The Worldbuilding Workshop: Teaching Critical Thinking and Empathy Through World Modeling, Simulation,...

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Trent Hergenrader Stephen Slota

The Worldbuilding Workshop

Teaching Critical Thinking and Empathy Through World Modeling, Simulation, and Play

Trent Hergenrader, Stephen Slota, Bryan Alexander

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

MIT Press
16 December 2025

Education

A research-based instructional approach that cultivates critical thinking, empathy, and inquiry through collaborative environmental and societal modeling.

A research-based instructional approach that cultivates critical thinking, empathy, and inquiry through collaborative environmental and societal modeling.

In The Worldbuilding Workshop, Trent Hergenrader and Stephen Slota explore collaborative worldbuilding as an educational tool for deconstructing and analyzing the planet's most urgent, relevant, and mind-boggling questions.

Their process unfolds across six stages configured to promote learner reflection on governmental, economic, social, and cultural forces. They look at how different people experience these forces under different socioeconomic and sociocultural conditions and what each of us can do to effectuate change in our shared reality.

The book details the relationship between worldbuilding and contemporary learning theories; methods by which instructors and learners can co-develop accurate representations of various worlds; and how simulation and role-play activities can be applied to support learner discovery and creativity.

By: Trent Hergenrader, Stephen Slota
Foreword by: Bryan Alexander
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262553339
ISBN 10: 0262553333
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 16 December 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Trent Hergenrader is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Worldbuilding and Storytelling at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. He is best known for Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers. Stephen Slota is a leading educational technologist, learning theorist, and interactive storyteller. They have directed numerous digital education and instructional design projects on behalf of CVS Health, Arizona State University, the University of Connecticut, Intel Corporation, and Pfizer.