Episode 08: Worlds in Space and Time | 12 January 2026

Trent and Stephen contemplate Chapter 6 of The Worldbuilding Workshop, “Worlds in Space and Time,” including:

• Star Wars, Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and Game of Thrones as exemplars for understanding breadth vs. depth;

• The "fuzzy boundaries" of worlds in space and time;

• Deciding what "matters" in a particular world;

• The Lord of the Rings as a model for deconstructing scope and sequence;

• Alice Walker's Everyday Use and Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead as vehicles to discuss sociocultural change on a timeline;

• How Colin Woodard's American Nations deconstructs the United States in terms of sociocultural differentiation across the nation's colonial and expansionist history;

• Attending to the full set of political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics when evaluating historical causality;

• Determining relevance and granularity through the world deconstruction process;

• Navigating information in the present versus other historical eras;

• The relationship between nuanced analysis and moral judgment;

• Consequences of global interconnectivity and the impact on societal decision-making; and

• The exchange of ideas, information, and resources through space and time.

Episode References:

• Walker, A. (1973, April). Everyday use. Harper's Magazine.

• Kingsolver, B. (2022). Demon Copperhead: A novel. Harper.

• Woodard, C. (2011). American nations: A history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America. Viking.

• Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. Free Press.

• Levitt, S. & Dubner, S. J. (2005). Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. William Morrow.

• Graeber, D. & Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Allen Lane.

Episode 07: Gamefulness, Playfulness, and Fun | 5 January 2026

Trent and Stephen reveal The Worldbuilding Workshop’s secret cut chapter titled “Gamefulness, Playfulness, and Fun,” including:

• The co-writing process and rationale for which content was kept or cut;

• Defining “gamification,” “edutainment,” “serious games,” “instructional games,” and “playful learning”;

• How players, researchers, and educators compare and contrast different kinds of “games”;

• The relationship between playful learning and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s notion of “flow”;

• The Gamefulness, Playfulness, and Fun (GPF) Scale and its potential applications;

• The Worldbuilding Card Deck and how its corresponding structures/substructures fit within the GPF model;

• “Fun” as a misleading design objective;

• Exemplars of gamefulness, playfulness, and fun (role-play, professional athletics, and “work”);

• Differentiation of simulations from role-play and other playful activities; and

• Why it matters that words actually mean things.

Episode References:

• Deterding, S. & Zagal, J. (2018). Role-playing game studies: A transmedia approach. Routledge.

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper and Row.

• Young, M. F., Slota, S. T., Cutter, A., Jalette, G., Mullin, G., Lai, B., Simeoni, Z., Tran, M., & Yukhymenko, M. (2012). Our princess is in another castle: A review of trends in serious gaming for education. Review of Educational Research, 82(1), 61-89. doi: 10.3102/0034654312436980

Episode 06: Assessment | 30 December 2025

Trent and Stephen expand on The Worldbuilding Workshop’s fifth chapter, “Assessment,” including:

• The similarities and differences between alphanumeric and standards-based grading;

• Rubrics, portfolio artifacts, and how to differentiate between different kinds of student growth;

• Assessment methods that optimally fit the worldbuilding process;

• Systemic problems with quantitative assessment in K12 and higher education;

• The consequences of privileging quantitative over qualitative assessment;

• Project-based approaches to instruction and valuing process over product;

• Grade grubbing vs. learning for learning’s sake;

• How we collectively understand learner grades vs. student evaluations of teaching;

• And finding an assessment approach you can live with.

Episode References:

• Trasviña, J. (2025, May 27). Grading for equity coming to San Francisco high schools this fall. The Voice of San Francisco. https://thevoicesf.org/grading-for-equity-coming-to-san-francisco-high-schools-this-fall/

Episode 05: Collaboration and Community | 23 December 2025

Trent and Stephen dig into The Worldbuilding Workshop’s fourth chapter, “Collaboration and Community,” including:

• Similarities and differences between traditional classrooms and Communities of Practice;

• Why distributed, decentralized expertise is so valuable for both instructors and learners;

• How to foster a Community of Practice in a classroom environment;

• The relationship between constructivism, cognitive apprenticeship, and collaborative worldbuilding;

• The Clarion Workshop as a model Community of Practice;

• Navigating individual and community identities, beliefs, and assumptions;

• Social vs. biomedical definitions of disability and how they inform collaborative, inquiry-based learning;

• And the case for anti-disciplinary, cross-domain teaching and learning.

Episode References:

• Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.

• Cochran, A., Slota, S. T., & Young, M. F. (2024). League of Legends: The case for nested & braided Communities of Practice. In H. R. Gerber (Ed.), The literacies of the esports ecosystem (pp. 93-114). Gaming Ecologies and Pedagogies Series, Volume: 5. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004689770_005

• Hutchins, E. (1996). Cognition in the wild. The MIT Press.

Episode 04: Theory to Practice | 16 December 2025

Trent and Stephen tackle The Worldbuilding Workshop’s third chapter, “Theory to Practice,” including:

• How their personal K12 and university experiences influenced their perspectives on instructional design;

• Challenges associated with lecture-based instructional environments;

• How school is structured (or not) for 21st-century learners;

• Differentiation and alternative ways to organize education;

• Grade bands and tracking vs. skill- and performance-based classrooms;

• The broad misunderstanding of “learning styles”;

• And the empirically-demonstrated benefits of richly authentic, case-based instruction.

Episode References:

• Hayes, C. (2025). The sirens' call: How attention became the world's most endangered resource. Penguin Press.

[BONUS] Worldbuilding in Education: Game-Based Learning with Stephen Slota & Trent Hergenrader (Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast) | 9 December 2025

What if students saw themselves not just as learners, but as world builders, empowered to design, problem-solve, and imagine new possibilities through playful learning?

In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast, hosts Dr. Cindy Burnett and Dr. Matthew Warwood dive into the dynamic potential of game-based learning and world-building with guests Stephen Slota and Trent Hergenrader. Together, they unpack how treating students as designers—rather than passive recipients of information—fosters creativity, critical thinking, and authentic engagement. Drawing from their experiences as educators and co-authors of The Worldbuilding Workshop, Stephen Slota and Trent Hergenrader share insights on leveraging narrative, choice, and playful contexts to deepen learning, regardless of technology access or subject area.

The conversation explores the difference between true game-based learning and surface-level gamification, emphasizing the power of agency, narrative, and exploring “messy,” real-world problems. Listeners will gain practical insights on aligning classroom activities with learning goals, infusing creativity, and adopting a facilitator mindset. Whether you’re game-curious or an experienced educator, this episode highlights how worldbuilding can transform classrooms—and help students make meaningful connections to their own lives.

https://fuelingcreativitypodcast.com/

Episode 03: Road to Contemporary Learning Theory | 9 December 2025

Trent and Stephen discuss The Worldbuilding Workshop’s second chapter, “Road to Contemporary Learning Theory,” including:

• How they think about philosophies of education, pedagogical design, and what it means to be a “good” teacher;

• How to treat learning theory as active and actionable rather than static and inert;

• Why and how to center students as the primary beneficiaries of pedagogical design;

• And what it means to align learning objectives with activity objectives at a one-to-one ratio.

Episode 02: Around the World in 300 Pages | 2 December 2025

Trent and Stephen dive into The Worldbuilding Workshop’s first full chapter, including:

• Why the duo chose to open with a comparison between surgical suites and classrooms;

• Why education lags behind other domains and disciplines;

• How every worldbuilder should think about their morning cup of coffee;

• And what it means to teach critical thinking and empathy.

Episode 01: Prologue | 2 December 2025

Trent and Stephen introduce the podcast, their goals, and themselves. The duo then deconstructs the book’s Prologue, including:

• How they fell into academia and, specifically, the playful learning community;

• How they met one another through the Games + Learning + Society Conference;

• And their perspectives on the playful learning community’s evolution since 2010.