The Crowded Streets of Paris: Using RTTP in Less-Than-Ideal Situations

This chapter evaluates two models of Reacting to the Past (RTTP) implementation of the Modernism vs. Traditionalism: Art in Paris, 1888–89 game. The authors examined the impact of different configurations for employing the game in larger courses: the first configuration pairs students so that a single role is played by two students working together, while in the second configuration, students who did not receive a specific historical role in the game act as journalists and produce a bulletin that reports on game-day events. Although the authors’ primary interest was the effect of the different approaches to the game on measurable student learning, they considered students’ perceptions of the experience via their self-reported assessments of engagement and learning, looking for measureable differences between the engagement of the students who took more active roles in the game.