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Role Play
Role play is usually taken to mean the enactment of an encounter or relationship, often within an agreed scenario, in order to get inside the human experience of a case or problem, and to practise some of the interpersonal skills required for its solution. It can illuminate and clarify at both the level of the original problem and what the particular "players" bring of themselves into it; in other words to provide personal feedback. For role play is not just about acting: it reveals much about the real feelings and skills of those involved, and it is possibly this which makes it so threatening to some. But, run effectively, it is capable of realising a set of rather special aims:
- developing sensitivity and awareness from first-hand experience
- understanding and empathising with other's perspectives
- trying out new skills and behaviours
- providing 'live' material for study by observers
- integrating thought and feeling
- testing out a model
In the example below, taken from an online course for training e-moderators (ATIM Ltd, 2006), to understand the student perspective, at times course members must respond to activities as if they were themselves students; at other times they must respond as if they were the e-moderator.
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This is how the various roles in the course are explained to participants:
Your roles on this course
It is important to keep in mind your roles as you work your way through the course. You will take the roles in this course of:
- a participant in an online course,
- a developing e-moderator, and
- a member of a sub group of course participants.
The roles may each have different objectives:
- a participant aims to to learn the skills of the e-moderator by doing the e-tivities;
- an e-moderator aims to enable participants to gain from the online interactions;
- a group member aims to work with others to draw key insights from the course;
In many of the e-tivities you will contribute initially as a participant and then respond as an e-moderator.
So keep three hats by your PC to remind you of what role you are in! |
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