Explicit roleplay has a rich history in education. Law students use mock-trials to hone their craft; counselors roleplay client contact sessions, and many disciplines require students give presentations or perform project work while acting in the role of the professional they hope to become. In fact, the dialectical method of Socrates is a form of roleplay, wherein participants adopt an aspect for an argument not necessarily their own.
In our last teaching tip we talked about the power of play and how celebrating successes, while minimizing the consequences of failure, can foster an environment of experimentation and discovery. In short, these are key elements that help make learning more fun. This week, we’re going to look at a practical examples of this principle applied in classrooms here at UAF.
From our earliest stages of cognitive development, we have learned from play. Play urges the player to try over and over again even as she repeatedly fails; play generates its own persistence, encouraging the player to continue caring even after her obligation to do so has ended; play is an active celebration of deeper understanding, such that the great players in any field, from baseball to physics, are remembered and celebrated for how well they played.
Do your students use Blackboard or WordPress? Are you concerned these tools get in the way of students learning course content? Seize the opportunity to facilitate learning through play. Help your students build a community of their peers while teaching them how to use the course-required tools with social assignments. Tackle the “I don’t know how' issue head-on with a bit of fun, and cohort-building, on the side.
QR, or Quick Response codes, are specially designed barcodes that can be read by a camera-ready mobile device or computer. I like to think of them as URLs for print; by reading the “link' you get bonus information. You see them all over: food products, magazines, posters, signage, business cards. Almost anywhere you see information posted in two dimension, you might see a QR code.
Recently, I presented (from the studio where I regularly record Digital Beards) on assigning video activities to students over Hangouts on Air, with the assistance of Rob Prince, Dan LaSota and Owen Guthrie. Dan and Owen […]
Do you remember virtual worlds? They haven’t gone anywhere, but back in the middle of the last decade, 2006-2009, they were getting a good deal more attention than they are now. Names from the automotive industry, news agencies, music labels, and even universities jumped in to see what all of the hype was about. Worlds such as Second Life, Open Sim, Kaneva, and Blue Mars were just some of the virtual spaces people could walk into.
We owe it to the students, the institution and the larger community to champion our material and point out the relevance that we know exists. Why else would we teach what we teach and do what we do? What instructors and students both want are courses that frame content in engaging ways.
I sat down with my ID colleagues here at CTL, Owen Guthrie and Dan LaSota, who had just come back from South by Southwest where they’d delivered a workshop on badging and gamification. In this, […]
When I first taught face-to-face composition with the goal to help students understand the academic essay, I had them print out their papers for me to read at my desk next to my beloved mug of pens. I’ve never been comfortable doling out grades without extensive, contextual feedback, so I always wrote a great deal in the margins.
Hello everyone, I’ve been gone awhile, for which I am sorry. Well, not really. I am recently returned from my honeymoon. So no: sorry is the wrong word. Now that I’m back and caught up, […]
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