A Magical Realm - Learning from Inside the Story

Details & Walkthroughs Coming Soon!

Meanwhile,

This is how I came to develop and hone my learning experience designs into efficient systems that produce measurable improvement in outcomes every single time...

1. & 2. Background - > Impact

I set out to reimagine grades 4-5, 6-8, 9-10 curriculum. We know the content they need to learn, but we don't know how to smush 50-60 very complex data dumps into their heads in 36 weeks. We know cognitive psychology, but we don't have time to use it. We have to add inclusion, accessibility, digital citizenship, cyber security, differentiation, intervention, multi-modal literacy, accommodation, and more. It is literally impossible. I always wondered why we kept trying to do it this way when it does not work for 80% of the students, and results in nervous breakdowns for faculty, staff, admin, parents, and students.

I began with Gardner's multiple intelligences, executed classroom studies, tested corporate training, developed neuro-learning assessments, assimilated data from countless surveys, and endless research. I progressed to the ideas of interests, "talents," and mastered skills. Somewhere in there I saw a TED Talk on using World of Warcraft as a learning experience. Then on to literacy, tasked with the toughest cases of students who were 8, 9, 10--all the way up to 17 years old--who could not read, or who could not add and subtract. And, I got them reading. I got them calculating and understanding math. At first, no single method worked every time. Then I found what worked every time in each method. I combined those. Beyond the Science of Reading (which has significant limitations, though it is a start for the general population), I discovered how people learn anything. I tested my findings with content from every imaginable arena: from aerospace engineering to 3rd grade math. And it works. Every time.

When people experience this methodology, they learn. They have measurable outcomes built in, and K12'ers end up increasing district/state test scores by at least 2x, employees decrease corporate risks by over 30-50%, and enablement tracks cause learners to sell over 80% of their prospective customers. For now, this demo/case study will just focus on K12.

[Below is proprietary information, I have shared it in good faith, but please know it is copyrighted and protected by federal copyright laws. It is also trademark pending, and the ideas herein are protected under federal law. No text, ideas, or concepts may be reproduced or used in any way that causes competition with or parallels with the original]

So, I began to develop a comprehensive solution based on what has proven itself to work, not at all based on dumping gargantuan loads of data into human sized brains--though the brains leave with gargantuan loads of applicable information, and the ability to use it in context. It is so unlike any "school" or curriculae that were this happening 5 years ago, it may have been ignored, or even spurned. And it has so many levels of depth that most will only see a tiny fraction of its scope. But the result is this: An experiential learning immersion that silently develops metacognitive expertise and personalized learning within the context of a narrative. 

Students literally live the learning. Imagine World of Warcraft without the violence, but with even more engaging quest lines and immersion. It is inherently differentiated, remediated, accelerated, and integrated. No additional anything required. The first "realm" is ELAedia with your guide Polychrome Opus. The second is PemD'Ashara with your guide DAS aka Dear Aunt Sally ;). You take on quests to replenish the source light which is being sapped by The Scourge of Ignorance and its many factions. The only way to save Luminaria is to enlighten the Scourge, so they can again feed the Source by their own illumination! You are the hero in this adventure and you find meaning across the realms (er, disciplines).

At no time do you realize you are "learning school stuff." I have vetted every quest with upwards of a thousand middle schoolers and high schoolers to ensure they are all 100% "classroom vibe free" and have no condescending academic tones which cause students to shut down. There are islands as well, which offer adventures (disguising my covert literacy methodology) that cause those who trek the entire island to go back to the mainland reading (or doing math) at grade level. This world is just that: a world of fascination and wonder...of illumination and discovery...of heroes and victory. And in the end, the Luminaries are true educated greats, thinkers that will change the world in the direction of their dreams. 

I look forward to getting some clips of the game to share here so you can see it in action.

The Official Academic Reasoning: 

ELA online content is known for being ridiculously over-complicated. In an effort to meet the call for "rigorous academic standards," education companies have put inane amounts of textual information in such a prosaic container that students are literally just staring blankly at it with a vacant look of ...huh? in their eyes. Not one of my thousands of students could tell me how they related to anything they read. Even an adult would need PhD level metacognitive strategies to digest, retain, recall, much less apply this information. It occurred to me after AML (see case study on Animated Story Arc) that what we need is to be immersed inside the stories and texts we read. Evidence in learning neuroscience backs this. 

The more "neuro-pathways" we can create by relating things to what we already know (Piaget's 'Schema', and later Mintsky related this to AI), the more we can solidify learning and recall it (use it) in varied situations. Knowing all this does not seem to cause ed tech giants to make curriculum any more relatable. The problem is that I cannot tell you where you will find your connections to the learning. Your schema are unique to you. I can guess based on your age, gender, culture, or other demographic factors, but I'll be lucky if I hit 15% of you. So, the answer is: teach people how to find these connections for themselves. Instead of spouting info, we teach people how to learn. It invests them, and makes the learning personal, which in turn makes it easier for them to readily apply. I've been doing this for years, but recent studies have proven it effective and now phrase it as, "teaching metacognitive strategies." 

So, I set out to create a core curriculum for ages 10-16 (covering remediation and novel learning for grades 3-10) that was wholly experiential. Nothing would feel like "school," everything would have to be internalized, metacognitive strategies would have to be built (but organically), and inclusion would be innate. By creating a learning system that becomes a personal journey/adventure/quest, students not only learn but respark their previous "childlike curiosity," and go on to continually see connections in that learning for years to come. This is not a large-scale project, it is a GINORMOUS scale project. 

But it is worth it. Adapting/tweaking/adding to/revising a broken system is not going to work. It never has, and it never will. The odd mix of Covid (online learning being framed as "socially acceptable") and the rapid advent of AI all in the same 5 year period have, thank goodness, turned the education system upside down. This needed to happen. And perhaps that is why what had been sneakily meandering around my neuropathways for years finally found its form and began to take shape. Building on the greats like Jerome Bruner, Charlotte Mason, and John Dewey, I created a discovery-immersive narrative-progressive education hybrid which capitalizes on high-integrity AI and gamification EBPs. It is in the form of an MMORPG, but I sense will soon be adapted to multiple modalities from in-person experiences to VR classrooms and field trips. Maybe by me, maybe by my students!

Our learners deserve to be engaged and invested in their own education--and no matter what the content is, it should be meaningful to them. If we want them to actually learn what we teach, and what they truly need to know, this is the only path forward.