Universal Design and Reacting

Jamie Lerner-Brecher discusses questions of accessibility, how to incorporate principles of Universal Design into your syllabi, and the ways that Reacting already aligns with and supports Universal Design principles.

Facilitator Jamie Lerner-Brecher is a disability studies scholar-activist. She holds a master's degree in Disability Studies from the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) and a bachelor's degree from Columbia University, where she graduated summa cum laude. Jamie currently works on a grant-funded project that aims to create, implement, and research the effects of disability training on college professors. Jamie's other current research studies include: a paper on how Universal Design in Higher Education (UDHE) benefits students with learning disabilities, mapping UDHE principles to Reacting to the Past pedagogy, and researching best teaching practices for autistic students in Reacting classes.

Play it Safe: Safety Tools for Your Reacting Games

Role-playing is a powerful way to activate student learning, connecting students to content and the characters they inhabit. Still, many Reacting games cover topics that may make the historical feel too close for comfort. Many non-educational role-playing games (RPGs) and live action role-playing games (LARPs) that deal with strong subject matter have developed tools to allow players to explore their characters while also respecting one another’s boundaries. In this virtual workshop, he discusses and shares a variety of safety tools borrowed from these communities and commercial products, advises when and how they can be deployed, and explores the use of tools with some role-play. 

Facilitator Allen White is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He has been using Reacting for many years and playing games for longer.