With only a few weeks away to go until the beta launch of SimCityEDU, we invite you to begin thinking about creating and sharing your own SimCity-based learning tools.
For the past couple of months, former social studies teachers Rick Brennan and Jason Darnell (founders of the Histrionix Learning Company and makers of the civilization game Historia) have been helping us kick start the community learning by designing a slew of exciting new lesson plans. We had the chance to speak with Brennan and Darnell about their experience writing SimCityEDU curriculum. We're thrilled to share that conversation with you below.
Keep your eyes peeled for our newsletter next week: We're unveiling a prototype lesson plan from the SimCityEDU database, and we want your feedback!
What makes the SimCityEDU community a valuable resource for teachers?
Jason Darnell: SimCityEDU offers a support platform for teachers to share specific successes from their classrooms. More than that, the community itself is a curriculum collaboration tool for twenty-first century teaching. Bringing a game like SimCity into the classroom requires both teachers and students to step outside of their traditional roles in the classroom and to collaborate and create through game play.
Jason Darnell: SimCityEDU offers a support platform for teachers to share specific successes from their classrooms. More than that, the community itself is a curriculum collaboration tool for twenty-first century teaching. Bringing a game like SimCity into the classroom requires both teachers and students to step outside of their traditional roles in the classroom and to collaborate and create through game play.
Can you walk us through a lesson plan you’ve created for the database?
Rick Brennan: One of our lesson plans is called ‘Power to the People.’ Students role-play the job of SimCity mayor, prioritizing public works projects they might want to build. Should they build a hospital or school first? A police station or a public park? And why? And what if their SimCity citizens disagree with their decisions? What then? Once students finalize their list of priorities, they must defend their decisions by writing a persuasive essay. So, the lesson helps teach popular government, public works, and how to write an original essay—all at once!
How easy or difficult is it for teachers to create curriculum around the SimCity game?
RB: I think SimCity is inherently a learning-rich environment, so teachers should find it rather easy to make connections to their curriculum, no matter the class they teach. After playing the game, so many classroom connections came to mind that I had to stop writing them down!
What feature of the game do you think will inspire teachers the most?
JD: I’m looking forward to seeing how teachers incorporate SimCity’s new multi-player component into their lesson plans. The fact that students will be able to work collaboratively to solve real-world problems really opens up the possibilities of lesson planning and classroom implementation.
Any advice for users as they begin submitting their own lesson plans?
RB: I’d recommend designing the lesson plans with different teacher types in mind. And also, remember to walk your readers through the lesson plan step by step.
Have you developed any type of approach while writing curriculum for SimCityEDU that teachers might find helpful when creating/submitting their own lesson plans?
RB: I’d suggest that teachers set aside a few hours to get lost in SimCity’s stunning, real to life game play – and be sure to take notes, because this game is a twenty first century teaching tool.
What aspect of the SimCityEDU community excites you most?
JD: Well, the community itself! Very soon we’ll have an online platform filled with the stories, experiences and works of teachers across the country and beyond. Also, bringing SimCity into the classroom will hopefully prompt teachers to adjust or adapt their classroom roles, since the game aids in their instruction. We see SimCityEDU as a major step in the right direction for public education.
No comments:
Post a Comment