The Collective 2020

Community Notes

Sometimes, when an instruction session goes badly, there’s no quick fix. The goal of the Kobayashi Maru: Librarian Edition interactive role-playing game is to be comfortable with failure; the librarian works to ensure the disruptions don’t affect their teaching goals and the other members of the classroom. Through this interactive role-playing game, librarians engage in creative problem-solving to adapt to challenging scenarios and student personas working to disrupt instruction sessions.

Audience members will have the opportunity to role-play as students in a class and 2-3 collaborates acting as teachers will lead a 10-minute lesson. As a group, the collective will decide whether they would like to draw from the Student Persona deck, or the Scenario deck. (For librarians who want an extra challenge, both decks can be entered into play.) Between each play we’ll have a short reflection about the completed round. The workshop will conclude with a short wrap-up discussion about how this activity can help us become more comfortable with stressful no-win situations in the classroom and adapting lessons on the fly.