kalli Colley, a Regional Innovation Specialist with the Kentucky Department of Education.  The first of our Kentucky "Dungeons & Desks" series (which continues!) was in March of this year, well past the point where my manuscript was locked in for copy editing.   Therefore, I was unable to include her in the Acknowledgements, so I'll make that up here.  It's been a joy co-facilitating sessions with Kalli, leading and learning with attendees from Kentucky and beyond about TTRPGs in education.  I'm thankful for her expertise!

And by reading this, thank you.  Over a decade ago, Edtech Elixirs began, and it's the practice of writing thousands of words over 200+ blog entries that gave me the confidence to tackle something as audacious as a book. I hope that Tabletop Role-Playing Games in the Classroom is also something you can consider worthy of your time to read -- and inspires you to try some joyful instruction in your own learning spaces.

I'll end with helpful links and information for how you can order your copy:

More info about the book

Print ISBN Number:  9781476697550

eBook ISBN Number:  9781476657905

Direct from Publisher

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Books-a-Million

I highly recommend special ordering the book via its print ISBN number at your favorite local brick-and-mortar independent bookstore (mine is Carmichael's!).  If you use my Bookshop portal, 10% of sales go to support independent bookstores, and I also earn a small percentage. 

The Nature of Expertise in the Age of AI

For several years, I've been providing content and student support for the University of Kentucky's Changemakers program, designed and managed by the Center for Next Generation Leadership. It's an online one year continuing education option where Kentucky educators can get a rank change for successful completion.  I appreciate that Next Gen believes in "parallel pedagogy"; while it provides valuable resources and materials to be read, viewed, and reflected on, it also requires the program's students to complete meaningful transfer tasks, pursue an action research project, and participate in a final defense of learning that demonstrates how transformative practices are happening in the Changemaker's own classroom. 

This professional learning pathway to rank change involves mostly asynchronous work through online modules focused on the awareness and implementation of what Kentucky calls "vibrant learning" in the classroom, with module topics such as Learner Agency and Inquiry Based Learning.  It's my contribution to the latter module where the content below originally began, but I've expanded and added more detail for this blog entry.

Inquiry-based learning is a powerful pedagogy.  For students, it can be as extensive as working on a multi-week project-based learning unit, or as simple as asking more high-quality questions in class.  Inquiry comes from curiosity, and the attempt to answer challenging questions and solve problems that have no obvious solution.

Complicated problems requires help.  Two heads are better than one, after all.  With this in mind, seeking community partners can make perfect sense.  (As an aside, this teacher guide can help shape your conversations when you attempt to bring the community into your classroom; while it mentions PBL, the strategies can help for any scale project or problem you want your students to tackle.)   

These community partners or "outside experts" can authenticate what may seem abstract into real world problems, and even motivate students to "dig in" when the work gets difficult, to echo the title of this excellent Next Generation Learning Challenges article.  But before we consider how bringing in experts from outside of your classroom can increase vibrant learning, let’s first discuss inside experts, and even the idea of “expertise.”

Keep in mind that traditionally, and for decades (centuries!), you have been considered to be the expert in the room – of your content, of your pedagogy, of your ability to manage your classroom.  The professionalism required of the vocation, much less the idea of professional standards boards that grant, review, and in some cases revoke certification to teach, adds to the foundational belief that a teacher has earned their well-deserved “expert” credentials.

But you are usually one human in a room of thirty.  Leaning into the expertise of your students can be at its most basic level a strategy of smartly leveraging your numbers.  Viewing your classroom through an asset mindset, we can see students as learners that bring their own powerful POVs which can enrich your culture and community.  For example, with the right scaffolding, structures, and practice, your students are capable of providing peer-to-peer feedback.

However, some of our stumbling blocks in education are self-induced, born out of a desire to remain humble.  For example, calling yourself or anyone else an “expert” can sound or feel lofty and divisive.  Educators are sometimes their own worst critic, and may wonder aloud what right they have to declare themselves the expert on such-and-such.  As for students, they may view their own bountiful and beautiful knowledge with a shrug of their shoulders.  If someone in middle school knows how to disassemble and reassemble a car engine, it simply reflects their personal interests, or the fact that their mother loves hot rods.  They are told early and often in traditional school that such knowledge isn’t “book learnin’.”  Loving hot rods or diesel mechanics doesn’t matter, thinks the student, because it’s not a part of my third period class, and it won't show up on my multiple choice test on Friday.

Therefore, let’s consider a broadening of our definition of “expert,” and look more at the first five letters of the word.  What we really hope to provide, increase, articulate and bring into a classroom is experience.  From another person’s POV, your experience may be long and traveled (which can make you “more experienced”), or simply a road I’ve never traveled upon (which makes your experience a novel one, compared to mine).   Viewing expertise in this kind of inclusive light opens up what an “expert” is.  We can see an expert as simply (but powerfully!) a person with a different, valued perspective.   The key word is “valued.”  You may have a different POV, you may have twelve degrees on the wall, but if I don’t care about you and especially if you don’t care about me, your “expertise” won’t matter much.  We can also see an expert as a person who is recognized as skillfully applying knowledge.  The key word is “applying.” Remember that old chestnut that answers the question, “What’s the difference between intelligence and wisdom?”  Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing you would never put a tomato in a fruit salad.  Expertise that feels too detached and theoretical, or a bunch of random facts you can Google anyway, won’t personally matter very much to your learners.

With our new, more expansive definition of “expert” behind us, how do these experts from outside of a classroom still have potential to help?  Vibrant learning is memorable and authentic, and community partners can be both.  A parent who is a car mechanic might come in to demonstrate the torque caused by automobile engines.  Not only does that make abstract laws of motion and physics seem more relevant to students, it also has a far greater chance of making tonight’s dinner conversation when the student is asked “What did you do at school today?”  By permitting alternative voices into your learning space, you open up different perspectives and bring the outside community inside of your classroom community. Outside partners could also provide feedback to students as they ideate and prototype a solution in a PBL, or serve as a panel audience for defenses of learning. Of course, in a world full of wondrous technology, we are not limited to in-person guest speakers.  Someone from a European museum might Zoom in for a mini-lecture and a Q & A.  There are over twenty billion uploaded YouTube videos, so with the right discernment and curation skills, an expert is just a click away.

You might have noticed that artificial intelligence wasn’t mentioned above as a potential “outside expert.”  Going back to our expanded definition, it certainly can seem to checkmark the same boxes.  AI can offer a different perspective, powered by code and fueled by billions of artifacts from our culture and knowledge.  Is that perspective valued, or valuable?  It might, although AI is not always accurate, unbiased, or trustworthy; however, the same can be said of Wikipedia entries created by humans, or the theory from a popular scientist of the past which has been discredited in the present.  Discernment and critical thinking is key, particularly from the teacher who should be monitoring, filtering, and observing the AI usage (and teaching students to be critical AI users as well).  AI can also certainly apply its knowledge scraped across the terabytes of the Internet within (milli)seconds of being prompted.  Is that knowledge skillfully applied?  Based on the uploaded rubric of a teacher alongside the first draft of a student’s essay (being mindful of your platform's privacy protections, of course), or the public domain text of an author, AI could provide nuanced feedback on student writing or pretend to be a character in a book for a fascinating interactive conversation.  But some of the proficiency of AI’s application will depend on qualitative measures: of the rigor of the rubric you uploaded, or the veracity and bias of the knowledge it grabbed from its database, or the depth of skills the AI has been taught to emulate. And again, AI hallucinations can happen.  

What will hopefully emerge, as we become more skilled and critical users of AI, is that our ethical priorities will shape the machines instead of letting the machines shape us.  A promising example is the “Dimensions in Testimony” website, a partnership between the University of Southern California and the Shoah Foundation.  The site began by digitizing recorded interviews of actual survivors of the Holocaust and the Nanjing Massacre.   Next, an interviewee has a separate page where, via a looping video, they seem to sit and wait for your questions.  

When prompted, a short video plays where the interviewee “answers” your question, creating a virtual conversation.  You can do this via your microphone or by typing.  What may seem miraculous is really just clever programming – the interviews were transcripted and time-coded, so AI simply takes your prompt, scans the text, finds a corresponding clip that seems to best answer your question, and plays from that particular time-stamped portion of the interview. Still, you can see the power of providing such “expertise” to students, giving them a chance to be both empathetic as well as practicing their questioning/prompting skills.  (It should also be noticed the dignity and care given to the subject matter by USC and Shoah.  The interviews were real, using genuine survivors of genocide and the Holocaust, not actors.  While you technically could have AI “pretend” to be a survivor of a war crime as a customized chatbot, or have students interact with some kind of digital fictionalized Holocaust survivor avatar, there are many reasons why this would be an unethical and inappropriate use of such technology.)

As you ponder ways to increase and improve inquiry, reflect on the nature of “expertise,” both inside and outside of your own four walls.  As you do so, you can cautiously consider how AI can be one of many types of “outside experts” you can bring into your classroom.

For more information on Changemakers, be sure to check out this page for the latest links to sign up for updates and apply to join the next cohort.

KyEdRPG Spotlight: Librarian Laura Mann and TTRPGs for Literacy

 

Librarians -- and the library -- are often the heartbeat and hub of a school.  Since extracurricular game clubs are frequently held in such learning spaces and therefore led by a librarian, it shouldn't be a surprise when such educators also use an innovative approach like tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) as part of their instructional time too.  They recognize it as an engaging way to enrich student literacy (and a little numeracy as well).

When librarian Laura Mann told me about the TTRPG she had created around a book her middle school students were reading, I was eager to see it in action.  Last month, I visited Laura at Bernheim Middle School (Bullitt County), a beautiful and recently renovated building.   

Walking around the nooks and tables, I was impressed with the sixth graders' eagerness to play the game.   I took pictures and conducted an interview with Mann to share the details (and her resources!).  As an aside, I am also proud for Laura to be our first Kentucky librarian to be featured on the Kentucky Educators for Role Playing Games website!

Laura, welcome to Edtech Elixirs!  Please share your educational journey. 

My teaching and library careers have been a dynamic journey, to say the least.

I first stepped into the classroom in January 2011 as a substitute teacher in Bullitt County, fresh off graduating from Campbellsville University the previous month with my BS in Elementary Education. I quickly gained a host of diverse experience, moving into specialized roles such as Reading Interventionist at Vine Grove Elementary (Hardin County, 2011-2012) and Math Interventionist at Old Mill Elementary (Bullitt County, 2012-2013). This period of focused, one-on-one teaching truly helped me get my foot in the door and it was during this time that the library truly began calling to me. 

While working as a Math Interventionist, I took on a part-time role as a Library Page at the Louisville Free Public Library and began work on my Master of Science in Library and Information Science. This paved the way for my first full-time role as a Library Media Specialist (LMS) at Nichols Elementary (2013-2014). After a brief return to the classroom to teach second grade in 2014-2015, I took a sabbatical to complete my MSLIS. The question was, where would I take my skills? Back to the public schools or into the public library?

I decided, at this point, I would try the public library again and took on a position at Spencer County Public Library in 2016, where I continued until 2018. I loved the job, but discovered my true love was students. I was offered a position as the LMS at Bloomfield Middle School in Nelson County Schools (2018-2019) before moving into a District LMS for the next 5 years. All of this rich experience has led me to where I am today: the Library Media Specialist (LMS) at Bernheim Middle School, back in Bullitt County. This is a role I absolutely love, and I can't wait to continue it for the foreseeable future.

What is your personal experience with playing TTRPGs?

My experience with actually playing TTRPGs is limited, but my interest is not! I've always loved playing board games, and hearing a good story. TTRPGs combine the best of both worlds into one.

I watch streams and videos of others playing on various platforms, and it always looks like such a great time. I was struggling to find friends to play with, but I'm hoping to join the TTRPG group that meets at my local Bullitt County Public Library branch—as soon as I can clear my schedule for their next play night!

Some people outside of education may be surprised that school librarians “teach classes.”  Can you briefly describe your related arts schedule with your middle school students?

One of the great perks of my current role is the flexibility it offers. School librarian schedules often fall into three main categories, depending on the school's needs:

• Fixed: While not exclusive to elementary schools, this is very common in such settings, where the librarian is part of the Related Arts rotation teaching classes for most of the day.
• Responsive: This is the ideal scenario—the librarian is free to schedule their time as needed to serve students and staffulty (staff + faculty).
• Partially Responsive: This is the schedule our school uses. 

I'm very lucky to only teach two classes per day, which rotate every nine weeks. This partial teaching schedule is a huge benefit because it frees me up for the rest of the day to focus on critical library operations. With the help of my fantastic library aides, we manage the constant flow of activity: fixing Chromebooks, checking out books, and making sure the library runs smoothly all day long.

What inspired you to bring TTRPGs into your learning space?

I wanted to add TTRPGs to include a little more fun to our learning, but also to deepen the learning with Kentucky Academic Standards for Library Media—especially in the Collaborate domain. I'm thinking specifically focusing on pushing past basic "group work" (like dividing up a poster project) and moving toward the high-level collaboration detailed in standards like M.CL.T3.A “Learners identify collaborative opportunities by: Deciding to solve problems informed by group interaction.”

I love how you wrapped your TTRPG adventure around a text the students are reading.  Tell us about your game!

The official title is “The Bernheim Riddle”, a play on the book we are reading The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin.  The game mechanics are based on a simplified version of Dungeons & Dragons.

The first step in setting up the game was making sure the students had a grasp on Character Sheets and how to use them. At the start of the term, students made Character Sheets for themselves. This was to help them understand the sheets for later game play, but also to help me get to know them better. We played a brief game using where students had to follow the Community Agreements (being respectful, responsible, safe, kind, courageous, and using excellent work ethic) while finding a lost library book. 

 A copy of the Filling Out You Character Sheet (Google Slides).

Then, we began reading our book. I wanted to create a strong connection to the historical world of Bletchley Park. We started with some light research on the people who actually worked there. We would play our game as these people.

Students used the official Bletchley Park website, using its "The Roll of Honour" page to find their historical figure. Their research was focused on discovering key information such as who the person was, what their specific job was at Bletchley Park, and any other available biographical details.

A copy of the Bletchley Park Research Sheet (Canva).

Then, we completed Character Sheets for their historical figures. This was a challenge for them as strengths were not listed on the Bletchley Park website. We had to think about what specific job they had and what skills the person doing that job may have. I used a base character sheet I found from a member of the Dungeons and Dragons Aotearoa NZ Facebook Group (posted by Abigail Ea) and edited it to ensure the skills and strengths perfectly matched the historical context we were working with.

A copy of Laura's adapted Character Sheet (Canva).

The original Kids Character Sheet by Abigail Ea.  (Please support the creator!)

Copy of Filling Out Your Historical Figure Character Sheet (Google Slides).

Once students had their historical figure’s sheet completed, we could begin our game!

Each student has taken on a role within their group. There is a leader, an ambassador, a dice tamer, an adventure tracker, and a writer. Each person has specific roles/jobs they are responsible for.  For example, the ambassador is the only person who can come ask me questions!

The narrative centers on a mysterious person named "Enoch" who has been causing problems at the famous code-breaking facility, Bletchley Park. Throughout the game, students take on the roles of their Bletchley Park workers and must figure out Enoch's plan by breaking codes and ciphers, making decisions as a team, and dealing with the repercussions of their choices.

To make the game manageable, I split the entire story into four weekly sections, each with a clear stopping point: "Part One: The Whispering Witness," "Part Two: The Missing Machine," "Part Three: The Double Agent’s Diary," and "Part Four: The Evacuee’s Enigma."

Since I have so many groups and can't possibly be a Game Master for all of them, I built a self-guided system that requires minimal involvement from me after set-up. This allows groups to move at their own pace and collaborate without interruption.

The two main components are the Canva Slide Decks which function as the narrative and clue delivery system,  and a Google Form which acts as a sort of Game Master.

For example, if students are required to interpret a Morse code message, they submit their answer into the Google Form. If they put in an incorrect answer, the Form simply tells them, "That is not the right code." If they get it right, the Form validates the answer, links them to the next section of the Form, and provides the link for the next Canva slide deck.  

[Editor's note: you can learn how to create "Response Validation" rules for how a person answers on a Google Form from this help site, to replicate what you might see in a Breakout EDU game.]  

If students choose to talk to a certain non-player character, the slide deck will take them on that path. They'll get information that is either helpful or sends them right back to their choices—simulating the consequences of real TTRPG interaction. While this system does limit the range of options, it allows groups to work through the game on their own, making decisions without the need for constant intervention from the teacher.

As an example, here are the "Part Three: The Double Agent’s Diary” Canva Slides which were what the students were playing on the day you visited:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

How have the students reacted?  

Some students are excited to play and ready to take on the challenges. Others are not sure where to begin and don’t participate as much with their groups. I'm thinking of revisions for next time to keep everyone involved.  Students do regularly ask when we are going to play the game again, since we only play on the last day of the week.

What feedback have you gotten from the staff at Bernheim Middle about using a TTRPG for instruction?

Our band/music teacher is very much into RPGs of all kinds and was a bit jealous of my class. He mentioned skipping his classes to come play with mine! My principal Chase Goff came into the class to see my students playing.  He later shared with me, “I really enjoyed talking to the students about the tabletop games.  Honestly, I have never played these or engaged with them so it was really cool to see it.  I also thought it was great to see the students productively struggling, having to back up and try again.” 

What’s next for TTRPGs in your library?

I plan to incorporate TTRPG with my classes the rest of this year. I will, however, use different books for each grade level just so I don’t have to read the same book twice a term for the entire year! I will choose from Kentucky Bluegrass Award books in an attempt to drum up excitement for those selections. I know we will not finish our current read and I already have students clamoring to be the first on the list to check it out! It shows me that the students are in love with the book, regardless of how they feel about TTRPGs.

This has been awesome, Laura!  Thank you for sharing your story.  Last question:  What advice would you give to a school librarian who wants to start using TTRPGs in their library?

Just try it! Even if it is with one class or coordinating with another teacher. Was there a big learning curve? Yes. Is there a lot of prep before you can even start? Absolutely. Has it been a fun adventure and a good opportunity to try something new? For sure. 

Special thanks to Ms. Mann for taking the time to answer my questions, and inviting me to visit!