Showcase Video

Teaching Philosophy

        We are a community of learners on a journey together.  All of us are in process—growing, changing our minds, learning new ways of thinking about and being in the world.  We each bring different knowledge, skills, and experiences to share.  Rooted in a sense of place here in Hawai‘i, we seek to enhance our understanding of diverse histories through reflection and dialogue with primary texts and artifacts. Consequently, we create an active learning environment designed to enhance intrinsic motivation based on the natural desire to learn.  We use all of our senses and our imaginations through a series of role-playing and storytelling exercises to engage with pre-modern human communities. We use ungrading, so that students self-assess their learning by reflecting on how and why their understanding of human history changes over the course of the semester.

Teaching Practice

        What happens if you mash up Dungeons & Dragons with Dr. Who?  The (Un)game: World History to 1500 did just that by turning this first year Foundations course into an immersive and interactive role-playing and storytelling voyage through pre-modern human histories. The textbook was presented not as content to be mastered and tested, but as a learning journey for a time-traveling modern character, an avatar the student creates to engage with historical artifacts and have encounters with people from the past in diverse regions of the world.  Students record their encounters in a journal, and then collectively and individually create narratives about them, writing stories that connect across time and place.  At the end, they compile a portfolio illustrating their learning journey over the semester and self-assess their work in response to instructor comments along the way (“ungrading”).

         Having students keep a journal throughout the course and compile a final portfolio of reflections cultivates deep attention, a counteractive to the rapid switching of our fast-paced modern world (Hayles, 2007).  Students in their first years at the university are often exploratory but also goal-driven, active on social media but also questioning their sense of self. Making the class a storytelling journey for a fictional character taps into their creative and social spheres while allowing them to explore challenging ideas about our common humanity in a safe environment that focuses on the learning process rather than product.

         The “un”game with “un”grading thus returns learning to the students:  this is not gamifying history content to make boring facts palatable to jaded students, but rethinking higher education to enhance the natural human desire to learn (Blum 2016; Wineburg, 2018).   With an “ungrading” approach of student self-assessment, the emphasis is less on extrinsic motivation to get a good grade and more on intrinsic motivation to be self-conscious about how our thinking changes as we enjoy learning (Blum and Kohn, 2020).  Through journaling and creating stories, students become open to exploration and take more risks without fear of a “bad grade” or the stress of figuring out what the teacher was “really looking for.” My role as teacher is to provide the environment for their explorations through a guided series of encounters with the material and feedback they can use to evaluate what and how they learned. 

         Storytelling (mo‘olelo) as a philosophy of history is rooted in our Native Hawaiian Place of Learning.  Our learning journey (huaka‘i) is intentional and transformative (Aikau and Gonzalez 2019, 246), becoming rooted, resilient and responsive through A‘o, learning from one another, Alu, connecting with each other, and ‘Auamo, working together.. As a voyage navigating through deep time, history requires empathy and imagination, as well as cultural humility (Hanlon, 2017). We cultivate empathy through listening to voices and contemplating artifacts from the past. As we reflect on our encounters, we tell new stories about humanity in all its diversity, stories that reflect both a sense of place and a sense of time. 

         The guiding theme of this exploration of humanity is the concept of worldviews, which I define as how an individual or tradition perceives their relationships to:

         ↓ natural or material world: sense of place

         ↔ human communities: socio-economic-political

         ↑ cosmic dimensions: metaphysical, divine concepts

         AND how these three are intertwined with each other.

        This holistic worldview requires an ethical approach to intercultural activities that is embedded in every aspect of the course:  students invent a modern time-traveling character with a contemporary worldview precisely so that they can become aware of the very different worldview assumptions of the cultures we encounter. In their game play discussions and in their stories, students develop listening skills, cultural humility, and an openness to changes in their own thinking.

         Because global human history is long and broad, deep and complex, the goal of such study is holistic life-long learning, not just an increased knowledge and set of skills measured at the end of the semester.  This course lays a foundation for further reflection along a student’s journey through the university and beyond. This kind of open-ended historical thinking is best fostered in an in-person classroom, not through lecture, but through dialogue with people and artifacts of and from the past, hence the use of a Real Player Game (RPG) format.         The “game” is structured to allow students to develop historical empathy and intercultural competencies incrementally and self-consciously through listening, storytelling, and self-reflection. The enriched classroom discussions built into the game structure the students’ learning journey over the semester to provide an ongoing feedback loop guided by peer and instructor feedback.

1.  Students bring to class the chapter artifact card they rolled the dice to receive in the previous class session, along with journal notes on the historical context in the textbook chapter they researched in a scavenger hunt.

2.  At the beginning of class, the instructor takes the student’s role-played character through a guided sensory analysis of an artifact and then students with the same artifact compare their responses. 

3.  In small group game play modes, students are remixed to interact with each others’ characters, exchanging artifacts and building stories together to “clear the chapter room.”  Feedback cards allow students to give each other specific suggestions: (great connection, great insight, check that out, follow that thought).

4.  The faculty instructor, graduate teaching assistant, and undergraduate learning assistants facilitate the game and give further prompts as well as feedback cards to help students develop their stories.

5.  Students leave class with a draft story about their encounters with other characters and materials. They may also share card responses and drafts for peer and insructor review on a padlet facilitated by the learning assistants.

6.  At four set points in the semester, students take these encounters and combine them into a short story across several chapters, as their character moves around in time and place.  Each successive story builds on, edits, and adds to the previous story, snowballing to the final complete story.

7.  Students post these stories for instructor feedback and then use that feedback to self-assess their gains in skills and knowledge as well as improve their next story.

8.  At the end of the semester, students produce a portfolio of their completed story with annotations. The final portfolio self-assessment asks them to reflect on how and why their historical thinking and empathy changed from their first story to their final story (metacognition).

         The storytelling journey in this game was “fun” because it engaged with students’ learning tendency:  we naturally enjoy learning new things when we have the freedom to explore and test out new ways of being and thinking.  That is what history education should be about.

         Moreover, this combination of an interactive and immersive game with ungrading can be scaled to different class sizes or types and is transferable to other disciplines and content.

Impact

         The impacts on both the students and teachers from the Spring 2023 History 151 “Ungame” learning journey have inspired us to continue with revised versions of the game in future semesters as well as apply the techniques of role-playing, storytelling, and ungrading to other courses.

         Initial reviews illustrate how the combination of ungrading and a storytelling journey was a huge success for this first year course compared to previous semesters taught with a traditional lecture format.

         In particular, the final portfolios of 48 students demonstrated a high level of metacognition evident in the following self-assessments of the three student learning outcomes using our “star” rating rubric that emphasizes intrinsic over extrinsic measures:

***** (5 star) fully immersed: able to express new ways of thinking

**** (4 star) engaged and exploring: incorporated a lot of new ideas

*** (3 star) fragmentary understanding: intrigued, confused, questioning

** (2 star) uneven experiences: missing some encounters

* (1 star) lost opportunities: unable to connect the stories

5 Stars 4.5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No Rating

1. Come away with a sense of Deep Time in human history, the richness and complexity of life around the globe: What does it mean to be human? What dehumanizes us?

28 (58%) 1 (2%) 9 (19%) 1 (2%) – 1 (2%) 7 (15%)

2. Become a more empathetic student of life while encountering human experiences different from one’s own: What contributes to human flourishing? What harms it?

18 (38%) 1 (2%) 5 (10%) 1 (2%) – 1 (2%) 21 (44%)

3. Learn to tell your own story in relation to encounters with others’ stories: What can we learn from the varieties of human traditions and interactions that might change the way we live now?

16 (33%) – 3 (6%) 4 (8%) 1 (2%) 1 (2%) 22 (46%)

These results show not only that most students gained knowledge and skills in these three areas but were able to recognize these gains and articulate how they took place and what would contribute to further learning.

The supplemental materials include:

1. the syllabus “gamebook”

2. a sample game mode collaborative story (campfire)