An Example of the Classroom Flow of Operation LAPIS

I'm always asked what the flow of Operation LAPIS looks like in a typical classroom over a typical few days. Since I was adding a page for the equivalent of the teacher's guide, I figured that I would also post this here. Each episode has two parts (A and B), each mission has 3 episodes, and there are 28 missions across the entire curricula. LAPIS can be used as a stand-alone source or in conjunction with most popular textbook series. The generic example here is in a stand-alone setting.

Operation LAPIS

Day 1 - Start of a new Mission

• Post the new episode (part A) to the TSTT Interface
• Teams collaboratively read through the new immersion
• Students utilize VERBA and GRAMMATICA sections for new words and constructions
• Monitor the teams as they work their way through
• Review the immersion as a group, reviewing any new or unfamiliar constructions
• If necessary, a small amount of direct instruction based on the content GRAMMATICA section
• Hypothesize about potential cultural and historical information needed for the immersion
• Teams read the CULTURALIA section of the CODEX and use the comprehension questions in the ATTUNEMENT section as scaffolding for the immersion response
• Monitor the teams as they read and work on the comprehension questions

Day 1 - Outside of Class

• Teams collaborate on a response by their character in their team-specific areas
• Monitor discussions and intervene as necessary
• Lead Operative posts their character's action in the main TSTT thread
• Respond in-character as other NPCs, or continue telling the story as linking narrative
• Award denariī (if after Mission 3.3)

Day 2 - In class

• Read the in-character responses of each team as a group
• Make minor corrections to Latin that are common mistakes with the intention to not "over do" the correction. Instead of emphatically correcting every small bit, continually model correct usage in order to not interfere or impact the willingness to compose in the target language.
• Excellent opportunity to utilize circling techniques to ask questions about each character's actions in the TL
• KEY-TEXT reading:
• Project the KEY-TEXT on a whiteboard, play accompanying audio file and ask students to listen and follow along
• Each team collaboratively reads the KEY-TEXT for meaning
• Utilize roll-over tooltips and visual walkthrough if needed for new vocabulary or constructions
• Monitor the teams as they read
• Each team then collaboratively responds to the reading comprehension questions in the ATTUNEMENT section
• Monitor the teams as they respond in the TL
• Come back together as a group, review comprehension questions
• Another excellent opportunity for circling techniques to ask additional questions in the TL
• Post the new episode (part B) to the TSTT Interface
• Teams collaboratively read through the new immersion

Day 2 - Outside of Class

• Teams collaborate on a response by their character in their team-specific areas
• Monitor discussions and intervene as necessary
• Lead Operative posts their character's action in the main TSTT thread
• Respond in-character as other NPCs, or continue telling the story as linking narrative to next Episode
• Award denariī (if after Mission 3.3)

Day 3 - In class

• Read the in-character responses of each team as a group
• Make minor corrections to Latin that are common mistakes with the intention to not "over do" the correction. Instead of emphatically correcting every small bit, continually model correct usage in order to not interfere or impact the willingness to compose in the target language.
• Excellent opportunity to utilize circling techniques to ask questions about each character's actions in the TL
• Teams collaboratively work on remaining ATTUNEMENT exercises
• Monitor teams as they work through the exercises
• Teams collaborate on the memoratio for the episode in the TL
• Using memoratio questions in the ATTUNEMENT if needed
• Acts a closure activity for the episode

As you can see, there are plenty of opportunities for composition, speaking, listening, and reading in the target language. Because all of the content is situated inside of the narrative, it also affords a level of cultural competency that tends not to be seen in a traditional textbook driven classroom.

Operation LAPIS: Virtue Trait System

What better way to kick off summer than by sharing a brand new trait system for the Recentiī player-characters in Operation LAPIS? As a little bit of a background, one common suggestion from students was that the player characters didn't quite feel like they were truly in an RPG. We solved this to a small degree last year with the introduction of the denarii rewards and gear system.

Points, traits, and levels are key components of most RPGs -- whether it be a pen and paper table-top game or a popular video game. However, given our insistence that learning objectives map onto play objectives, grafting on a superficial system of strength or charisma points just wouldn't be acceptable. I also wanted to find a way to bring the core Roman values into play in a meaningful way. 

Virtūtēs

Each character now has six different virtues that will not only shape their character in a more dynamic way, but also scaffold additional elements to the role-playing. These virtues will also help scaffold responses on the part of the Agent of the Demiurge (the instructor) when interacting with their students inside of the immersive world of the TSTT. 

Progress bars and rank increases should make the character feel more playful

There are a couple of neat technical features built into the character sheet. First, the progress bars, cost to next rank, and ability bonus based on the current level are all automatically awarded as the trait increases.

Each virtue, if the operatives choose to specialize, has a capstone ability and subsequently grants an additional agnomen to the character. For example, upon reaching rank 10 in 'auctōritās', the character is automatically granted the agnomen 'Aquilīnus', or 'Eagle-like'. From this point forward, he would be known as Gaius Recentius Bellator Aquilinus.

In addition, there is a dropdown menu selector that further describes what the Romans thought about each of these traits. Our hope is that the way the abilities are described, and the added description box, the students will understand that the Roman virtues were primarily based on how others perceived you (which, I think, is a bit different than traits and stats in most modern RPGs).

Puncta Virtūtis

So how do operatives gain points with which to advance their character's traits? This is where a new self-reporting system of 'Virtue Points' comes into play. In order to make a system where choice has meaning, the point system has to be balanced so that it would be incredibly difficult to max out everything. As a result, puncta virtūtis are tied to the entire team's participation in the discussion for each immersion.

If all members of a team contribute in some meaningful way on an episode, the character receives 3 puncta virtūtis. If the lead-operative fulfills his or her duty and posts the response of the character, the team receives an additional bonus of 2 puncta virtūtis. The intention here is to encourage full participation each immersion since so much of the student's success is driven by their engagement with the material. This incentive system, since it is tied in no way to evaluation or assessment, encourages and rewards engagement in an innocuous way. You'll also notice that the character level (gradus) also increases automatically as the trait levels are increased. Again, this is to make the character system feel a bit more playful without compromising the core values of practomimetic learning. 

Like the denarii system, self-reporting and management on the part of the operatives is also a very important aspect of this system since it encourages the type of responsibility for self that we'd like to see in all of our students.

If you'd like to play around with the sheet for Gaius Recentius Bellator, feel free to access a publicly viewable sheet here and make your own copy. However, there are still a few things to clean up and to add before all eight Recentii characters are updated to the new system and ready for the fall. 

Hope you enjoy the new trait system and it makes the characters feel more playful!

On Narrative, Collection, and Re-engagement

Traditionally, this a tough time of year for a certain cross section of my Latin I classes.

Traditionally, this is the point where the complexity of the Latin advances to the point where those skating by, not really understanding what a direct object is, or why it has a different set of endings than a subject, are now underwater.

Traditionally, this is where the extra noun declension sheets, or verb conjugation sheets, run hot off the copier and into their hands in a frantic attempt to prepare for the midterm exam.

Traditionally, this is a point when a small portion, no matter what kind of interventions are in place, fall off completely and check out for the rest of the year.

Tradition isn’t tradition any longer.

One of the powerful affordances of a continuous narrative -- a narrative in which the students have an active role in shaping on a daily basis -- is the opportunity to re-engage at almost every moment. They aren’t reading about some figures whom they have no attachment to but rather they are playing their own characters, characters whom they have a genuine investment in and ones that they genuinely care about.

One of the powerful affordances of working in a permanent social collaborative unit is that on any given night their team is ready to help them get back into the fold and contribute in a meaningful way -- even if they haven’t contributed for the last two weeks. Rather than competing against their classmates, in its place there is a common sense of camaraderie and companionship on their journey of learning Latin and subsequently saving civilization.

One of the powerful affordance of the collection mechanic is that it provides a simple, effective, and straightforward way to focus on small bits of grammar at a time in a way where progress is marked visually not just in their lists but also in their acclimation of Latinity Points for taking part in the grind.

One of the powerful affordances of an easy re-entry is that the student who may have been struggling now has a reason and a way to get back into the game and, more importantly, a way to demonstrate learning and growth that’s real and tangible to them because they can see the immediate effects of their renewed participation and engagement.

One of the powerful affordances of tossing out the old traditions is that you get to rewrite the rules.

Consider the rules rewritten.

Practomimetic Learning in Full View

Presented without comment and unedited (other than removing student names.) This is a single night's worth of engagement from one of my Latin I sections utilizing Operation LAPIS as their only 'text'.

The background for this mission is the student teams-as-their-avatars are attempting to find a scroll hidden in the house of one of their first adversaries, Marcus Maecenas, a fictional grandson of the real Gaius Cilnius Maecenas. Each action that a character takes is discussed in a separate forum by the team before they make the action, and, obviously, the reactions are also discussed.

I apologize if you don't read Latin fluently. You'll have to trust me that the Latin, composed by students only a month in to the course, is pretty darn good.


(2.3.b) 

>Vīlla of Marcus Maecēnās, Pompeiī, 79 CE< 

tū in ātrium intrās. tū larārium dextrā vidēs. larārium est malīgnum. tū quoque lectum geniāle vidēs. ātrium est dēsertum. clāmōrem ē peristyliō in trīclīniō audīs.

Prompt: find the volūmen in vīllā of M. Maecēnās. You are free to explore any area of the house that you wish, but be on the lookout for Marcus and his guards.


Link to the CODEX for 2.3

embedded visual aid for the mission

Team 1: Agricola currit in cubiculo quietly.

TSTT Response: in cubiculō est lectus. tunica et toga in lectō iacent. cista quoque est in cubiculō. cista est clausa. clāvem nōn habēs. aliquid nitidum sub lectō cēlat.

Team 1: Agricola tunicam et togam capit. quoque, Agricola videt sub lecto.

TSTT Response: Agricola nōn potest ambō (both) tunicam et togam capere.

RESOLVE ACTION BEFORE PROCEEDING.

Team 1: Agricola chooses the tunic.

Demiurgic Edit: Agricola tunicam capit.

TSTT Response: Agricola tunicam capit et tunicam in saccō ponit.

Agricola must rest before taking another action.

Team 2: Recentia Octaviana intrat cubiculum et cistam capit.

TSTT Response: cista est gravis (quoque clausa). Octaviana cistam nōn potest capere. ubi est clavis?

Team 1: Agricola quiescit. quoque Agricola ambulat ad tablinum Marci

TSTT Response: Agricola ambulat ad tablīnum sed... ēheu! custōs stat extrā iānuam. Agricola revenit ad ātrium.

Team 3: Priscus ambulat ad tablīnum, et quaerit a key. priscus quaerit rīmam in murō.

TSTT Response: Priscus vīdet Agricolam et ad tablīnum nōn ambulat quod custōs est prope tablīnum.

Team 1: Agricola intrat alia cubiculum.

TSTT Response: in aliō cubiculō est lectus. stola in lectō iacent. aliquid nitidum sub lectō cēlat.

Team 3: Priscus ambulat ad culīam, et capit a sharp knife.

TSTT Response: mēnsa est in mediā culīnā. in mēnsā est cēna optima. ecce! coquus est in sellā. coquus tamen in sellā dormit. prope coquum est mappa ōrnāta. litterae “SP” in mappā sunt. nōn est culter (knife) in culīnā.

Team 4: Recentia Tulliana slowly runs to inanuam ligneus that lead to the cubliculum.

TSTT Response: Tulliāna est in cubiculō cum Agricolā. stola in lectō iacent. aliquid nitidum sub lectō.

Team 1: Agricola videt sub lecto.

TSTT Response: sub lectō est rōbīginōsus gladius!

Team 1: Agricola rōbīginōsum gladium capit.

TSTT Response: Agricola pōnit gladium rōbīginōsum in suō saccō.

Team 4: Recentia Tulliana videt sub lecto

TSTT Response: ēheu! est nihil sub lectō. stola est in lectō! fortasse Tulliana vult (wants) stolam capere?

Team 3: Priscus ambulat ad latrinam, et circumspectat gravis(important) objects.

Team 4: Tuliana capit stolam.

TSTT Response: Tulliāna stolam capit et stolam in saccō pōnit.

TSTT Response: Prīscus ambulat ad lātrīnam. in lātrīnā est multum stercoris. cavum est in mediā lātrīnā. aliquid nitidum prope cavum in lutō cēlat.

Team 4: Tulliana lente et quietly ambulat in desertum hallway ad culinam.

TSTT Response: Tulliāna est in culinā. mēnsa est in mediā culīnā. in mēnsā est cēna optima. ecce! coquus est in sellā. coquus tamen in sellā dormit. prope coquum est mappa ōrnāta. litterae “SP” in mappā sunt.

Team 1: Agricola ambulat lente ad custos in tablinum et inquit, "eheu! sum sordidus! sines ego intro?"

TSTT Response: custōs clāmat, "quid!!! iuvenis in villā? cūr ades? Marcus est iratus quod iuvenis eum vexāt (annoy)."

The custos grabs Agricola's newly found sword before he has a chance to react.

"et meum gladium habēs? fūr! (thief!)" inquit custōs.

Agricola is dragged across the house and thrown out the front door. Thankfully the guard was so distracted with the situation that the rest of the Recentiī went unnoticed and can continue their search for the scroll.

Team 3: Priscus capit nitidum object, et cleans it ad get a closer spectat.

TSTT Response: ecce! Prīscus invenit clāvem in lutō! Prīscus clāvem in saccō pōnit.

Team 2: Recentia Octaviana ambulat ad tablinum (now that the guards are distracted) et intro. Recentia Octavina quearit tablinum.

TSTT Response: The tablīnum is empty of people, but full of papers.

tū in tablīnum intrās. tū mēnsam vidēs in tablīnō. stat mēnsa māgna in tablīnō. in mēnsā est lumen. in mēnsā est tabella. in mēnsā est lapis. in mēnsā est volūmen.

in tablīnō quoque stat mēnsa parva.

TSTT Response: lectus geniālis est in ātriō. lectus est līgneus et imāginem Iūnōnis habet. litterae ‘SP’ in lectō sunt. strāgulum in lectō iacet. aliquid nitidum sub pulvīnō cēlat.

Team 5: Recentia Horatiana quaerit lectus genalis. she looks around in the lectus genalis and looks for the volumen.

Team 5: Recentia Horatiana quaerit sub pulvino

TSTT Response: Horātiāna invenit stolam fulvam sub pulvinō! Horātiāna stolam in saccō suō pōnit.

Team 4: Tulliana capit mappam et in sacco point

TSTT Response: ita vero! Tulliana mappam capit!

Team 3: Priscus ambulat ad cubiculo et aperit cistam clāve (priscus opens chest with key)

TSTT Response: ecce! Prīscus in cistā togam candidam et pallium fulvum invenit! Priscus eōs (them) in suō saccō pōnit.

TSTT Response: The custos turns around when he hears something in viā. This gives Agricola the opportunity to slip back into the vīlla unnoticed.

Team 1: Agricola currit in villa et latet.

Team 2: Recentia Octaviana capit volumen et lapidem

TSTT Response: Recentia Octaviana legit volumen: (link to the volumen). lapidem parvum est modo saxum.

estne volumen verum (true)?

Team 3: Priscus capit togam candidam et pallium fulvum.

Team 5: Recentia Horatiana quaerit lararium

TSTT Response: larārium Marcī est malīgnum et antīquum. statua in larariō est frācta. statua lapidem in manū tenet. statua gladium in aliā manū tenet.

Team 1: Agricola ad ceterus cubiculum ambulat.

TSTT Response: est nihil in certerīs cubiculīs.

Team 1: Agricola ad peristylum currit.

TSTT Response: As Agricola approaches the peristylum, he hears a large commotion coming from tricinlium. Marcus' cena is starting to break up. tempus fugit! Agricola currit ad tablinum cum ceterīs Recentiīs.

Team 4: Tulliana ego aperit ianuam to the tablinium et intrat

Team 2: Recentia Octaviana inquit "volumen est non verum."

Team 5: Recentia Horatiana quaerit rimam in muro

TSTT Response: Recentia Horatiana alium (another) volumen in murō invenit! est volumen verum! (link to the scroll)

omnēs Recentiī currunt ē villā ad Sextum.

Selling the Drama: the First Day of the New Year

We are now three weeks into the start of a terrific school year and I wanted to take just a few moments here to reflect on what day one looked like for my group of new Operation LAPIS recruits (that is, my two new Latin 1 classes.) Each year that I've run LAPIS in my classrooms, the initial presentation has become more straightforward and more "in-character." This year I attempted to stay entirely "in-character" -- as Demiurge Omega, the representative from Project ARKHAIA's Mission Control, for the entire time during the first day of school. It was unbelievably fun and, using the first few weeks as a comparison to the past, it worked incredibly well. Selling the narrative -- the ARG layer which is so important to Operation LAPIS -- is vital, I'm finding, to the initial buy-in of the students.

As the students filed in, I said very little to them. Only the "splash screen" with the Project ARKHAIA logo was projected up on the board. After the bell rang, I moved to the center of the room and begun moving down the list of students, calling them each by their name -- except adding "Recruit" before hand. Recruit Johnny. Recruit Beth. Recruit Cameron. The confused looks that they exchanged with one another was priceless. When roll was called, I began the "initiation process", which included a series of automated computer-terminal-like slides processing the new recruits. It concluded with asking all of the new recruits to rise and swear an oath to Project ARKHAIA. I was shocked to see every student immediately rise and prepare themselves to swear the oath without any delay. So much of the success hinges upon students willing to suspend belief, if only for a moment, and allow themselves to pretend to be recruits on a mission to save civilization as we know it.

With the oath sworn, and another series of automated slides pretending to analyze their responses, I begun discussing some of the more intricate logistics of the Operation. I discussed how we (Project ARKHAIA) have infiltrated Google and customized some of the components to fit our need. A few days later I actually prove this to them when we explore how to easily add macrons (long marks) in a Google Doc -- the "Insert Symbol" menu item has the omega character located next to it. The other major component is, of course, Edmodo, for the collaboration and discussion portion of the Operation.

Since our first day is comprised of shortened periods, it works out perfectly to give them enough information to spark some curiosity without overloading them with the sheer number of various components and aspects to Operation LAPIS or practomimetic courses in general. The key is to scaffold in the components over time, rather than trying to explain everything at once -- something important that I've learned over the last couple of years.

As the clock ticked down, I handed out their New Recruit Startup Guides and explained their first two missions:

1. create a Google Account and initiate contact with the Demiurge -- so that I can set up their first two documents in Google docs
2. create an Edmodo account and greet their new (and permanent year-long) teammates, in the process finding out which character they will be controlling in the immersions

I've never had a 100% success rate with new recruits on the first night. Inevitably there are always a few in each class who either forget or just don't create the accounts. That changed this year. By 8pm, all 46 new recruits had created their accounts and introduced themselves to their teammates -- excited and a little confused about how different this seemed from their other courses. In years past I've also lost a handful of students over the first couple of days who decided that all of this felt too uncomfortable being so different from business as usual in school. Not only did I not lose any students, I actually gained a couple whose friends convinced them that this was the class to take (although that means that they broke the secrecy instructions...but I think I'm ok with that.)

What I'm continuing to find is that the more the students see me "buying in" to the narrative (that is, not breaking from character as much as possible), the more that they will continue to do so. The role that the teacher plays in a practomimetic course is much different than that of one in a traditional classroom and that perception shift (from a student's perspective) needs to happen, and continue to happen, starting with day 1. When they see me as a facilitator and guide (sent from Mission Control), rather than an instructor, their attitude and approach to the activities shifts in a positive direction -- something that the 100% success rate indicates. Even as I'm writing this now, after three weeks, I still see nearly 100% participation each night on the new immersion episodes. This, frankly, is uncharted territory based on past experiences. Selling the ARG narrative in a way that I haven't before, I believe, was vital to making this happen.

What We've Been Up To...

When Google Wave shut down earlier this year, I spent some time combing through a lot of our oldest waves deciding what, if anything, was necessary to pull out and save. Looking back at where this journey started in 2009 and where we are now, just one single word sums it all up; wow. In that light, I want to take just a few minutes today and share just what we have been up to this summer with improvements to the core experience of Operation LAPIS.

1. KEY-TEXTs gain audio:

One of the great affordances of moving to a completely digital format over the traditional print book is the ability to add audio and video. The KEY-TEXTs serve as important opportunities to work on reading skills and to learn more about the topics inside of the role-playing immersions. Each one now has an accompanying audio file embedded right into the text to allow the learner to hear the words as they read them.

Here’s one of my favorites: link to KEY-TEXT 4.3

2. VERBA and NAV get overhauled:

Thanks to some unbelievable power packed into Google Fusion Tables, both the VERBA and NAV sections of the CODEX were rebuilt from the ground up, allowing for more information to be packed into the databases. We’ve spent a great deal of time correlating all of the vocabulary entries throughout the immersions, ensuring that each word is glossed three times before that scaffolding is taken away. The dynamic tables generated for each CODEX entry is sortable so that the student can change the view to something that works best for them.

Sorted by part of speech

The NAV sections gained a dynamic map that increases in points of interest as the operatives make their way through the narrative. Points are color-coded based on their status and also provide information such as visuals and links to additional resources.

3. Gear overhauled as scaffolding for composition:

As I’ve mentioned in earlier entries, gear has a whole new look and function within Operation LAPIS. Now the students will have additional Latin composition scaffolding when telling the story of their Recentiī inside of the narrative. Read more about the gear here and here.

4. ATTUNEMENT exercises re-imagined:

Thanks in large part to the unbelievable work of Mark Pearsall this summer, we’re really excited for what these exercises have become. Instead of feeling “tacked on”, or just something extra, beginning with the very first episode, these revised ATTUNEMENT exercises are an integral part to the immersions and scaffolding student composition. Here is just a small sample of one of these new exercises.

5. Edmodo is now the default for communication and collaboration:

Edmodo is quickly becoming a major player in the education scene and it is easy to understand why. Their interface, which takes a page from popular social networking sites, is intuitive for teachers and students alike. They are committed to keeping their platform free to use and have started to build a curated app store which operates within their platform. We’re happy to have Edmodo as the suggested platform of choice for instructors utilizing Operation LAPIS in the fall because it’ll provide a better experience than anything we could have built on our own. Plus, by partnering with Edmodo, we’ve been able to spend more time on the materials themselves, rather than worrying about the delivery.

Edmodo is intuitive and feature-packed

6. There’s an app for that...

Speaking of Edmodo’s App store, perhaps the biggest improvement to the overall usability of Operation LAPIS comes in the form of an app about to go live in Edmodo’s App store. This app, which contains all of the immersion episodes for Operation LAPIS, will provide an incredibly easy to use interface for instructors. This will allow them to publish effortlessly new immersions for their operatives to explore. Anyone who has used LAPIS in the past year will immediately appreciate the point-and-click interface as opposed to manually cutting and pasting text and attaching links and pictures from a Google doc. The app will also launch inside of Edmodo’s iPad app as well.

As you can see, it has been a busy (and productive) summer. There are a countless number of other enhancement, tweaks, and overall improvements that continue to make Operation LAPIS something all of us are immensely proud of. Given what has changed since August 2011, I can’t wait to see what August 2013 brings.

On Researching the Economy of Operation LAPIS

As noted in the previous entry on gear, the Recentius-teams in Operation LAPIS earn an in-game currency, dēnāriī, to spend on items for their character. For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of economics in ancient Rome, the dēnārius was one type of silver coin minted throughout most of the Republic and well into the Empire. As we continued to flesh out the gear mechanic and the per-mission rewards of dēnāriī, we wanted to ensure that the relative values of rewards and items would be accurate for the 1st century CE while at the same time creating a compelling game mechanic. Here's how we arrived at the suggested rewards and the cost of items in-game:

From historical records, the average salary for a Roman soldier at the time of Augustus was approximately 225 dēnāriī.

Beginning with mission 4 (when the Recentius-teams begin earning end-of mission rewards), the teams have 66 episodes remaining in the year. Based on how well they role-play their character, the teams earn anywhere from 1-5 dēnāriī per episode. If you reward an 'average' response with 3 dēnāriī, and then take into account the 20 dēnāriī they receive as a start at the end of Episode 3.3, then the Recentius-teams will earn approximately 220 dēnāriī over the year. That's pretty close to the average salary at that time and, just like in the Roman army, there are still plenty of ways by which to earn bonuses.

Now here is the tricky part -- figuring out how to value the items which the Recentius-teams can purchase. We had to compromise on the items from the fabrī (the metal-smiths) and skirt historical accuracy in order to have a viable game mechanic. Ordinarily, items like the gladius (Roman short sword), the lorica (armour), or even the scutum (shield) would be unavailable to purchase in the forum. This standardized equipment was produced exclusively in the military camps, beginning with Marius' military reforms. While the Roman government provided access to the standardized gear, they didn't pay for the gear. Each Roman soldier had to deduct approximately 50-60 dēnāriī from their yearly salary for their equipment. This provided a rough guide for setting the prices of, say, the lorica, at approximate 20 dēnāriī.

Other items, however, provided to be even more difficult to figure out. Using the only reliable guide for prices, the Diocletian Price Edict of 301 CE, the salary for a Roman soldier had risen (on account of severe inflation) to a base of 1800 dēnāriī. If we assume (although problematic for a variety of reasons) that the standard of living for a soldier based on that pay was the same, then we're looking at an approximate inflation rate of 9:1 from the 1st Century CE, the time in which our adventure takes place.

Using 9:1 as the guide, we find a variety of items listed on the edict. For example, the maximum cost for a soldier's winter tunic was 75 dēnāriī, or approximately 8 dēnāriī in 81 CE. Soldier's boots, on the other hand, were 100 dēnāriī and fancier patrician shoes were 150 dēnāriī (or approximately 11 and 17 dēnāriī respectively.) This allowed us to set relative prices for the remaining items in order to create a viable and authentic economy for goods that would continue to map learning objectives on to the play objectives for the students while still maintaining a traditional RPG feel for the gear progression.

Gear as Progression

Damnit Jim, I'm a classicist, not a graphic designer

One of the newer mechanics that we’ve added as a part of Operation LAPIS is the idea of gear as another scaffolding tool for composition of Latin. Originally, much like the first iteration of CARDs, gear in LAPIS was nothing more than cheap gamification via google spreadsheets disguised as ‘paper doll’ character sheets. The aim of the gear was to get the students involved in their character more and also to find ways to use the gear inside of the immersions. Without the proper scaffolding, this never actually worked the way that it was intended to. To make matters worse, the gear had really lame icons.

I did want to preserve the existing mechanic of in-game currency (denariī) and the current marketplace (the forum) because I think that both of them are sound. The characters (teams of students) earn denariī at the end of every mission based on how well they prepare their responses in terms of their unique world-view, their elaboration, detail, and a number of other criteria. The in-game denariī has no impact on measuring their individual (student) performance nor is it tied to any grade or formal evaluation.

In addition, the mechanic through which they purchase the gear is more involved than simply walking into a shop in a standard video game. The teams are required to “tell the story” of their trip to the forum, their purchase, and interaction with the merchant -- all, again, making their character come alive and provides more opportunities for practice with things like, say, the dative. Horātiāna fabrī pecūniam dat (Horatiana gives the money to the artisan.)

What has changed (aside from a visual improvement) is the way in which they interact with their gear. Borrowing the manner in which Roger has used gear with some of his other classes, we decided to provide an ability with each piece of gear, noted on their character sheet next to the item in their inventory. The teams would be required to use the preconstructed bit of Latin in order to activate the ability. This small piece of Latin becomes an accessible entry point for the teams to start using more Latin in their responses. In other words, the students can gain confidence in using some (correct) stock phrases in order to start taking risks with more of their own original compositions.

A small inscription reads "quī tenet hunc gladium potest terrēre inimīcōs dīcēns 'audāx sum'. (He who holds this gladius is able to frighten enemies saying ‘I am courageous!")

As the teams gain additional pieces of gear, more options will open up for them to perform actions, making their characters feel even more ‘alive’ in the immersions. The advanced pieces also act as tiers of progression since they will require more advanced constructions as well as the students proceed through the game-as-a-course.

What better way to get comfortable with, say, the ablative of instrument, than by actually using an item in the story of your learning?

Latinity Points (XP) as a Replacement for Grades, Part 4

In the previous three parts of this exercise, I laid out the criteria required in order to evaluate without grading, explained how Latinity Points are utilized as a part of Operation LAPIS, and then provided a full discussion and response from a group of three students. In this final part my aim is to elaborate on what the end of that process looks like, specifically when it comes time to assign a traditional grade in a very non-traditional classroom. As a reminder from the first post, the following were the four criteria that I argued had to be a part of this system.

1. Continuous embedded formative assessment of progress
2. A record system with meaningful feedback towards meeting learning objectives
3. A record of all student work
4. Student agency in the evaluation process

1) Continuous embedded formative assessment: Every component of Operation LAPIS is designed with this at the core. There are no superfluous mechanics or deliberately gamified elements for cheap extrinsic motivation. Every episode requires the students-as-operatives not only to read and comprehend Latin but also to apply relevant cultural and historical information through both guided and independent research. Every episode also requires them to collaborate with their teammates to roleplay their character’s actions through a particular world-view. As built in differentiation, students can be challenged to build their responses in original Latin composition as well -- which many of them attempt at least in some small part. Simply put, every element requires them to actively draw on skills they’ve gained while applying new skills and knowledge.

2) A record system with meaningful feedback: All of their LPs are awarded through a shared (between myself and the student) document known as the Operative Dossier. Once we start to get into a grove at the start of the year, the students understand that an LP award in the 260s or higher is on the right track, while something around 200s means that more work is needed. Included in each dossier is a ‘Transmission from Mission Control’ which can provide direct feedback in a way that doesn’t break from the immersion of the ‘students-as-operatives’. Since all operatives have access to the rubric, specific attention can be drawn to parts of their contributions that did not meet expectations.

3) A record of all student work: This is the easy part, thanks to Google Docs and Edmodo as the platform of choice for collaboration and discussion. All student work in Google Docs is shared between myself and the student. At any point, through the commenting feature in Google Docs, I’m able to provide specific and detailed feedback. Since LPs are deliberately not a masked grading system, operatives can choose to respond to the feedback, fix errors, and gain more LPs for revising their work.

All team discussion happens in secure sub-groups on the Edmodo platform. If there is every a question from a parent (or from a student), it takes almost no time to call up a record of the student’s contributions to reflect on how they are (or aren’t) meeting the criteria spelled out on the rubric. This record of work is also important as teams will often recall information from the past immersions as being useful for the current -- scrolling down their team discussions quickly gives them access to that material in a way that a test or quiz shoved into a binder, or the nebulous black hole known as a backpack, simply cannot.

Now for the fun part.

4) Student agency in the evaluation process: When it comes time to report grades at the prescribed four times per year, I ask all of my students to first submit a self-reflection piece. I ask them to evaluate their strengths, their weaknesses, mention one or two episodes that they felt they did a fantastic job contributing to, and also to mention one or two episodes where they think they could have provided more to the team discussion. In addition, we take a look at the current LP totals and I give them an intentionally wide range of values for letter grades (intentional overlap, as well). Ideally, I’d sit down with each student individually and have a face-to-face discussion, but with 25+ students in each classroom, logistically it would be too difficult to accomplish as a part of a standard high school schedule. Instead I require the students to email me their response, which, in of itself, hits on some of the secondary learning objectives of written communication, etc. At the end of their self-reflection, they assign themselves a grade which they think they are deserving of. The wonderful thing about this endeavor is that almost always they hold themselves to tougher standards than I and, in my reply, I get to “talk them up” a bit.

Do I get the occasional student that says, “Sweet? I get to assign myself a grade? I get an A!”? Absolutely. However, with the continuous embedded formative assessment, feedback through carefully constructed mechanic, and an accessible record system, it then because a teachable moment when they are asked to demonstrate in what ways they met the learning objectives to warrant that ‘A’.

Latinity Points (XP) as a Replacement for Grades, Part 3

Continuing from Part 2, here is a complete transcript from one of the teams engaged in a recent mission. 

The quick synopsis: the Recentiī were thrust back into a historical training mission. This time, they were on the deck of Duilius' flagship just prior to the important Battle of Mylae during the First Punic War. Remember, Rome had just lost a number (read: every) major naval battle since the outbreak of war, including most recently at the Lipari Islands where Scipio Asina was captured by the Carthaginian fleet. 

Duilius, feeling a bit uneasy (and rightfully so), required a little pep talk despite the tactical advantage he was about the unveil -- the corvus. At the moment the Recentiī encounter him, Duilius is questioning the advice given to him by the Corneliī and the Claudiī about the nature of the patrician class, the plebeians, and how to manipulate power in Rome. My commentary will follow the full transcript:

Student 1- so i was thinking that we need to find another was to glorify Rome without tricking the plebs...wait -_- thats what the paragraph says..

Student 1 - hmmm it turns out that the same fate that happened to Appius Caudex and Scipio Asinus happened to Duilius...he was given control during the war, but after that he "never held another office of high command" i wonder why? i mean he seems like a nice enough guy...not one to be a "donkey".

Student 2 - Maybe in these men's cases, the plebs caught on to what the two patricians had done and scorned them for the rest of their political careers choosing instead to support other figures?

Student 2 - Oooh, I bet Student 3 and I can relate this to some recent thing we learned in History class. Machiavelli, a Renaissance writer, produced The Prince which highlighted what he thought were the necessary qualities to a successful leader. It included things as being deceptive, any immoral means as long as it accomplishes the desired end results. That's what Cornelii and Claudii had advocated and currently, Asinus is trying to convince Dulius to do.

Student 2 - So correlating to our need to suggest some guidelines which Dulius should follow in order to achieve victory and fame, we can give him tips which he should not do.
Such as:
1.) Being impatient ( Eager to secure such an important port and to cover himself with glory, Scipio rushed to the Lipari islands without considering security.)

2.) Rallying up his men, which luckily enough, Dulius is planned on doing though he has no idea how... (The crews panicked and escaped to land, leaving the ships unattended and Scipio Asina to be made prisoner by the Carthaginians).

Student 2 - Oh, I didn't know who you were referring to when you said he never held another office of high command. Disregard my post below yours. Or.. I can just delete it. :D  

Student 3 - Exactly Student 2! That's what I was thinking. They thought it was better to be feared than loved. Maybe we should just tell Dulius to do what he knows is considered to be "lofty". (5 points for english vocab :D)  

Student 2 - @Student 1 That is a good point though, it's ironic. "Neither the humiliation, nor that Scipio Asina was the first Roman admiral to lose a battle, ended his career; in 254 BC, Scipio Asina was elected consul for the second time"  

Student 3 - It's almost as if the defeat ruined his career......sounds like they don't like failure....

Student 2 - Maybe to preserve the kind of honor and respect he received (which does come by every day), Dulius secured his position by eliminating any possibility of him being humiliated by loss or failure.

Student 2 - Or as part of his plan to be "good cop" and not "bad cop" like Asinus wanted, he just played modest.

Student 3 - We could also tell him not to expect too much but just treat it as a normal battle. Stress often brings effort and quality down....  

Student 2 - What gens is Dulius? Will that offer us to some insight as to what he was brought up to support?

Student 1 - I need to correct my last statement...i wasnt talking about Scipio Asinus or Appius Caudex...I mean that Duilius suffered the same fate as them  

Student 2 - "Not much is known about his family background or early career, since he was a novus homo, meaning not belonging to a traditional family of Roman aristocrats".

Student 1 - so at least he raised his own rank..he relates to the plebs

Student 3 - Ok, so basically we're just telling him good luck lol.  

Student 2 - That means Dulius is not naturally inclined to exploit the plebs or Roman population as easily as the patricians would've. Why should we mold him in their face? We should let him be, it seems as though that's what he had done in historical context, be honest with his fleet.  

Student 2 - After all, he did win the title of Censor. "The censor was an officer in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances."  

Student 2 - Emphasis on PUBLIC MORALITY.

Student 3 -Oh wow then good. Looks like we got a plan :D  

Student 2 - So are we agreed on this, Dulius should abandon and trash all of the notions, talking of Patricians and influencing the population selfishly, delivered to him by Asinus?

So what was the end result? After their discussion on Edmodo, the crew headed over to Google Docs and collaboratively hashed out their response for the evening. Looking back on the revision history, it is easy to see that it was a fairly balanced effort by all three members, especially the Latin composition passage. I present it, unedited, below:

Horatiana pats the back of a troubled friend in need, linked by mutual suffering. She too knew only too well the stress and pressure of being expected to live up to something practically unattainable. Left unattended, this problem can be crushing when the expectation is not met or properly challenged; casting a lifelong burden. Especially when one more loss could spell out the untimely end of the Roman civilization, the pressure is unbearable upon the shoulders of one man. She wished with her heart and soul to dispel the fear radiating from this man.
 

Horatiana ad vultum Duilii spectat. ille sudabat et tremebat valde! illa debet cogitare celeriter aut omnis spes est perdita. scivit Appium Caudem et Scipium Asinum luserant populum. Et illi facerunt id solummodo sibi. Duilius non debet agere illud si vult populum amare eum. Est optimum acquiere fides classum. Bonus imperator, sicut tu, non requirat potentiam Lapidis. Scipio habuit lapidem et ille erat captivus. Classes faciunt imperatorum potentiam.

Horatiana, in the last fleeting minutes before approaching the islands, drills Dulius in the makings of a fine leader. The patience, the strategy, bravery, modesty, listening skills, the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the bigger picture, and most of all, to act as an extension of the navy itself, amplifying its strengths many times. Speak from your heart in all honesty to your men. You do not need deception to get them to fall in line. Fear only works to an extent. No, what you need is compassion. If you speak with true decency, then why will there be any doubt the men will not show the same love you have for Rome? You need not to worry about your men, but instead how you can guide them with virtue because only then will they live up to your standards. Or slave away as one of the patricians' mindless puppets. That's what the Claudii and Cornelii probably had in store for you. But deep down, you had always doubted their methods. You're a novus homo, for goodness' sake.

Already I'm crossing over to TL:DR territory so I'll keep my commentary short. We have a standard response rubric located at this link. I'll focus on Student 2 for assessing how well they did meeting the learning objectives.

Remember, this was a single night's worth of work and they received no grade on it in the traditional sense. Student 2 receive 292 LPs for their work on this immersion prompt. Contributions such as Student 2's are the easiest the award points for -- I think most readers will agree this student exceeded standards for a Latin I class for Expression of Ideas, Elaboration, Cultural Competence, Risk Taking, and also the two Latin composition categories, Grammar and Vocabulary. I especially liked this student's ability to connect to what they were learning in their history class about Machiavelli and his views on how a leader should operate. Student 2 was respectful and helpful towards the other team members and it is clear that all members benefited greatly from the social and collaborative setting.

The collaborative setting also allows an opportunity for different members to showcase their talents in different ways -- Student 2, for example, excels at research and pulling out relevant information and distilling that for the team. Another student has a knack for elaborating the role-playing for their Recentia, Horatiana, and the third does very well with fine tuning the grammar in their compositions.

Again, I want to stress that all of this work (and it is substantial) is done with almost no expectation of extrinsic rewards. These students (and many of their classmates) are taking part in exploring these missions at great lengths purely for the learning that comes out of doing so. In the final installment, I'll spend some time reflecting about how I leverage Latinity Points as a launching point for a discussion about evaluation -- not the basis for evaluation -- when it comes time to report formal grades for marking periods.

The Computer as a Barrier

We finally got the school year underway this past week after a delayed start due to Hurricane Irene ravaging New England. Last year at this time I was just embarking on an amazing journey known as Operation LAPIS in one of my Latin I sections and I spent a great deal of time in that first week posting my thoughts here (you can find the links on the right.) With the new year starting, and the plan to go “all in” with practomimetic learning across all of my Latin courses (both Latin Is and a Latin II), I was eager and excited to get the year going.

Unfortunately for me, I found out on the first day back that the level of tech integration that I had last year was actually going to be worse this year. Our building (one of many on a campus that serves 2500+ high school students) traded a single mobile laptop cart of 30 computers for a stationary lab of 26 desktops -- only 23 of which were actually working on day one. Our building houses almost all of the world language classes and about half of the science classrooms in addition to special education and a sprinkling of history classes. In all, there are between thirty and forty classrooms in the building alone and yes, you read that correctly, one physical lab of 26 desktop computers is what is available to those classes. In 2011.

While I don’t want to spend time talking about the logistics of that set up, and the need for a real push for better access in our school, I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about the new lab and why it is actually a terrible space for learning to occur.

In my classroom last year, with the mobile laptop cart, I was able to group the students into their year-long teams for LAPIS on day 2. They had their laptops in front of them and they were sitting face to face with their teammates, interacting in both real space and the virtual one. The first night last year, and the first night this year, were identical: the operatives rushed home to create their Google accounts, register with the TSTT and post welcome messages to their new teammates in their team forum.

Here’s what I wrote about the class when they came in for day two:

I saw the non-LAPIS class first and it was a fairly standard experience: they file in and sit in silence before the class starts, it is still a struggle to get them to open up to myself, to their classmates, to volunteer, to answer questions or contribute. Nothing new or nothing surprising there. Usually by the third week they start to come around and by the end of September we’re really in full stride with the atmosphere that carries through the rest of the year. The LAPIS class, on the other hand, which came in directly after the non-LAPIS was an entirely different story. They came in chatting to one another and immediately started talking with their teammates. The dynamics for the rest of the class stayed at that elevated level. While doing activities, a far greater number of hands shot up to volunteer, they more readily engaged in discussion back and forth about topics. They responded to comments made by fellow classmates. They more actively engaged with me. To say there was a stark difference between the two classes after just one day would be a gross understatement. There is absolutely no question in my mind that this came as a direct result of the relationships that they began to forge online the night before in the Team Forums.

This year, during the whole first week, the new recruits in Operation LAPIS couldn’t remember who was on their team, nor pick them out of a crowd. In fact, there was almost no socializing among the students. They looked very much students in the first week of a traditional classroom setting. I might even wager to say that they were even worse. How could the same process (creating accounts, registering, posting, etc) produce such different results?

Turns out I was actually a little bit wrong in my analysis then. It wasn’t only the fact that they were communicating in their team forums the night before -- although, it certainly had a big impact. Comparing notes from last year to this year I’ve found out that there’s another variable that has a huge impact; the traditional computer lab.

The new computer lab is laid out in, what I would consider, a terrible fashion for any kind of community learning or even learning in general. There are computers along the back wall (the student backs are turned around from the IWB in the front of the room), and on the sides there are a couple short rows of 2-3 computers, face to face. This means that some of those students, too, are facing away from the visuals on the IWB. Because the towers are on the tables, along with the computer monitors, the students cannot physically see the students sitting across from them, making communication across the table virtually impossible. There are also only 26 stations -- most of our classes are now getting dangerously close to 30 (both of my Latin I sections are now at 28).

The traditional computer lab and the computers in it, in this case, is actually a barrier to the kinds of social and collaborative learning that we’re hoping to foster with our style of game-based learning. Heck, the kinds of learning any classroom should be trying to foster. Even the returning Senior Operatives (my Latin II class) already mentioned that they really dislike the lab and want to return to our old classroom with the laptops. The computer lab is a relic of the past; something that has no place in a modern educational setting. With as many different kinds of internet enabled devices out there, and the prevalence of wireless infrastructures in other parts of the “real world”, any place, any where, can become a computer “lab”. The computer shouldn’t be the focus, the main attraction, like it is in the traditional lab. The device should just be one of many tools at the learner’s disposal.

Iteration of the CARDs

This post was originally published on July 21, 2011 at Play the Past:

A few months ago here at Play the Past, I wrote about the collection mechanic that’s a large part of the grammatical instruction in Operation LAPIS. The rewards for completing categories in that collection mechanic were those wonderful CARDs (digital only) that would then appear in their personal dossiers. From a certain point of view, these CARDs were nothing more than glorified badges and achievements -- examples of the dreaded gamification.

I’m here today to tell you that those versions of the CARDs as rewards for a grind were indeed a failure. I’m not really surprised that they were a failure, much as I tried to convince myself that they would work. On the other hand, the collection mechanic itself, rooted in the “Pokemon Thing,” was not a failure. The students that bought into the collection mechanic demonstrated a higher level of proficiency in the finer points of Latin grammar that I’ve seen most Latin I students demonstrate in the past.

So what was the problem? It’s actually quite simple. Why does the collection mechanic in Pokemon work as well as it does? The players get to do something with their Pokemon. They are collecting them from the wild in order to raise them, train them and battle them. We needed to figure out how to turn those CARD rewards into something that could be used, preferably something that also tied into the learning objectives for the course. You know, that whole 1:1 game rules:learning objective thing.


When we first started down the road of development with the CARD idea, we wanted there to be a physical game tied to them--that is, an imaginary-yet-real purpose to collect the CARDs. We looked at a lot of different models and were first intrigued by ways we might incorporate some form of the mechanics of Top Trumps -- namely, head-to-head battles between players that really go back all the way to the playing-card-game War. However, Top Trumps’ number-value mechanics don’t particularly align with any learning objectives for the course (it might be helpful for students to remember that Cicero was a better public speaker than Octavian, but assigning Cicero a 10 and Octavian an 8 actually seemed to us to cut against possible learning).

We also were particularly interested in ways that we might apply some of the mechanics from discussion games like Apples to Apples. Also, tor the classically-uninitiaed, there is also a serious (and seriously, nay wildly, popular) college-bowl-esque trivia contest in the classics sphere known as certamen. We also wanted to incorporate the high level of knowledge that participants in certamen have about all aspects of ancient history and culture in the new iteration of the CARDs.


Unfortunately we kept hitting the same brick wall over and over again: if you remove the straight numbers battles of something like Magic: the Gathering or Top Trumps, how do you determine a winner? Finally, at Games+Learning+Society 7.0 in June we saw the solution laid out before us: one of the mechanics of Eric Zimmerman’s (along with Local No. 12) renowned-in-the-game-community Metagame.

Metagame revolves around intelligent discussions about video games. From my perspective, the key mechanic in the Metagame ruleset is that any appointed bystander can function as a judge who decides the winner of the debate. This mechanic, I think, has a lot of implications for education.

On the CARD redesign

Decompressing after GLS, I sat down and laid out what would be the rules for what we now call CARD-tamen™ and the tie-in to the collection mechanic of Operation LAPIS. Also realizing that the original CARDs (while cool-looking) were obvious knock-offs of Magic: the Gathering, we also decided on a complete redesign centered around a Roman-themed deck with four categories of CARDs: historical people, significant ancient structures, places of renown, and Roman divinities.

We wanted to keep the overall feel of the CARDs the same but we needed a stylistic change that would allow us to be free of any litigation with Wizards of the Coast. The new designs, both in terms of content and style, are a beautiful representation of Roman culture in the form of a deck of cards.

Original Pompeiī CARD (left) and the new CARD (right)

On the rules of CARD-tamen™

The idea of CARD-tamen™ is simple: a roll of a d20 decides which of the twenty controversies the players will have to debate and then each participant, after selecting a CARD from their deck, has two minutes to prove to the iudex that their CARD is the more compelling answer to the controversy. The controversies range from declarations such as “More significant to world history” to “Greater contribution to the development of public speaking” to even “Inspired more significant stories.” (Students of Roman culture may recall that not-dissimilar controversiae formed an essential part of the education of young men destined for public life.)



In order to make their declamations better, players will go to resources beginning with Wikipedia and ending with scholarly articles on JSTOR to research more about their CARDs before playing their next game. In the very first round of play-testing with students, it took only minutes for one of them to take out a phone and look up some quick facts on Cicero. It took only a nano-second more for one of the other students to claim “Hey, that’s cheating!” to which the first student replied, “How? I’m using a resource to make my speech better.” When I heard about that exchange, I couldn’t have been happier: that’s precisely the effect that we wanted the CARDs to have. We’ve put just enough information on them to create a need to find out more.

But it’s the presence of what we call the iudex-mechanic, with its powerful effect of drawing in the bystanders to the activity, that makes the game matter, finally. Much research in educational psychology supports the notion that one of the most effective methods of helping students learn is fostering peer interaction. We hope that the iudex’s active role in deciding the winner will cause him or her, too, to feel the need to become more knowledgeable in the content covered by the 63 cards. In addition, anyone else observing the game will of course also hear the declamations made by each participant and gain knowledge of the topics.

The rules of CARD-tamen™ require the participant to talk intelligently about various aspects of Roman history and culture. That play objective also happens to be one of the learning objectives for an introductory Latin course or even a much more general course about civilization or history. The rules of the game foster the learning, rather than trying to transmit the content like so much chocolate on the broccoli of Roman culture.

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We just launched a Kickstarter campaign for CARD-tamen™ and would love the support from anyone interested in quality educational games or Classical studies. A preview of the 63 card deck (offered as one of the rewards for contributions) is located on the Kickstarter page:

Reflections, Part 2

Quality, and meaningful, feedback is something that is paramount to the success of Operation LAPIS and of practomimetic learning in general. However, I noticed a very interesting trend in how each of the two sections felt about the feedback that they received. Their responses in the end of the year surveys couldn't be any more different. On the one hand, the original LAPIS group felt that the feedback given to them was exceptional, especially when it came to interaction at night in the team discussion forums. On the other hand, the partial year class felt that the feedback they received was significantly insufficient.

Obviously, I was quite puzzled (and a bit taken aback) by the comments of the newer group -- especially since I read through that batch first. However, reading the comments from the original group made me realize something very important about this whole process, especially the feedback portion.

For the original group, all they've known throughout the entire year were the interactions in their team forums between them and myself, comments left in their dossiers, and feedback left on the occasional attunement challenges. Also, they recognized the value in the conversations that I had with their teams in person each class as they were working on any given task.

However, for the newer group, they began the year in a traditional Latin class, with traditional instruction -- including frequent quizzes and tests. They've also spent the year in their other core classes, receiving similar instructional methods. For almost every student not involved in a practomimetic course, their idea of "feedback" is a letter at the top of the page. When those letters disappeared for the newer group, they believed that they stopped receiving feedback altogether. The only "feedback" the ever receive, anywhere, is a letter on the top of the page. Because of how used to the traditional system they had become, they were unable to make the connection that not only were they receiving feedback, they were receiving feedback in a substantially more meaningful way.

So why did that happen? How come they weren't able to see the value in the shift of how I was interacting with them nightly?

The answer, I think, falls back to the narrative. One of the sections that I skipped in order to fit into the condensed schedule was a whole series of missions that took place in Britain. Included in those missions is a fantastically constructed series of episodes that force them to think about a lot of the metacognitive issues at play with practomimetic learning and it's connection with Plato's Allegory of the Cave. When the original class went through these exercises, it was one of the most rewarding consecutive days of teaching in my career. The self-discovery about their own learning and school in general was incredible to watch unfold as they put all the pieces together.

The rift between the two sections in terms of their perception of how feedback was handled was precisely because the newer group just wasn't exposed to the metacognitive process that the original group went through. Again, this misstep on my part fortunately exposed something incredible about Sinistrus' strange farm: that part of the narrative, like seemingly everything before and after, is vital to the complete package. Practomimetic learning is as much about learning how to learn as it is about the content area itself.

Reflections, Part 1

The first full year run of Operation LAPIS is in the books. The final mission was finished on Monday. The exam was completed yesterday. I've learned a great deal over the past academic year and in a series of posts, I plan to reflect upon and share some of the anecdotal pieces of evidence on just how powerful practomimetic learning can be. Next week we'll be traveling to Madison, Wisconsin to the Games, Learning and Society Conference and I'm very excited to share LAPIS with a wider game-based learning audience.

So where to begin?

Originally I started the year teaching one section of Latin I that was presented in the traditional format while the other section came in on the first day to find out they were tasked with saving western civilization as we know it. As the year went on and the other section caught wind of what their peers were up to, eventually I had to cave and in the middle of March, I brought the other group into the fold; albeit on the fast track through the missions and the storyline. This proved to be a fortunate decision because the newer group proved to me something that I had long thought would be true -- the full narrative is indeed vital for thorough and meaningful fulfillment of the learning objectives.

While the newer group was clearly impacted positively in terms of engagement with the material, because they were on such a fast track, they just didn't have the deeper understand or connection with the material as the original full-year LAPIS group. This became most evident on their prompt responses for the final mission. After reading and translating a passage of decent length, the students (as part of their final assessment) had to do what they've done all year: respond to the immersion prompt, taking into account the world-view of their character. The only difference was this one was a solo mission.

Over the past few weeks, as I noted in previous posts, they were researching and giving speechs as part of the trials to gain access to the headquarters of the Societās Potentium. All of those speeches were intentionally laying the foundation for them to understand the collapse of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the Principate under Augustus. They did a great job at understanding how the Gracchi led to Marius which lead to Caesar... but could they tie it all together for Antony and Octavian?

The answer was that in a timed exam, under pressure, the results were very mixed. But at the very least they could demonstrate their awareness of how Octavian fit into the big picture. However, I do want to show an example of one of the best responses from the newer LAPIS group (the third of the year group) and the original full year group.

Example from the newer group:

If I could align myself with either Octavian or Anthony I would align with neither of them. Octavian although a great leader, used his power to persuade the Roman senators into a fight that didn’t nessasarily need to occur. When he wanted to start the war, he made sure to persuade the senators to declare war, so it was official and couldn’t be argued against. He started the conflict that would end the lives of both Anthony and Cleopatra. Because my Recentius’s view is very political, Octavian persuading the senators to start this war seems very harsh and it almost seems as though he wanted a war for no reason, but turned the senators against Anthony. Now Anthony on the other hand isn’t perfect either. He left Rome to be with Cleopatra and told her he would give her land that the Romans owned. This is completely going against the idea that he wanted to help Rome at all. I think that him making a decision like this was a good reason for the Romans to be upset but maybe not so upset that a war turned to the outcome, because the land was still technically owned by the Romans. It wasn’t Anthonys to be giving away. So in the end I believe that both sides had mistakes that they seemed to make and in the end the both chose the wrong decision to stick with. They both could have thought their decisions through before they made them.

This is a great, thoughtful, and thorough response to the question of whom would they align themselves with. This particular student was the only one who chose to aid neither man. I love the risk taking that happened here that I'm not sure would happen in any other setting.

Now, for those wondering what true practomimetic learning looks like, here's something that I would love to make into a poster:

Titus thought for a moment on what would be the correct choice, tapping his chin in contemplation of the matter while he considered the story that Sextus had just relayed to him. It certainly did clear some things up, that much was true. With a heavy sigh, Titus turned his eyes from the ground up to the image of Sextus and declared. “I align myself with Octavius.” he stopped to collect his thoughts and became just slightly distracted by the annoying sting of the arm wound he acquired earlier in the day, a bit sickened by the fact that he had only earlier engaged in mortal combat and was now supposed to work up the mind to make a firm decision. Ah, saving the world is quite a fair burden, eh? Shaking his head of further complaint, he cleared his throat and continued “Having been the true heir of Caesar, it was only natural that the late Augustus seized power. ‘Tis the goal of all men who have ambition, it seems. And the conflict with Antony could be seen as inevitable, since Rome has been through the same sad song-and-dance time and time again. The Second Triumvirate’s rather rocky relations made it far too unwieldy to properly oversee the internal functions of Rome, so in some way it was best for the three, that is, Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, to break off from each other and better place power in a more resolute, single direction. While one may see Octavius’s actions to dispose of Antony as being of rather underhanded political maneuvering (i.e, having the war declared on Cleopatra rather than on Antony, thereby circumnavigating the slippery slope of official civil war entirely), perhaps it was for the best. One can only imagine how different things would be in the event that Rome was taken under the clutches of Antony, assisted by Cleopatra. Personally, all I can say is that the aftereffects of Octavius’ victory led to the Pax Romana. And if anything good were to come of the Battle of Actium, then that would be the primary thing. For it was about time that Rome set down its weapons and embraced peace, if only for a time.” Titus explained, looking a little bit weary of having had to explain himself. Right now, all he wanted was a nice nap. But there was no time for such matters. There were still things that he and his cousins had to do. So, he stood straight and watched the other Recentii closely. ‘Well, Titus. You’ve already killed a man.’ he thought, furrowing his brow. ‘And it looks like you might need to man up and do it some more.... So that no one needs to resort to violence again.’

That's what practomimetic learning looks like. That's the power of the narrative.