Learning Experiences
"Tooth or Truth" collaborative storytelling game cover art (Volume Three)
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB)
- Team-Building
- Collaboration
- Introspection
- Creative Problem-Solving
"Tooth or Truth" Interactive Storytelling Game
As a game designer, interactive educator and published author, I find inspiration in other people's stories. Developing organically out of a collaborative online writing community and directorial project, I designed Tooth or Truth in an effort to create collaborative, interconnected character-building prompts to increase engagement, interpersonal investment and generate plot points for further exploration and arc development.
From this 25-question, "truth-or-dare" set of exercises, learners were able to delve into thought-provoking "What If" scenarios with a unique combination of both personal distance and intimacy, experiment with reasoning and social-emotional learning, expand their perspective-taking and invent new possibilities in a safe environment with both hilarious and sometimes surprisingly moving results. Third in the series, this collaborative storytelling game became a Copper Bestseller.
"Our Community" Interactive, Illustrated Bilingual Student Workbook cover art
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB)
- Interconnectivity
- Health & Safety
- Communication
- Community Wellness
Our Community/Nuestra Comunidad
Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH), Concerned Citizens for Humanity (CCfH), Greater Hartford School District
This project was perhaps the most difficult and most rewarding of my learning experience career. I was asked to creatively problem-solve a solution to address schools struggling with anti-bullying in their elementary grades targeting Kids Living With HIV. My proposal would not only have to satisfy the school districts' administration, staff, parents and students, but the representative of the Department of Public Health's AIDS division, the collective Board and my client, Concerned Citizens for Humanity, LLC. I discovered I would also need to educate parents and teachers who were uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the topic, as well as demonstrate the appropriate steps for safety procedures involving HIV as a potential biohazard in a calm, accessible and responsible manner. The success of the Our Community/Nuestra Comunidad project was not without considerable challenges, but the result far exceeded expectations and were meaningful, measurable and memorable for everyone involved.
Summary: Research, design and deliver an age-appropriate character and health curricula for K-3 students, parents and teachers about kindness, respect and HIV safety.
Challenge: Elementary school students Living With HIV were being bullied in an inner city school district.
Extra Challenge: Must emphasize respect, inclusion and belonging as well as educate adults and children on HIV health and safety per DPH standards, but must not include sex education.
Solution: filming and distributing the Our Community/ Nuestra Comunidad Puppet Theater, including supporting documentation and resource materials throughout the Greater Hartford area exponentially expanded the impact beyond the 6-district model to cover a statewide adoption of the program throughout Connecticut.
Result: Interview & Analysis:
Conducted SME interviews with Department of Public Health's AIDS Division, target school administrators, teachers, parents and students to determine gaps in knowledge, behavior and safety procedures.
Created teacher and parent panel for collaborative design sprints and ongoing feedback process
Led classroom field tests for agile prototype iterations using the SAM model
Reported to Board committee consisting of representatives from DPH, CCfH, school principals and design team for regular updates
Result: Iterative Process:
Designed bilingual graphic novel illustrating community engagement, belonging, interconnectivity and distinctions between "mouth," "nose" and "blood" germs, with the central message of wanting to get rid of the virus but keep the person. Curriculum prototype launch included:
Interactive, illustrated, bilingual workbook consisting of 12 chapters
Instructional, illustrated, bilingual Teacher's Guide
Instructional, illustrated, bilingual Parent's Guide
40+ multimedia resources
After initial prototype failure due to exceeding cognitive load and inaccessible font size/layout, I identified 3 key chapters to convert into puppet scripts for a theater production with the UConn School of Puppetry.
Success of the traveling Our Community/Nuestra Comunidad Puppet Theater increased demand beyond the grant's budget constraints, requiring a pivot to filming, packaging and distribution.
Addendum: As the Project Manager, Lead Designer, Researcher, Writer and liaison, I learned an incredible amount working with diverse SMEs with a wide variety of interests and goals. Acting as point between government agencies, grantors, boards, public schools and families, I expanded my creativity and skill set, imagineering the "double-dutch" effect for experienced hand puppeteers, which became the highlight of the show's finale.
Post-program instructor-led reflection and discussion
- Anti-Violence
- Cooperation/Collaboration
- Creative Problem-Solving
- Communication Skills
- Goal-Setting
- Teamwork
- Efficacy Measures
- Social-Emotional Learning
"First Aid:" An Immersive, Anti-Violence Team-Building Experience (weekend program)
Quest Interactive Productions, LLC: Interactive Education
Inspired by the rise of violent acts in the United States beginning with Columbine and culminating at 9/11, in conjunction with guidance from Concerned Citizens for Humanity and representatives from the Department of Public Health, I developed, designed and executed a massive introspective, hands-on team-building exercise that was intended to be an illustrative model of cooperation and empathy in a simulation of extreme circumstances. The central tenant and ultimate goal was to demonstrate while one person can take many lives, it takes many people working together to save one life.
Taking place over 70 hours with a staff of 40+ serving an initial group of 30+ participants, adult learners were brought into a "M*A*S*H-style" aid station scenario, divided into teams and trained to treat waves of "wounded" in simulated triage, diagnosis, surgery and post-operative care, exchanging rotating roles within triads. Learners quickly developed shorthand and unique routines within their teams, adapting quickly to changing scenarios of increasing risk and difficulty, represented both externally and interpersonally. Three pathways of success based on overarching branching scenarios and over 150 individual motivational paths represented by patient goals drove the narrative on a backdrop of rising physical, psychological and ethical stakes. The overall goal was to exceed modern hospital success metrics, which was achieved at an 86% survival rate.
Post-assessment, a majority of participants reported First Aid being an "incredibly meaningful," "thought-provoking" and "moving" human experience. A secondary, smaller-scale iteration was developed for adolescents; designed, developed and executed with a staff of 12 serving 20+ students ages 12-18.
Presenting "blind" scents for sensory journaling
- Writing/Journaling
- Health & Wellness
- Social-Emotional Wellbeing
- Meditative Reflection
- Personal Productivity
Journaling: A Sensory Writing Experience
Holistic Health & Wellness Programs
Journaling and reflective writing is enhanced by introducing sensory mnemonics in this unique approach to memoir writing as a holistic meditative practice. This guided learning experience utilized a singular sense, smell, as the basis for creating uniquely powerful stories, both individually personal and collectively recognizable as a shared human experience.
By creating "blind samples" to inspire writing sprints, learners were able to tap into associations and memories unlocked by common scents. The results were journal entries and writing prompts that reconnected participants with their own past histories and fostered a sense of reflective wellbeing.