Jeff Stanzler

Welcome to the world of Jeff Stanzler.  Where an educator of multiple levels allow the essence of education to unfold with the catalyst of peer-to-peer education to unravel through pure student-driven content via playful-learning through simulations.

The Expertise

It all started over 25 years ago with Jeff Stanzler at the University of Michigan working with his mentor Fred Goodman and other peers on a project already in play.  This is a time far before the interactions of the now essential tool of technology was a strong candidate for the most innovative necessity in the classroom.  Playful-learning was in its pioneer days and an interactive simulation series was beginning to blossom its true potential with reaching students.  “Students were passing letters to one another in other classrooms!  And the students were loving it.”  The letters were the simulation, were the playful-learning, and were the items of student engagement.  The project became the evolution of your standard pen-pal through role-playing. Students were responding on an interactive level of role-playing through the project known as the Arab-Israeli Conflict, which involves responses and interactions of multiple countries involved in the area based on real-time current events as well as blending of previous interactions.  The goal being students are involved in the choices that are to be made, and with that must deal with consequences of their actions.  The entire project is student-driven, but not just the students from the middle and high school grades, but also the college level mentors that must help steer the ship with the students.  “The whole thing can turn into a wonderful mess!”  Wholeheartedly explaining that students sometimes need to learn to fall a little in order to grow.  

Growing-as-you-Go

Jeff Stanzler has experienced many ups and downs helping pioneer a completely unique opportunity of student-learning through playful-learning.  One particular fall that Jeff experienced is the art of designing and re-designing a project as the wheels are rolling.  When the International Poetry Guild (IPG) was first developed, the format mirrored the successful aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict series, but was developed to teach students about writing poetry instead.  With the first year of the project, “Here,  these 13 year olds are spilling their guts out with raw emotions!”  The mentors un-affectionately labeled the program “The International Psychology Guild,” while not being prepared to handle or respond to the raw emotions of adolescents in a poetry setting.  Through these trials and tribulations Jeff stuck through it, guiding the mentors, guiding the students, and guiding the teachers through the choppy waters.  “Thank God for those bumps!  They allowed me to see the potential!”  With the IPG program, as well as all of the other simulations allow not only the learning of the students, but also the learning of the college level mentors that are involved with the program.  The program turns into a metaphorical “Stone Soup” of learning, where all investors are walking away with a learning experience collectively.  The entire IPG program has been successfully running for over 20 years now.

Student Driven

The entire ICS exercise provides numerous opportunities to learn and grow through a variety of simulations, playful learning and game-based learning platforms.  Teachers, students and college mentors walk away from the experience better enriched in the topic at hand with the capability of applying knowledge and a digital platform using research as their essential tool.  One of the most important characteristics though that is gained from the entire program is that the entire flow of the program is student driven.  From the mentors to the grade-level students, the flow of the simulation is pushed forward by the students.  Students choose the direction of the simulations based on research they have uncovered about the particular character they have chosen, and through this knowledge the students must place themselves in the shoes of the character and react, resolve and respond based how the student feels that character would.  

With these choices the students and mentors take is the essence of cause-and-effect in a pure form.  Students make a statement and other students react to this, and sometimes the reaction produces consequences in the simulations.  Treaties broke, diplomatic relations severed and dynamic debates hit the floor.  As Jeff put it, “It removes the ‘Red-Pencil’ attitude, and shows the mentors to focus on students strengths during the simulation.”  When the students remove the notion of strict, traditional assessments, they become more engaged, as well as more invested in their own personal learning.  Which ultimately allows them to create an experience that is lasting.

Life-Lasting Learning

Learning is a never ending endeavour for us all.  From the sproutling age of elementary, to the blossoming age of high school, and everyday after.  But how do we keep receiving the knowledge that is ever more pouring?  One way to continue to better ourselves as educators as Jeff put it, “Finding the context to talk about teaching.”  Conferences to coffee shops, we as educators must take time to reflect as well as reciprocate our knowledge with one another.  We must take time to reach out to others, and take advantage of opportunities like the iiE gathering to bounce ideas off of each other, as well as to collaborate with fresh new ones to keep pushing us forward to greater reaches for our students.  Collaboration is the most critical tool that is in a teacher’s belt.  Without taking the time to work together, melding ideas and practices, and sharing what works, and what “may work better if…”  these essential conversations provide educators with the opportunity to evolve into a better year, year after year.

Click here for more information about Jeff Stanzler’s projects.

Written by: Joe Posante, August 2016