The Worldbuilding Workshop: Teaching Critical Thinking and Empathy Through World Modeling, Simulation, and Play

A research-based instructional approach that cultivates critical thinking, empathy, and inquiry through collaborative environmental and societal modeling.

In The Worldbuilding Workshop, Trent Hergenrader and Stephen Slota explore collaborative worldbuilding as an educational tool for deconstructing and analyzing the planet’s most urgent, relevant, and mind-boggling questions.

Their process unfolds across six stages configured to promote learner reflection on governmental, economic, social, and cultural forces. They look at how different people experience these forces under different socioeconomic and sociocultural conditions and what each of us can do to effectuate change in our shared reality.

The book details the relationship between worldbuilding and contemporary learning theories; methods by which instructors and learners can co-develop accurate representations of various worlds; and how simulation and role-play activities can be applied to support learner discovery and creativity.