Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College

Abstract

MINDS ON FIRE: HOW ROLE-IMMERSION GAMES TRANSFORM COLLEGE CARNES, M. C. 2014. CAMBRIDGE, MA: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 387 PP. Reviewed by Matthew Fifolt, Ph.D.In Minds on Fire, Mark Carnes, professor of history at Barnard College-Columbia University, suggests that higher education in the United States is not "all wrong" but rather "only half right" (p. 13). The current pedagogical system, characterized by rational, hierarchical, and wellordered structures, often overlooks the equally important aspects of the human experience related to "emotion, mischievous subversion, social engagement, and creative disorder" (p. 13). Carnes suggests that active-learning pedagogies, such as Reacting to the Past and other historical simulations, resonate deeply with students and allow them to lose themselves in the experience (p. 312).For this investigation, Carnes interviewed more than 90 students enrolled at 30 colleges and universities over a four-year period to learn more about the motivational power of role-immersion curricula. Carnes notes that role-immersion courses are designed to promote in-class, interactive engagement. In fact, unlike many of his contemporaries who see online courses as the future of higher education, Carnes envisions role immersion as transforming traditional classroom pedagogies such that students will actually want to come to school (p. 15).Carnes observes that historically, U.S. higher education has struggled to engage undergraduate students in academic pursuits. In fact, recent findings reveal that students continuously demonstrate high levels of academic disengagement (Arum and Roska 2010) and low levels of motivation and interest (Bowen, Chingos and McPherson 2009). Further, faculty members, driven by a system that rewards scholarship over teaching (Bok 2013), continue to finds ways to "free themselves from the ?burden' of undergraduate instruction" (p. 21). Researchers have described this phenomenon as an educational stalemate in which students do as little as possible to receive the highest possible grades while faculty members focus on their research in order to earn promotion and tenure (Arum and Roska 2010, Levine and Dean 2012, Samuels 2013).Consistent with the findings of Cox (2009), Carnes argues, "Colleges underachieve because the predominant modes of instruction are inadequate learning tools" (p. 29). Despite calls for reforming the curriculum to include more active-learning pedagogies (Bok 2013, Johansson and Felten 2014), Carnes identifies three primary obstacles: (a) lack of resources to reward innovative teaching, (b) faculty preference to cling to professional conventions, and (c) student apprehension of active-learning approaches (p. 29). However, Carnes' development of Reacting to the Past, which he describes as "innovation by accident," marked a significant shift in his thinking about classroom teaching and student learning.Frustrated with his own lecture-style class in the mid 199os, Carnes reformatted his seminar for first-year history students to include classroom debates. He noticed that given the latitude to shape the scenarios, students came to embody the personas of historical figures and thus drew other students into the "game." Carnes reflects, "Students grew more comfortable with their assigned roles and philosophical assumptions. They argued with conviction and force. Their [student] papers in support of oral arguments were informed by texts I had not assigned" (p. 34). Students immersed themselves in history. The seeds oi Reacting to the Past had been planted.SUBVERSIVE PLAYFor more than 200 years, college students have created play worlds separate from the formal structures of colleges and universities as a way to subvert "existing social hierarchies and cultural assumptions" (p. 43). Carnes suggests that student behaviors and activities often are driven by competition. And although they may be perceived as antithetical to institutional structures, they are merely thinly veiled actions "behind masks of metaphors, secrecy, and make-believe" (p. …