<

►

>

2016 WW HQ workshop. Princeton

Teachers’ professional development is turning out to be fun and games for the WW HistoryQuest Fellows. In summer 2016, nearly 50 New Jersey social studies teachers came together in Princeton, N.J., for a weeklong course in game-based learning practices. Led by the Institute of Play, the WW HistoryQuest Institute taught Fellows the elements of the game design process and gave them opportunities to think about how to bring game-like learning back to their classrooms. Fellows developed, designed, and tested their own games, coming up with activities covering everything from manifest destiny to the three branches of government.

At a follow-up workshop in October, Fellows discussed their work to date in incorporating game-based learning in their classrooms. They made clear that their students love this approach, and that the Fellowship is an important imprimatur for doing something new and different to bring history to life and engage students in thinking critically about historical and social issues. Four of the Fellows presented their work at the fall 2016 conference of the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies.

The WW HistoryQuest Fellowship, generously funded by Woodrow Wilson Trustees Walter Buckley and Bill Lilley, will expand in 2016–17 to serve teachers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as well as in New Jersey.

###

This story appeared in the fall/winter 2016 issue of Fellowship, the newsletter of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. To see the full newsletter, click here.