Role Playing in the Classroom

Role playing is great in some contexts but poor in others. Advantages of role playing include opportunities for critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis. Role playing should be used primarily to reinforce concepts that have already been taught, not to introduce them. A direct approach to learning is typically best to introduce new concepts. This way, the student is given structure and guidance. Then, the student can use the role playing and other instructional strategies to improve those aspects of higher learning. With role playing, a student can use the subject matter to support and argue his own opinions, further strengthening his knowledge of the content. Allowing the students' opinions, and therefore their emotions, in the classroom is important because it helps make the content relevant and therefore helps keep their interest in the subject. However, if a teacher assigns positions for the student to argue or defend, learning may be lost, because the teacher has already given the student too much information. It works best if the students come up with their own situations, arguments, and applications of the concepts. When a student is held responsible for finding his own solution or arguing his own position, he must use the skills of higher learning to apply the content. This is one of the most valuable aspects of learning, for a student to self-teach and reinforce the concepts learned in the classroom.
Our Ed Psych classes were recently assigned a role playing project in which we were to argue for or against a "No Child Left Behind" proposal at a town hall meeting. With little overview of the issue on hand, we were each assigned various positions to take including the teachers union, taxpayers, parents, college students, local businesses, etc. This could have allowed us to further explore positions that were different than our own and to gain a broader perspective of the content. Unfortunately, the description of the positions gave too much information for us to be able to discover the argument for that position on our own. If I had assigned the project myself, my goal would have been to teach the positive and negative effects of "No Child Left Behind." But it seemed to me that the professors were trying to emphasize who was paid attention in the meeting. Because of this, I saw how people may tend to pay closer attention to the people who are in favor of the issue and take little to no suggestions from those who oppose. I think that if there was more instruction in the first place, and weren't given so much information on the people we were to be representing, we would have been able to bring better discussion to the meeting, and we would have learned the concepts better. The key to role playing in the classroom should be that students can use the concepts they have learned in the classroom with their previous knowledge and experiences to further reinforce those concepts.