Lexie Bewley-Gilley is a high school social studies teacher at Bullitt Central High School (Bullitt County Public Schools in Kentucky). After attending some sessions on game-based learning at KySTE 2024 -- and in particular, how tabletop role-playing could be a part of a classroom -- she was excited to attempt a new lesson near the end of her own school year. KyEdRPG friends like Chad Collins and Michelle Gross definitely were an inspiration!
@CollinsClassSC @michellegross
— Lexie Bewley Gilley (@MrsGilleyUSHis) March 13, 2024
This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen! Helping students reach mastery by keeping them engaged and motivated! I cannot say enough how much I love this! #KYSTE24 #TeacherNavigators #GameBasedLearning pic.twitter.com/hOUjY9XwHx
Recognizing that student energy is flagging in May, and that her U.S. History unit about the end of the Cold War and Reaganomics was a bit dry in the past, Lexie found an angle to gamify the learning. She took the element of "rolling up a character" in a TTRPG and had students create a person living in the 1980's. Lexie leaned into Canva for its presentation and video creation capabilities, alongside AI tools for image generation. Kicking off with an ElevenLabs-narrated video in full Valley Girl speak, Lexie made a slide deck to guide the students through a series of d20 rolls on random tables, starting with determining their socioeconomic status. Each random table roll brought a new financial crisis or opportunity that, in effect, shaped the life of their character. Students collected the narrative along the way on their character tracker sheet.
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| From a Bullitt County PD session led by Lexie, sharing her lesson. |
At periodic moments, Lexie prompted the students to stop and have discussions. From the perspective of their characters (and those who felt comfortable doing so in first person), students considered and debated how their person would react to the latest event. The lesson took several days, and culminated in the students individually writing a reflective narrative/essay on the story of their character, making connections to the final days of the Cold War.
Today in US History!
— Lexie Bewley Gilley (@MrsGilleyUSHis) May 6, 2024
I’m trying something new and my rock star students are really showing up and out with their abilities! We are gamifying Reaganomics into a simulation (modified Elemental TTRPG) 🙌🏼
Day 1 has been GREAT! #DeeperLearning #ProductiveCollaborator #BCPS pic.twitter.com/KiQPiDokvs
I have seen and shared the idea of using a character sheet from a popular published TTRPG for a deeper demonstration of learning (for example, filling out a sheet from the perspective of a historical person or literary character, then defending your stats and choices). However, Lexie's commitment of several academic days for this character generation lesson fostered an academically rich opportunity for students to really gain an empathetic POV of a person from another time period.
Today I visited @bcpsky teacher @MrsGilleyUSHis at @bchs_cougars! Students did a "Reaganomics & Role-Playing" multi-day activity where they rolled up a character in the 1980's and discussed how economics impacted them. Awesome #ttrpg in education! #kyedrpg #KYDL #MovingForward pic.twitter.com/ImvMBEeUJi
— Adam Watson (@watsonedtech) May 7, 2024
Lexie talked about expanding on TTRPG inclusion next year in U.S. History. Perhaps the students could roll up a time traveller at the start of the course, and several times throughout, the character plays through a scenario in a new historical period -- a little gaming, with a little "fish out of water" reflection! But for now, it's great to see teachers like Lexie try something new for her students. I can't wait to see what she'll do next!
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