A screen shot of the role playing game interface.

Editors’ Choice: Occupied Paris, Creating a Virtual Learning Experience with ARIS

Dr. Terri Nelson shares results from student testing of Paris Occupé, a role-playing game she created. Students progressed in linguistic production, complex reasoning and empathy over the course of the game, in which players take on fictional identities of characters living in Nazi-occupied Paris. The combination of historical information learned through the game, as well as more traditional course materials (fiction and nonfiction in a variety of media) plus the personal, emotional engagement with their RPG (role-playing game) character, helps students engage in higher level critical thinking skills and express more nuanced emotional, moral and philosophical stances in French while also developing a more comprehensive and realistic understanding of the complex time period.

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