Minds On Fire

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year In Minds on Fire Mark C. Carnes shows how roleimmersion games channel students’ competitive and sometimes mischievous impulses into transformative learning experiences. His discussion is based on interviews with scores of students and faculty who have used a pedagogy called Reacting to the Past which features monthlong games set during the French Revolution Galileo’s trial the partition of India and dozens of other epochal moments in disciplines ranging from art history to the sciences. These games have spread to over three hundred campuses around the world where many of their benefits defy expectations. “Minds on Fire is Carnes’s beautifully written apologia for this fascinating and powerful approach to teaching and learning in higher education. If we are willing to open our minds and explore studentcentered approaches like Reacting to the Past we might just find that the spark of student engagement we have been searching for in higher education’s mythical past can catch fire in the classrooms of the present.” —James M. Lang Chronicle of Higher Education “This book is a highly engaging and inspirational study of a ‘new’ technique that just might change the way educators bring students to learning in the 21st century.” —D. D. Bouchard Choice