About Quest2Teach
Quest2Teach (request a guest account) is a series of game-infused curricula and social- professional network designed specifically for teacher education to help bridge between educational theory and its application into the field (handout). Pre-service teachers (university students) and in- service teachers evolve their professional identity in a variety of narrative-based 3D role-playing scenarios, each with a particular theoretical focus, and embedded within a larger experience-based curricula and professional network.
In these immersive worlds, learners create their professional avatar, play out roles, solve authentic problems, fail safely, and see the impact of their individual decisions and trajectories, while gaining experience and fluency in these theories-in-action.
Game meters and other in-game analytics are pulled into their real-world network homepage, reflecting their growth over time and semesters. The network utilizes badges to validate and extend teachers’ digital experiences into their real lives, and unlock new learning trajectories, within a network of supportive colleagues. Having demonstrated expertise in the games, players earn the ability to endorse their colleagues in the network for their meaningful contributions. In this way, game achievements are translated into a social currency that is used to applaud and encourage other players as they reflect, craft, and evolve their impact stories in the real world.
Quest2Teach continues to show strong learning and engagement gains, as well as positive impact on student self-efficacy, professional identity, and fluency in these concepts.
Small ‘g’ Games
Our “Small ‘g’ Games” are each bounded and completable (in 3-4 hours) and what our teachers would call our ‘video games’. The titles and related concepts are listed below:
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- Pursuit of Professionalism
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- Diving into Data
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- On the Write Track
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- Project Based Approaches: At the Core
Big ‘G’ Infrastructures
Our ‘Big ‘G’ Game” is the open-ended infrastructure; a socio-professional network integrating small ‘g’ games into a larger whole, with student driven extensions, teacher smart-tools and modding, affinity spaces, a 3D multi-player hub, and a professional identity that evolves over semesters from in-game analytics, reflections, and real-world experiences. This network also links together multiple teachers colleges for collaboration across campuses and internationally with Q2T sister sites in Ireland, Italy, and Denmark.Quest2Teach was created through a unique collaboration between the Center for Games & Impact, E-line Media, the Sanford Inspire Program, and ASU’s Teachers College. It is currently being used extensively in courses at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and scaling to other US and international campuses.If you are interested in joining the Q2T Consortium, reading more about our research please visit our website www.quest2teach.org or contact the Q2T Director, Dr. Anna Arici for more information. Click here to request guest accounts for Quest2Teach.
About Sasha A. Barab PhD
Sasha Barab is a Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, where he co-founded and serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Games and Impact.
Dr. Barab is an internationally recognized Learning Scientist who holds the Pinnacle West Chair of Education, and who has researched, designed, and published extensively on the challenges and opportunities of using games for impact.
