Max Shafer-Landau is a current PhD student at UW Madison’s Department of Curriculum & Instruction studying games and simulations for education with an eye towards employing them for history teaching. Growing up, he was a passionate history nerd honing his interest on Age of Empire 2 and the Total War series. After majoring in History & Classical Civilizations at Wesleyan University and earning a Masters in European Studies at Yale, he went on to teach history, economics, entrepreneurship, and current affairs to high schoolers before returning to graduate school.

While a teacher, Max built several games and simulations to support his students. His entrepreneurship class was built around a business simulation of raising capital and building out products while his two sections of US History competed against each other as the American Colonies and British Government fighting the American Revolution through their writing. However, he’s most proud of creating a year long Ancient Greek simulation which featured an ongoing strategy game, debates, and an alchemy for turning student projects into phalanxes, triremes, silver coins, and political capital in the Athenian Assembly. These interventions were instrumental in teaching him how to design rigorous academic activities in which fun was a byproduct of serious learning and engagement with the material.

At immersionED, Max is excited to build the curriculum supporting the comprehensive transformation of the classroom into an exciting experience that brings the past to life. Two core beliefs guide his pedagogy, the first being “if you’re bored, you’re not learning,” which has appeared atop every syllabus he’s ever written since the first section he TAed. Second, that history is an all encompassing subject through which the lived experiences of past generations can provide context, comprehension, and wisdom for the present. He’s looking forward to bringing these values to immersionED’s suite of simulations!