Living History: The step-by-step guide to creating dynamic historical simulations

By Garron Lamoreau

Living History is a must read for any history or social studies teacher. This eBook guides you step-by-step through the process of creating dynamic, immersive simulations for your classroom. Your class will be the talk of the school as students role play the feudal kingdoms of Europe, the city-states of the Italian Renaissance, or whatever content you are teaching, instead of learning from the textbook. With Living History not only is your class more fun, but you'll find that your students gain a deep and long lasting understanding of the content you are teaching.

Recent research in education has emphasized the gamification of the classroom, and the possibilities for immersive, dynamic and fun simulations are endless. Yet too often teachers limit themselves to simulations and games they can buy in catalogs. After years of prepackaged simulations that weren't fun and didn't teach, the author discovered he could create his own simulations following the easy to follow steps in the eBook.

Living History covers every aspect of the process, from what content to select, to how to how to create roles for every type of learner and ability level, to how to make the simulation authentic and the learning sticky. Easy to follow action steps guide you along the way, and the author gives examples from simulations he has created using this method. At the end, you'll have a simulation that your students will love, all while teaching them your content in a way they will never forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Garron Lamoreau
• Release date: Jul 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311175731

Garron Lamoreau

Garron is a middle school teacher, currently teaching in Panama City, Panama. He also loves sports, hiking, and spending time with his dogs.

Book preview

Living History

A step-by-step guide to creating dynamic, immersive historical simulations.

By Garron Lamoreau

Copyright © 2015 Garron Lamoreau

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Why Immersive Simulations?

Chapter Two: Choosing Your Content

Chapter Three: Creating Your Simulation

Chapter Four: Creating your Simulation

About the Author

Introduction

My love affair with history began as soon as I could read. Pirates, castles, and knights; I loved it all. As the kid who read the textbook for fun, social studies naturally became my favorite class.

My senior year of college, four years deep into a history degree, I took a class benignly called Medieval Europe. The professor, Gregory Monahan at Eastern Oregon University, was smart, funny, and engaging. I found myself captivated by his lectures and a little bored by the slideshows of his travels. Then one day at the start of class he announced, Today, we’ll be re-creating feudal France.

My ears perked up.

For the next three days you will be lord of a feudal territory, with all of its incomes and men-at-arms. You will have to choose your feudal relationships carefully…

And indeed, for the next three days, our classroom became feudal Europe. We swore oaths, married off our children, and called vassals to arms as France and The Holy Roman Empire fought a war for Alsace and Lorraine.

In all my years of schooling, I had never done anything like it. Our words, decisions, and choices mattered. The entire class engaged in the simulation, and it overtook our discussions before and after class. We came away with a deep and lasting understanding of the content.

At the