scholarly journals Diving into Lake Devo: Modes of representation and means of interaction and reflection in online role-play

Author(s):  
Linda Koechli ◽  
Maureen Glynn

<p>This paper outlines an action research project involving the development of an educational online role-playing website, known as Lake Devo. Designed in keeping with constructivist principles, the website is used in select post-secondary courses at Ryerson University and allows learners to work synchronously, using visual, audio, and text elements to create avatars and interact in online role-play scenarios. The website also provides an integrated area for debrief following role-play activities. The features of the website were deliberately intended to provide a viable alternative to text-only online role-play activities, while not requiring the highly sophisticated elements of 3D virtual environments. During the period of the project on which this article reports, learners were invited to use the Lake Devo website for an assigned role-play activity. Online learner survey responses were collected following the pilot implementations of the website to determine the extent to which the non-text modes of representation (visual, audio) in Lake Devo, along with an integrated debrief area on the site, supported the learners in their online role-play activity. The preliminary findings suggest that Lake Devo provides an environment that effectively supports online role-play. The simple format of the Lake Devo avatars, the availability of visual and audio elements, and the ability to create a lasting artifact for review in a dedicated debrief area engage students and also reinforce the constructivist and collaborative nature of role-play activities. For practitioners beyond the Lake Devo project team and the Ryerson context, the Lake Devo website provides an example of an online role-play environment that offers alternatives to text-based and/or 3D virtual worlds.</p>

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 204-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron K. Vallance ◽  
Ashish Hemani ◽  
Victoria Fernandez ◽  
Daniel Livingstone ◽  
Kerri McCusker ◽  
...  

Aims and methodTo develop and evaluate a novel teaching session on clinical assessment using role play simulation. Teaching and research sessions occurred sequentially in computer laboratories. Ten medical students were divided into two online small-group teaching sessions. Students role-played as clinician avatars and the teacher played a suicidal adolescent avatar. Questionnaire and focus-group methodology evaluated participants' attitudes to the learning experience. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS, qualitative data through nominal-group and thematic analyses.ResultsParticipants reported improvements in psychiatric skills/knowledge, expressing less anxiety and more enjoyment than role-playing face to face. Data demonstrated a positive relationship between simulator fidelity and perceived utility. Some participants expressed concern about added value over other learning methods and non-verbal communication.Clinical implicationsThe study shows that virtual worlds can successfully host role play simulation, valued by students as a useful learning method. The potential for distance learning would allow delivery irrespective of geographical distance and boundaries.


Author(s):  
Ron Lombard ◽  
Barbara Biglan

This is a review of an action research project dealing with the impact of a role playing activity in an online course. Two instructors of an online graduate course collected observable data based on response and participation levels of students in an online discussion setting. Subsequently, utilizing the same discussion topic, the instructors combined for a course delivery team teaching and role playing approach to the discussion. In the second course the instructors assumed the roles of John Dewey, Mao Tse-Tung, and Aristotle and exchanged responses and comments with each other and with students. A comparison of the levels of responses between the two approaches utilizing the same rubric allowed to measure the impact of role play and team teaching. A review of research related to team teaching and role playing as approaches to enhance discussions provides background to decision to utilize these two approaches to enhance the discussion process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 295-307
Author(s):  
Anders I. Mørch

PurposeThe present study proposes action-breakdown-repair (ABR) as a pedagogical model and 3D virtual worlds as technology, to bridge the gap between curricular goals and students out of school technology experiences, referred to as the educational gap.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative study combining design-based research (DBR) and a case study was used with video observation as a data collection method. ABR is demonstrated by an empirical analysis of learning activities with ©Minecraft (hereafter MC) and ©Second LifeTM (hereafter SL) used in two teacher education programs.FindingsTeachers and students could use the technology with some initial training. Experience in gameplay, collaboration and problem solving eased the transitioning into curricular activities. The teachers integrated domain knowledge by giving students tasks that involved the creation of domain-specific artifacts and role-play scenarios. In total, two dilemmas of educational gap closing were found and discussed: learning domain knowledge vs learning technology and breakdown in action vs breakdown in understanding.Research limitations/implicationsAutomated feedback (critiquing) adapted to students' individual needs while building and role-playing in MC or SL to off-load some of the teachers’ work in scaffolding design activities in the classroom is a direction for further work.Practical implicationsThe model can provide guidance for teachers and other stakeholders who are in the process of integrating creative technologies like visual programming, design environments and collaboration tools in K-12 education.Originality/valueA novelty of the present research is treating ABR as a pedagogical model and closing the educational gap.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Anthony Piscitelli

Role-playing is a teaching technique that provides students with an opportunity to engage with the material in a unique way within the classroom setting. A classroom role-play can involve students reading pre-designed scripts, students play acting characters described on role cards, or students acting out characters of their own creation. Regardless of the specific approach, role-play activities can serve to increase student retention, understanding, and engagement with the course material. In this session, educators explore the benefits and challenges associated with using role-play activities in the classroom. Participants get a chance to experience a role-play activity and consider how to facilitate a role-play that creates a memorable experience and contributes to course learning outcomes. The ultimate goal is to provide participants with the tools to use role-playing in their own teaching practices.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-67
Author(s):  
Priyanka Lekhi ◽  
Sophia Nussbaum

Many Canadian universities have created professional development programs for their teaching assistants (TA) but may be uncertain about how to bridge the gap between TAs’ knowledge of effective teaching strategies and TAs’ confident applications of these strategies. We present a technique used in a two-day training workshop to enhance graduate students skills in using effective teaching strategies: role playing. This paper outlines a framework that includes five key elements (Icebreaking, Shared Experiences, Modelling, Acting and Debriefing) to strategically design role playing activities in a training program. We describe each of the 5 elements and explain how they support training through role play exercises. Participant written feedback collected in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014 suggested that role playing was a useful and enjoyable technique. Pre and post workshop questionnaire data suggested that self-perceived competencies for specified tasks directly connected to a role play activity promoted greater positive differences between the pre and post groups compared to self-perceived competencies for specified tasks not directly connected to a role play activity. Based on these results, we assert that training programs which rely on strategic role playing activities will lead to a better overall TA experience of the training program and improvements in TAs’ self-perceptions of certain teaching competencies.  


Author(s):  
Yu-Hui Ching ◽  
Yu-Chang Hsu

<p class="BodyText1">Peer feedback affords interaction and critical thinking opportunities for learners in online courses. However, various factors prevent learners from taking advantage of these promising benefits. This study explored learners’ perceptions of the interpersonal factors in a role-playing peer-feedback activity, and examined the types of peer feedback that learners generated when playing a role. Participants were 16 graduate students engaged in an online role-playing peer-feedback activity. The results from survey responses revealed learners’ positive interpersonal beliefs, including psychological safety and trust, toward the role-playing peer-feedback activity. In addition, more than sixty percent of the participants reported being more comfortable critiquing peers’ work when playing a role. The content analysis of the peer-feedback entries indicated that learners were able to generate highly constructive feedback entries. In addition to adding supportive comments, those feedback entries identified problems, asked questions, and provided suggestions. The results show that role-play strategy has great potential to enhance learners’ interpersonal beliefs in peer-feedback activity and their feedback quality.</p>


1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-65
Author(s):  
Jonah H. Peretti ◽  
Mark Cowett ◽  
Casey Charvet

2021 ◽  
pp. 009862832110159
Author(s):  
Maya C. Rose ◽  
Jessica E. Brodsky ◽  
Elizabeth S. Che ◽  
Patricia J. Brooks

Background: Introductory Psychology students rarely learn about unethical biomedical research outside the Tuskegee syphilis study, but these practices were widespread in U.S. public health research (e.g., at the Willowbrook State School researchers infected children with disabilities with hepatitis). Objectives: Replicate and extend Grose-Fifer’s research ethics activity by evaluating if an online homework and in-class role-play increased awareness of unethical research and abuses at Tuskegee (replication) and Willowbrook (extension) and subsequent changes in human subjects protections. Method: As homework, students read about the studies and wrote statements from perspectives of individuals involved. In class, students read their statements and discussed how outrage led to research conduct regulations. Online pre/posttests asked students why it was important to learn about both studies. Results: At posttest, students were more aware of unethical research at Willowbrook and that Tuskegee led to changes in human subjects protections. Students who completed the role-play activity were less likely to mention abuses for Tuskegee than students who did not participate. Conclusion: We were partially successful in replicating and extending Grose-Fifer. Teaching Implications: Research ethics instruction should draw attention to historical precedents and how public outrage and social activism led to increased protections for research participants.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Anthony Fabi Gui

World of Warcraft® (WoW), a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) extends to its members a virtual landscape of live gaming opportunities through such platforms as “dice” rolled character stats, open-ended story development, and interactive AI. These affordances are underpinned by a kind of virtual sense of community bringing players together in order to develop relationships and the self, adventure together, build up wealth, and overcome obstacles in order to complete quests. In addition to live game-play (or “in-world”) communities, WoW residents create alternative communities through rich online forums—here, new members are recruited into guilds, disputes are spawned and slayed, and seasoned warriors reminisce over worlds and lives that once- were. However, a third type of community is also evident through particular threads crafted within forums specifically for collaborative storytelling (or roleplaying). This paper examines sense of community—a sense of “belonging to, importance of, and identification with a community”—through one particular thread, “The Darkening Grove Tavern” under the forum World’s End Tavern using an adaptation of McMillan and Chavis’ theory and Boellstorff, Nardi, Pearce & Taylor’s ethnographic data collection methodology for qualitative analysis of virtual worlds . Findings from players’ story text (or “turns”) suggest that online storytelling forum threads exhibit a linguistically and semiotically branded sense of virtual community. 


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederico Menine Schaf ◽  
Suenoni Paladini ◽  
Carlos Eduardo Pereira

<span style="color: #000000;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Recent evolutions of social networks, virtual environments, Web technologies and 3D virtual worlds motivate the adoption of new technologies in education, opening successive innovative possibilities. These technologies (or tools) can be employed in distance education scenarios, or can also enhance traditional learning-teaching (blended or hybrid learning scenario). It is known and a wide advocated issue that laboratory practice is essential to technical education, foremost in engineering. In order to develop a feasible implementation to this research area, a prototype was developed, called 3DAutoSysLab, in which a metaverse is used as social collaborative interface, experiments (real or simulated) are linked to virtual objects, learning objects are displayed as interactive medias, and guiding/feedback are supported via an autonomous tutoring system based on user's interaction data mining. This prototype is under test, but preliminary applied results indicate great acceptance and increase of motivation of students.</span></span></span>


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