To foster student-centered, active learning, PACE is promoting Reacting to the Past (RTTP) role-playing games across the IUB campus. Developed by historian Mark Carnes at Barnard College, RTTP offers an option for faculty who are looking for ways to boost student engagement, generate excitement for classroom learning, and hold students to rigorous standards.

Students learn by taking on roles based on elaborate historical scenarios. They develop their ability to communicate, work in teams, exercise leadership, think critically and solve problems. And they have fun doing it.

A growing body of research suggests that Reacting to the Past is working.

To facilitate the adoption of RTTP at IUB, the PACE Institute for Role-Immersive Teaching and Learning (PIRTL), funded by PACE and the IU College of Arts and Sciences, provides training and resources to faculty and graduate students. IUB faculty who have already incorporated RTTP games in their curriculum hail from PACE, History, English, Philosophy, French and Italian, LAMP and Psychological and Brain Sciences. Games can be adapted to a wide variety of time frames.

IUB has joined the Reacting Consortium, a group of some sixty colleges and universities around the nation that provides national training workshops, conference discounts, and a large online library of game resources accessible to university and college faculty.

Reacting to the Past is on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.