Role-playing in science education: An effective strategy for developing multiple perspectives

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine V. Howes ◽  
Bárbara C. Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Multiple Perspectives

scholarly journals Student-produced video of role-plays on topics in cell biology and biochemistry: A novel undergraduate group work exercise

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul W. Young ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Active Learning ◽  
Cooperative Learning ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Role Play ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Protein Translation ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Problem Solving Skills

Group work or cooperative learning is a form of active learning that has potential benefits that extend beyond just being an alternative or improved way of learning course material. For example, Shimazoe and Aldrich (2010) identified six proposed benefits of active learning to students, namely (1) promoting deep learning, (2) helping students earn higher grades, (3) teaching social skills & civic values, (4) teaching higher order thinking skills, (5) promoting personal growth and (6) developing positive attitudes toward autonomous learning. There is evidence for the effectiveness of role-plays both in achieving learning outcomes (Azman, Musa, & Mydin, 2018; Craciun, 2010; Latif, Mumtaz, Mumtaz, & Hussain, 2018; McSharry & Jones, 2000; Yang, Kim, & Noh, 2010), but also in developing desirable graduate attributes such as teamwork, communication and problem solving skills [4]. The importance of such skills is widely touted by employers of science graduates, sometimes more so than discipline-specific knowledge, arguing in favour of the incorporation of role-plays and other forms of cooperative learning into undergraduate science curricula. Role-playing is probably not as widely used in the physical and life sciences as it is in other academic disciplines. In science the most obvious role-play scenarios in which students play the roles of people might be in examining historical figures at the centre of famous scientific discoveries or debates (Odegaard, 2003). In addition, role-plays fit well at the interface between science and other discipline when exploring ethical, legal or commercial implications of scientific discoveries(Chuck, 2011). However, to apply role-play to core topics in science or mathematics the roles that must be played are not those of people but rather of things like particles, forces, elements, atoms, numbers, laws, equations, molecules, cells, organs and so on. The learning scenarios for science-based roleplays in which the characters represented are not people are less obvious, probably explaining why the use of role-plays in science education is less common. Nevertheless, focusing on the life sciences, role-plays in which the characters are organelles in a cell or enzymes involved in fundamental cellular processes like DNA replication, RNA transcription and protein translation have been described for example (Cherif, Siuda, Dianne M. Jedlicka, & Movahedzadeh, 2016; Takemura & Kurabayashi, 2014). The communication of discipline-specific templates and successful models for the application of role-playing in science education is likely to encourage their wider adoption. Here I describe a videoed group role-play assignment that has been developed over a ten-year period of reflective teaching practice. I suggest that this model of videoed group role-plays is a useful cooperative learning format that will allow learners to apply their varied creativity and talents to exploring and explaining diverse scientific topics while simultaneously developing their teamwork skills.

Multiple Perspectives: Social Performance Beyond the Single Criterion

2000 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 231-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Pantaleo ◽  
Robert A. Wicklund
Keyword(s):  
Social Performance ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Performance Criterion ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Performance Gains

Summary: This article introduces the idea of performance gains in groups in the sense of each group member's readiness to perceive, tolerate, and represent more than one point of view within the group or societal context. For this purpose we refer to enhanced performance as the furthering of “multiple perspectives.” Active participation enables perspective-taking, role-playing, flexibility in one's persuasions, and ultimately increments in one's internalization of diverse aspects of society. We discuss the social conditions that maximize such active participation - thus performance for the other's perspective - as well as individually-based psychological forces that shut down the individual's openness to diverse perspectives. Performance for the other as defined in terms of multiple perspectives is contrasted with group productivity as measured by a single performance criterion on which group members agree a priori.

Multiple Perspectives for the Study of Teaching

2013 ◽  
pp. 27-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Salloum
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Science Education ◽  
Teacher Knowledge ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Sociocultural Perspective ◽  
Multiple Perspectives

This chapter outlines a framework that characterizes science teachers’ practical-moral knowledge utilizing the Aristotelian concept of phronesis/practical wisdom. The meaning of phronesis is further explicated and its relevance to science education are outlined utilizing a virtue-based view of knowledge and practical hermeneutics. First, and to give a background, assumptions about teacher knowledge from a constructivist and sociocultural perspective are outlined. Second, the Aristotelian notion of phronesis (practical wisdom) is explicated, especially in terms of how it differs from other characterizations of practical knowledge in science education and how it relates to practical-moral knowledge. Finally, the authors discuss how the very nature of such practical-moral knowledge makes it ambiguous and hard to articulate, and therefore, a hermeneutic model that explores teachers’ practical-moral knowledge indirectly by investigating teachers’ commitments, interpretations, actions, and dialectic interactions is outlined. Implications for research and teacher education are outlined. Empirical examples are used to demonstrate certain points. A virtue-based view of knowledge is not meant to replace others, but as a means to enrich the understandings of the complexity of teacher knowledge and to enhance the effectiveness of teacher educators.

scholarly journals Roleplaying to Improve Resilience

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan W. Shearer
Keyword(s):  
Role Playing ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
Health Safety ◽  
The North ◽  
Role Playing Game ◽  
The City

This article presents an approach to improve urban resilience by examining crisis dynamics through a role-playing game. The set of exploratory exercises extend the Archaria 2035 scenario and geographic information system model, which was developed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to advance concepts that support military operations. Participants (graduate students) worked in teams to identify and map critical relationships related to health, safety and welfare through a modified version of the Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, Information (PMESII) framework. Next, each participant was given a one-page stakeholder profile that specified motives, kinds and degrees of influence, and connections to other stakeholders. This information was used to create maps that showed how each character understood the city. Crisis event details were revealed a day-and-a-half before the game. NATO staff contributed to the event by presenting courses of action to restore security and order. Participants gave opinions on how their characters might act during the event and react to the proposed military operations. Conversations created temporary collaborations among some stakeholders but also conflicts among others that could create additional problems. A post-game assignment asked participants to write memos on specific policies and plans that would reduce vulnerability to the crisis. As a matter of pedagogy, results the demonstrate the value of role-playing to consider multiple perspectives and second- and third-order effects of a crisis. Specifically, connecting gameplay conversations and results back to initial ideas about health, safety and welfare contributed to reconsiderations of assumptions about contingent relationships.

scholarly journals Navigating Alarming Media Messages About Nutrition and Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonna Wiblom ◽  
Maria Andrée ◽  
Carl-Johan Rundgren
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
News Media ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
New Findings ◽  
News Value

AbstractThis study focuses the emerging need for young people to critically respond to alarming messages in contemporary media highlighting the potential benefits or harms of certain foods. Besides being technical, advancements in the field of nutrition reported in media are often of tentative and speculative character, primarily selected and constructed on the basis of their news value rather than as representing established knowledge. The study aims to study students’ capabilities to navigate and critically respond to controversial media messages about health and nutrition in the context of science education. Our theoretical point of departure is in the concept “an examined life” in the critical reflection tradition of Socrates and the Stoics. We analyze how groups of upper secondary science class students engage in critical examination of a controversial message about cow’s milk encountered through Swedish public service news media on the Internet. The results illuminate that even when controversial findings are produced by a reputed university and communicated through independent media, students are capable of discerning the need to scrutinize such findings and are capable of performing such critical examination drawing on experiences of scientific investigations. Students’ openness to question authoritative voices in society and to illuminate the new findings on milk from multiple perspectives reflects how “an examined life” may be enacted in the context of science education. Inviting students to participate in related activities shows promise for enabling a critical examination of themselves and others in ways deemed important for democratic citizenship.

scholarly journals Students’ Experiences of Working With a Socio-Scientific Issues-Based Curriculum Unit Using Role-Playing to Negotiate Antibiotic Resistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin J. Sagmeister ◽  
Christoph W. Schinagl ◽  
Suzanne Kapelari ◽  
Pamela Vrabl
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Classroom Environment ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Resistant Bacteria ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Antibiotic Resistant ◽  
Societal Relevance

The emergence and widespread of antibiotic-resistant pathogenic microorganisms are of great individual and societal relevance. Due to the complex and multilayered nature of the topic, antibiotic resistance (ABR) is the object of concern for several scientific fields, such as microbiology or medicine, and encompasses a broad range of political, economic, and social aspects. Thus, the issue related to antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases offers an excellent platform for designing and implementing the teaching and learning of socio-scientific issues (SSI). We created a SSI-based curriculum unit for use in secondary science classrooms by developing a collaborative partnership between education researchers and microbiologists. This classroom environment allows students to explore and negotiate ABR as a societal and scientific phenomenon. For this purpose, we leveraged role-playing within the SSI-based unit as a productive context for engaging students in learning opportunities that provide multiple perspectives on ABR and the complex interplay of its accelerators. This case-based paper describes Austrian school students’ experiences from their participation in a SSI-embedded role-playing classroom environment and subsequent activities that included a mini congress with a poster presentation and a panel discussion. An open-ended questionnaire-based assessment tool was used to examine the situational characteristics of the students’ work. To assess students’ contributions, we applied a qualitative content analysis design and identified cognitive and affective outcomes. The students’ learning experiences demonstrate that they considered the content – the social complexities of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and associated diseases – exciting and very topical. The students perceived that learning about ABR is relevant for their future and involves both individual and societal responsibility for action. Although the curriculum unit and its assignments were described as labor-intensive, it became apparent that the role-playing setting has the potential to inform students about multiple stakeholder positions concerning ABR. Concerning the promotion of science practices, almost all students claimed that they learned to organize, analyze, evaluate, and present relevant information. Moreover, the students affirmed that they learned to argue from the perspective of their assigned roles. However, the students did not clarify whether they learned more through this SSI-based classroom instruction than through conventional science teaching approaches.

scholarly journals Addressing Education for Sustainable Development in the Teaching of Science: The Case of a Biological Sciences Teacher Education Program

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 12028
Author(s):  
Deirdre Hogan ◽  
Joanne O’Flaherty
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Science Education ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Education For Sustainable Development ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches

Education plays a key role in ensuring that all learners are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set out the key challenges of our time with targets to protect the planet, end poverty, and improve the prospects of all people by 2030. As global challenges including access to healthcare and climate change escalate, the need for action is even more pressing. Education is an enabler of change and presents opportunities to support learners to explore how they can participate in transformative education experiences that focus on building a more sustainable world. Science education provides unique opportunities to explore sustainability given the nature of the discipline, the knowledge it reflects, and its focus on inquiry based pedagogical approaches. This study explores the nature of science as an academic discipline, as it is lived and perceived within the teaching of an undergraduate Science Education (biological sciences) program in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) and its capacity for the integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). An ethnographic informed research design was adopted to document the social culture, perspectives, and practices inherent in the educational setting. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with academics and tutors from the HEI’s Science Department who contribute to the program (n = 11). Focus groups were held with pre-service teachers enrolled on the program (n = 21) and observations from lectures, laboratory sessions, and field trips were carried out. Findings arising from analysis of data point to a strong link between science and society in science education, and the need for learners to develop critical scientific literacy that enables them to meaningfully navigate the multiple perspectives presented in media and public debates relating to sustainability issues. Findings suggest that while sustainability themes permeated some modules in the program, the emphasis was on imparting hard, technical knowledge rather than allowing for the critical exploration of issues. Results also highlight some discipline specific challenges to adopting discursive pedagogical approaches in the science education program. Some ways of understanding these findings are explored.

Multiple Perspectives for the Study of Teaching

2015 ◽  
pp. 569-593
Author(s):  
Sara Salloum
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Science Education ◽  
Teacher Knowledge ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Sociocultural Perspective ◽  
Multiple Perspectives

This chapter outlines a framework that characterizes science teachers' practical-moral knowledge utilizing the Aristotelian concept of phronesis/practical wisdom. The meaning of phronesis is further explicated and its relevance to science education are outlined utilizing a virtue-based view of knowledge and practical hermeneutics. First, and to give a background, assumptions about teacher knowledge from a constructivist and sociocultural perspective are outlined. Second, the Aristotelian notion of phronesis (practical wisdom) is explicated, especially in terms of how it differs from other characterizations of practical knowledge in science education and how it relates to practical-moral knowledge. Finally, the authors discuss how the very nature of such practical-moral knowledge makes it ambiguous and hard to articulate, and therefore, a hermeneutic model that explores teachers' practical-moral knowledge indirectly by investigating teachers' commitments, interpretations, actions, and dialectic interactions is outlined. Implications for research and teacher education are outlined. Empirical examples are used to demonstrate certain points. A virtue-based view of knowledge is not meant to replace others, but as a means to enrich the understandings of the complexity of teacher knowledge and to enhance the effectiveness of teacher educators.

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