Do What AI Can’t Do: Game-Based Learning at the Secondary Level
AI is coming for your jobs, and teachers are concerned when they hear about experimental schools replacing teachers with AI. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires,” says William Arthur Ward. So, in our modern age, I say, “AI can tell. AI can explain. So be the teacher who involves. Be the teacher who challenges. Be the teacher who connects. Do what AI can’t do.” Because then you will become irreplaceable.
Kendal Fortson of Diogenes Education will be presenting a workshop entitled Do What AI Can’t Do: Game-Based Learning at the Secondary Level at the Deeper Learning Conference 2026 in Beijing, China. Kendal will present a three-hour session on how to increase student engagement and enjoyment in school while keeping students off their screens—all strategies that can increase your value as a teacher. The event is sponsored by the Deeper Learning Center and co-sponsored by the High Tech High Graduate School of Education (HTH).
If you can’t make the trip yourself, read this article to learn a few takeaways for making yourself irreplaceable as a teacher with simple game-based learning strategies that turn your classroom into an engaging, digital-free zone.
As educators, we want our students to be actively learning. AI can make them passive, staring at a screen and writing down facts. So, as teachers, we must take learning offline and into the real world. Why? AI doesn’t know what is happening in your classroom. You can create new scenarios that AI doesn’t know about, so students have to think and interpret their own data. But “data” is a boring word. How can we make it fun? This is where game-based learning comes into play. The Professional Development will present three case studies, allow reflection to apply the methods taught for a teacher’s own classroom and subjects, and assist in creating a new game-based learning startegy that AI can’t replicate.
Game-Based Learning: Murder Mysteries
Are you teaching an essay? Whether it’s AP Language/Literature or a middle school class learning their first five-paragraph essay, you can transform your students into detectives. A murder mystery creates a fun scenario for students to fully understand how to use evidence to support a thesis. Let them solve a whodunit to teach English or AP Psychology. Transform this method for any subject imaginable. If you don’t have time to build your own, you can find pre-made game-based learning activities at these links:
AP Psychology AAQ and EBQ Murder Mystery resource
Card Games for STEM
Do you teach AP Psychology? A fun way to help students learn nervous system and brain anatomy is with a superhero power-up game. Let students “power up” their superhero by powering up certain brain regions. This tech-free assignment allows students to think creatively and experience their Psychology class more like Pokémon than Piaget. This strategy can be used with any other science class. Biology? Physics? A simple matching mechanism is all that is needed. Find a pre-made game-based learning activity at this link:
AP Psychology Unit 1: Nervous Systems Superheroes Card Game
ELA Figurative Language and ESL RPG
I’ve written about the step-by-step process of this one before. Let students’ imaginations soar with RPGs. Students want to perform well in the game, so award them XP both for identifying figurative language and for solving dilemmas in the imagined world of the RPG. ESL students will practice conversational skills through novel situations to prevent rote speaking.
ELA Figurative Language and ESL RPG game
Deeper Learning Conference, Beijing 2026
As stated on the website for the educational conference: The 2026 DLC China Deep Learning Conference will focus on the theme of “From Innovation to Transformation,” giving educators the opportunity to share strategies to become better educators.
Dates: November 27-29, 2026
Location: Beijing Haiga School
Speaker Biography: Kendal Fortson (M.S. Curriculum & Instruction) is an AP Psychology & English teacher and is currently teaching in Guangzhou, China. He has presented PD workshops for EARCOS, NESA, and IBSEA. His workshops emphasize interdisciplinary learning, media literacy and the analysis of cultural contexts in narratives, and the ethical integration of technology into classrooms to ensure it does not replace active engagement and authentic learning. When not in the classroom, he writes on educational topics and develops educational resources for international schools, and (time permitting) composes music for orchestral instruments.
Workshop overview: As AI transforms education, this interactive workshop explores how play-based learning can maintain rigor while reducing screen time. Experience classroom-ready activities, analyze their instructional design, and create your own play-based lesson to foster collaboration, critical thinking, and authentic learning. Keep your job. Do what AI can’t do.
Check out Diogenes Education’s AI in Education resources
Get a FREE SAMPLE of one of our lessons HERE
