As most AP courses are beginning their reviews as the testing season approaches, one teacher is taking something of a different approach to the review. An approach involving wizardry, magic, and goblins in a Dungeons and Dragons style review in AP Biology.

AP Biology teacher Daniel Hauser picked the theme because it motivated him and designed the review around it, even changing the course homepage to be a portal.

“I used my previous role-playing and teacher knowledge to establish the mechanics of the review, as well as some computer science knowledge to edit the HTML of the canvas pages for flavor, as well as make some Google sheet trackers,” Hauser said. “Gemini Pro was also integral in troubleshooting some of the code.”

Pretty confused at first, junior Phoebe So later found the idea to be an engaging way to review the course material, although it still had some faults.

“We recently just started, but I think it is a pretty good review, as it’s a lot of hands-on,” So said. “But at the same time, I feel like it’s really tedious, and there’s a lot of work to it that isn’t as beneficial.”

Aside from the fantasy theme, Hauser also requires the students to complete some of the activities in order to make sure they are getting the practice they need.

“I can say on average [the review’s] going to be better than leaving the students to their own study methods as my methods encourage collaboration,” Hauser said. “Some students literally think staring at the slides is studying.”

The concept of being a wizard and mastering spells and potions helped junior Rithika Madeshwaran find the content more engaging than usual.

“I usually find the content lengthy and lose focus easily due to the low engagement,” Madeshwaran said. “This new way of learning helped me retain the information better and also didn’t make me lose focus so easily.”