DML: ChicagoQuest Curriculum Design Jam

At ChicagoQuest, teachers, game designers, and curriculum designers collaborate to create a game-like curriculum that is relevant and engaging to students while teaching 21st-century skills.

ChicagoQuest makes use of the same learning model pioneered by our NYC sister school, Quest to Learn. The Quest schools employ unique standards-based integrated curriculum mimics the action and design principles of games by generating a compelling “need to know” in the classroom. Each trimester students encounter a series of increasingly complex, narrative challenges, games or quests, where learning, knowledge sharing, feedback, reflection and next steps emerge as a natural function of play.

That all sounds great, but what does the Quest curriculum design process look like? How do we do it?

In this workshop, players will be taught the different phases of our curriculum design process. They will form small teams to compete against other teams in a guided challenge to design at each of the “levels” of the curriculum design process, both experiencing and designing CQ-style game-like learning.

By the end of this workshop, players will have a strong understanding of how the Quest model supports learning of 21st century skills like technology, systems-thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, and media/technology skills. Players will leave with ideas of how aspects of our design process can be brought back to and incorporated into their own institutions.