Teacher as Dungeon Master: Connected Learning, Democratic Classrooms, and Rolling for Initiative [chapter]

Garcia, Antero. “Teacher as Dungeon Master: Connected Learning, Democratic Classrooms, and Rolling for Initiative.” In The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs, edited by Andrew Byers and Francisco Crocco, 164–83. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016.

The participatory culture (consumers archiving, annotating, appropriating and recirculating media contents) was theorized recently with Internet but it already existed strongly in the subculture of role-playing games. The phenomenons of transmedia and fan fictions too.

A connected learning is when a student pursues a personal interest or a passion with friends and caring parents, and in return are able to link this to academic achievement, career possibilities or civic engagement (source). Roleplaying games can offer a framework (with few to no technology) for this connected learning, a safe context in which the student can explore, imagine and create.

4 elements to take care by the teacher/Dungeon master:
- Rules can get in the way of engagement
- Relationships matter
- Learning should feel adventurous
- Know when to back off

"The responsability of the classroom Dungeon Masters is to do nothing less than instill feelings of intellectual curiosity and empowerment in the young adventurers as they set out to create change in the real world beyond the classroom." (p.177)

Me: Purely theoretical content. I would have liked some examples showing how to stimulate intellectual couriosity.