Quest to Learn

Designed from the ground up by a team of teachers and game designers, and firmly grounded in over thirty years of learning research, Quest to Learn re-imagines school as one node in an ecology of learning that extends beyond the four walls of an institution and engages kids in ways that are exciting, empowering and culturally relevant.

Quest to Learn’s unique standards-based integrated curriculum mimics the action and design principles of games by generating a compelling “need to know” in the classroom. Each trimester students encounter a series of increasingly complex, narrative challenges, games or quests, where learning, knowledge sharing, feedback, reflection and next steps emerge as a natural function of play.

For instance, in the integrated science and math learning domain, “The Way Things Work,” over the course of one trimester, sixth graders help a shrunken mad scientist, lost inside the human body, navigate the systems he encounters and report back to his research lab.

Other unique components of Quest to Learn include a custom-built, curriculum-based online social network (Being Me), a mixed-reality learning environment (SMALLab), an after-school program (Short Circuit), an in-school teacher and professional development program (Studio Q) and a game design summer camp (Mobile Quest).

Quest to Learn opened to its first class of sixth graders in 2009. In 2010 a seventh grade was added. By 2015 the school will offer a complete middle and high school education.

Research is under way to generate comparative data on student proficiency in twenty-first-century skills like systems thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, time management and identity formation. Preliminary results are promising. In addition, students are performing at or above New York City public school averages on standardized tests. And in 2010 the school ranked in the ninety-seventh percentile in student engagement across city schools.