As of August 1st, 2008, the Edutech web site will no longer be updated. Edutech was funded by the Swiss Virtual Campus programme, which ended on July 31st, 2008. Some activities will be taken over by the e-Learning Services group at the SWITCH foundation.
Role Playing in an online discussion forum
Introduction
This page provides you with a step by step instruction for role playing in teaching using Language Learning as example. See also the Demo! We thank this idea, the demo and most of the text below to Susan Weymouth!
Definition
"In role playing, participants adopt and act out the role of characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Role playing, also known as RP to some, is like being in an improvisational drama or free-form theater, in which the participants are the actors who are playing parts, and the audience." taken from wikipedia. Other definitions.
Advantages
This is a great way to get shy, less talkative students to overcome their inhibitions and express themselves under the cover name of their character. I’ve experienced students professing undying love and affection, seething anger, bitter indignation, a hilarious sense of humor..., all within the protected walls of the discussion forum. These high school teenagers would die of embarrassment doing this in real class time! It is certainly not a replacement for composition, but it can be a good change of pace and a unique alternative to writing an essay about a book. Adding a creative touch, one of the students in my The Inspector Calls role-play produced an eerie effect by attaching an mp3 recording of his entry, imitating the ghost-like voice of Inspector Goole.
Prerequisites
You need access to a forum, for example in Vista. Students need to have time and access to a computer with internet. They also must be well acquainted with all the main characters in the book or play being read.
Setting it up
- Create a discussion topic. Example: "To Kill a Mockingbird"
- Register all needed roles into the Learning environment. Example: "Tom Robinson1 , Jem Finch1, etc".
- Distribute the roles.
- Formulate the students' task in the forum, i.e. "Your on-line homework is to assume the identity of your character in the book or play. Then "talk" to each other 'off-stage' and express your feelings about what's going on in the story. You might have to defend your actions or accuse another character of a wrongdoing...“
- Set a time framework, explain the rules and your method of grading.
If you have more students and need several parallel role plays, repeat the above steps as many times as needed. Make sure to give each role name an additional number to distinguish the players for the system.
Encouraging participation
For literature discussion, I recommend small forum discussion groups to prevent students from “hiding” behind more verbal classmates, as often happens in classroom discussions. Limiting the number of participating characters assures that each student feels responsible for his/her character’s role in the discussion. I therefore suggest dividing larger classes and setting up several corresponding parallel forum topics. Participation is graded, based on the number of meaningful entries submitted within the time-frame set for the project. The more they participate, the better their grade! No deduction is made for errors.
Rules: Short and simple
Anyone using profanity or disrespectful language is immediately denied access to the platform.
Teacher Time
What takes the most time in these scenarios is correcting and commenting on the characters’ contributions. I use capital letters for my corrections and comments to set them off from the students’ work, and I spend approximately 2-3 hours a week correcting, depending on the size of the class and number of contributions. Because the students are producing dialogue, the entries are short and quick to correct, and in the end it’s less work than correcting an endless pile of essays.
Conclusion
Of course, the success of every forum depends on the enthusiasm of the moderator, and therefore this kind of scenario can only be offered by teachers willing to “go the extra mile” to engage their students in creative on-line activities. Speaking from my personal experience, it’s definitely worth a try!