Taylor Kessner

Taylor M. Kessner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at SUNY Geneseo. An internationally recognized learning scientist and social studies educator, Kessner’s work explores how games, simulations, and emerging technologies—such as AI—can support historical thinking, civic learning, and teacher preparation. His scholarship includes studies of the Mission US history game, design-oriented “playfixing” activities, and the impacts of divisive-issues legislation on teachers, alongside recent work comparing AI- and preservice-teacher–generated lesson plans. His publications have appeared in venues such as the Journal of the Learning Sciences, Games & Culture, Theory & Research in Social Education, Simulation & Gaming, the Journal of Social Studies Research, and the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction.

DIRECTED STUDIES

Are you interested in taking a directed study? I eagerly consider directed study requests from students across campus—regardless of content area of major—as long as you have a question that “keeps you up at night.” You do not need an existing relationship with me—you are invited to “cold email” to pitch a topic. Read this short essay on why I think every college student should take at least one directed study.

I have co-designed and facilitated several directed studies on several topics; for example, reconceptualizing the idea of play as a serious form of biologically driven learning, making a card game designed to help K12 students improve their reasoning around primary source documents, designing playful English Language Arts units using Minecraft Edu, designing an English Language Arts curriculum based on anti-authoritarianism, and putting learning theories to the test in the context of music education. Each of these directed studies have resulted in students creating meaningful public work, including presentations at academic conferences in places like Chicago and Toronto, GREAT Day presentations, and/or scholarly and/or practitioner publications.

If you can dream it, I can help you learn about it–or I can help you find someone who can.