This is a posting on the use of role plays as an educational tool based on the experience of two terms of teaching first-year undergraduate management workshops. As per the nature of the management discipline, students need to engage in discussion, debate, and learn to be convincing. However, it was clear early on that having all students take active part in the discussions would take some effort and planning. After taking clues from student feedback, literature on small group teaching, and the educational development officers engaged with instil, I learnt that role plays, done properly, have a strong positive effect in engaging students and internalising their learning of theoretical topics. One of the issues with the new generation of students, sometimes referred to as 'netgeners' is the short attention span. They are used to being exposed to simultaneous multiple stimuli and therefore using a single method of teaching for a whole session is almost guaranteed to get the students bored. A straightforward way to fight boredom is to make the workshops fun, and an established way of that is via role play. In the management workshops I delivered, role plays started with a simple scenario of a business negotiation. Students took on the roles that came naturally to them, as leaders, follower, negotiators, and etc. The good initial experience continued with more complex situations in which not all the variables were given to the groups. Therefore, students had to think of the details of the scenarios, come up with roles, and take on those roles. In the process, their creative minds were clearly stimulated as they thought of far more innovative situation than I could have done. Having the students have to fill in the information gaps themselves based on their experience and imagination was an experience of doing, a productive experience rather than just a receptive one. As the term progressed, I shuffled the roles such that the more reserved students had to take on the role of leaders and so on. Being put in different roles opened up new angles of view for the students and in some instances unleashed the abilities unbeknownst to them. In some groups, students were quite surprised at how good a leader their quiet and reserved friend had made. They thought of this experience as a worthy one. At some sessions, when there was no role play planned, students asked for them, clearly enjoying the fun experience. However, there was also another element of learning that was not planned but came out as an added advantage. A high percentage of students had prior working experience and could relate theoretical points to their work events. The role plays provided opportunities for students to learn from each other’s experiences in a contextual way, providing for higher levels of learning. In effect, the role plays were a special part of group work where peer-to-peer learning flourished. Although role play is an effective learning tool, it’s quite easy to end up with boring and monotonous ones. Some planning is necessary in order to make each role play different form others. Great leads can be learnt from performing arts disciplines. Finally, an importantly, role play should be linked back to the theoretical points discussed in the form of debriefings. This would make role play not mere games but learning experiences to pay attention to, as well as binding together strings of learning in a more coherent way. A classic book on effective role plays is introduced below for further reading.
van Ments M. The Effective Use of Role-play: Practical Techniques for Improving Learning (2nd edition). London: Kogan Page, 1999.
One of the issues with the new generation of students, sometimes referred to as 'netgeners' is the short attention span. They are used to being exposed to simultaneous multiple stimuli and therefore using a single method of teaching for a whole session is almost guaranteed to get the students bored. A straightforward way to fight boredom is to make the workshops fun, and an established way of that is via role play. In the management workshops I delivered, role plays started with a simple scenario of a business negotiation. Students took on the roles that came naturally to them, as leaders, follower, negotiators, and etc.
The good initial experience continued with more complex situations in which not all the variables were given to the groups. Therefore, students had to think of the details of the scenarios, come up with roles, and take on those roles. In the process, their creative minds were clearly stimulated as they thought of far more innovative situation than I could have done. Having the students have to fill in the information gaps themselves based on their experience and imagination was an experience of doing, a productive experience rather than just a receptive one. As the term progressed, I shuffled the roles such that the more reserved students had to take on the role of leaders and so on. Being put in different roles opened up new angles of view for the students and in some instances unleashed the abilities unbeknownst to them. In some groups, students were quite surprised at how good a leader their quiet and reserved friend had made. They thought of this experience as a worthy one.
At some sessions, when there was no role play planned, students asked for them, clearly enjoying the fun experience. However, there was also another element of learning that was not planned but came out as an added advantage. A high percentage of students had prior working experience and could relate theoretical points to their work events. The role plays provided opportunities for students to learn from each other’s experiences in a contextual way, providing for higher levels of learning. In effect, the role plays were a special part of group work where peer-to-peer learning flourished.
Although role play is an effective learning tool, it’s quite easy to end up with boring and monotonous ones. Some planning is necessary in order to make each role play different form others. Great leads can be learnt from performing arts disciplines. Finally, an importantly, role play should be linked back to the theoretical points discussed in the form of debriefings. This would make role play not mere games but learning experiences to pay attention to, as well as binding together strings of learning in a more coherent way. A classic book on effective role plays is introduced below for further reading.
van Ments M. The Effective Use of Role-play: Practical Techniques for Improving Learning (2nd edition). London: Kogan Page, 1999.