Lectures have dominated the history of education. It is time that society pushes lectures aside for a more effective teaching style; this style is active learning. Lectures need to be pushed aside due to the lack of participation that they promote in the classroom. Active learning opens the classroom up to more participation from the students rather than the teacher dictating the classroom. There are several techniques that can be used within Active learning, role-playing is one of these techniques. Role-playing allows the students to experience the subject matter first-hand, solve problems as a group, and reinforce what they have previously learned. Unlike lectures, role-playing requires active participation from the students. During my field …show more content…
Role-playing will not completely get rid of lectures, but it will provide students with an extra incentive to be attentive. When role-playing is implemented into the classroom, lectures will be less frequent, because they will only be used to prepare the students for the role-play. With less lectures and the knowledge that they are only used for preparation, the students will be more interested and attentive. I experienced this first hand in my State and Local Politics class. In that class, we participated in a simulation where we acted as a local city council. We spent the two classes prior to the simulation going over the rules and regulations. During those two days, the students asked more questions than any class period prior. There are normally a select few individuals that ask questions or answer the professor’s questions, but those few days before the simulation and during, the majority of the class participated. Afterwards, the professor asked us how we felt about the simulation and the overwhelming answer was that it allowed for us to experience the material first-hand and gain a more in-depth knowledge. Active learning boosts the overall learning environment and enhances the interest of the students. A role-playing activity in a history class prompted more …show more content…
No matter how big or how small the problem is, everyone needs to know how to solve it. Role-playing provides students with the mind-set to solve problems. When solving problems, students need to be able to think creatively. Thinking creatively gives students the ability to develop “original ideas and action,” which provides students the foundation to succeed in the twenty-first century (Shieh & Wheijen, 2014, p.650) During my field experience, the teacher I observed brought the difficulties and problems that the President and Congress face to the students attention, but they never experienced them first-hand. However, role-playing forces the students to feel the difficulty that our leaders face on a day-to-day basis. For example, during my State and Local Politics simulation, the city council undertook more services and were forced to raise taxes. Many citizens at the time were angry and the councilors that voted for the increase lost their seats on the council because of the tax increase. This is a great example of how difficult it is to please constituents. Many citizens that were displeased with the tax increase were in favor of the additional services. That is common within our society. If this role-play activity was performed in a high school classroom, students would understand the difficulties and understand additional services call for additional taxes. The tax increase was placed on a referendum and did
Martini is trying to discover different ways that her students can distinguish one and other perspectives. According to Piaget and his theory, in play children begin and control individual actions (Driscoll, 2005). This is what Ms. Martini is trying to do with her class when they are role playing. Another conclusion that was drawn from Ms. Martini and when she has her students write in a journal and share is that this corresponds with Piaget. This corresponds with Piaget because he mentions that peer contact is important in helping children change beyond egocentric thought (Driscoll, 2005). As a future teaching, in important teaching practice that can be done to help my profession is that while teaching a class, especially at a lower grade the teacher should make the lesson interactive. Also the students should be working with one another because according to Piaget imagination play is a more natural way for children to learn about the world (Driscoll,
An opportunity was given to practice our social work skills through creating a role play video. This essay will consist of my overall reflection of completing the role play video in addition to assessing a colleague’s role play video. The following points will be addressed, “An explanation of any insights you gained from the experience. An explanation of the challenges you experienced in planning and executing the role play. An explanation of the specific techniques you used and why you used them. A brief description of the colleague’s role play video you selected. A critique of what your colleague did well in the video you selected and an explanation of areas in which your colleague might improve his or her approach and why (Waldenu.edu, 2016).”
Over the years, teachers have realized that some students learn better when taught in different ways. A teachers task is to make sure that us students learn. All students want to do is have fun. There has to be a good balance between the two. Teachers have tried several ways to let us have fun and learn at the same time. Some ways teachers could make learning fun and more effective are doing group projects, having study groups, and making and doing review games.
As Utah Valley University transfer students, we know first-hand what a UVU education focused on engaged-learning means. Under the direction of President Matthew Holland, the university recently restructured its core values, which represent the institution's interpretation of its mission. These principles now include 1) student success, 2) serious,
One way to excite students about learning is by using games. Game play can require students use higher-order thinking skills, where they are analyzing, creating and understanding the concepts at deeper level. Making games from content, or Gamification can be done by creating teams, scores, competitions, and rewards. Real life simulations incorporated into a game environment can create a powerful learning environment.
Active participation involves pair work, group work, building models, mind mapping, brainstorming and role play. The teacher is rarely stands at the front, but is moving around the room, listening watching and supporting students in day to day practice.
This activity will help students be caught up on current events and issues within society. I believe talking about important topics that may be a little controversial will teach students to be active members of society and embrace social change. I think talking about these subjects is an important part of socialization, and will teach young adults a basic understanding of inclusion and embracing diversity. I believe this will help students be more inclusive to their peers and people all over the world. I chose a randomly assigned group exercise in order to help students interact with other people they might not usually interact with. I also chose this activity because it helps young adults improve their basic skills such as reading, as they will be reading articles attempting to gain perspective and explaining what the article is about. Another basic skill they will be working on will be writing, as they have to write out their roles in order to present them to the large group of students. The young adults will also be improving their oral skills, as they will have to present their task to the class. I also chose this activity as it will help improve both independent and teamwork skills. This is because the students will have to work on their roles individually and also collaborate and discuss with their group in order to present their task to the class. I believe teamwork exercises especially with a randomly assigned group will help students learn to be more excepting and inclusive as each student is different and some students might have learning disabilities and as a group you are going to have to help your team out in order to give a cohesive presentation. I also chose this activity because it does not require much material; the activity basically only needs paper, pencils and pre-printed articles. I believe having
There is a crisis happening within our schools, as we have children that do not want to engage, while our intelligence is dwindling compared to the rest of the world. Games in the classroom, however, could be a tool to combat this, as they engage students, create positive thinking, and boost problem-solving skills.
In role-playing, the students represent the experiences known as the characters. According to Zenobia (2012), role-playing is an effective strategy for gaining competency and develop reasoning. Educators should have embraced role playing because it is an innovative approach to teaching and can meet student’s needs. Moreover, role-playing can help the learners to increase their communication skills with patients and facilitate cultural awareness. The only barrier to this instructional strategy is stage fright. On the other hand, one positive to role-playing is it offers instant feedback to the
To begin, the meaning of play, many schools across he country are cutting back on free play with children so they can spend more time in the classroom. When in reality, are those teachers really helping their children? According to Time magazine, play, plays an essential role in young children’s lives and without that little break of play and fresh air the children will get overwhelmed and possibly stop learning and become disengaged. Personally, I don’t like sitting for a long time just listening to teachers talk without
A learner centered activity I use in my classroom is Readers Theater. I use readers theater to help the students practice their fluency, develop comprehension and do something they love, perform. I began this activity at the beginning of the school year with my below grade level group, but the other students loved it and wanted to participate. After seeing the improvement, I decided to have the whole class participate on this activity. Depending on the concept and the pacing and time available, groups are able to perform in my classroom or in other first grade and kindergarten classes. They really enjoy performing and they have so much fun with it that they do not even realize they are practicing their reading.
Guillaume, A.M., Yopp, R.H., & Yopp, H.K. (2007). 50 strategies for active teaching: Engaging k-12 learners in the classroom. Upper Saddle Ridge, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.
Passive learning was once the go to mode of teaching students in university and college, but the method has been changing over the years to have students become more involved using active learning, as it has been found that students perform better when actively involves in their studies (Shimanzoe & Aldrich, 2010). Similarly, Wasley (2006) argues that, students that are exposed to group work while learning, and are involved in educational activities outside the classroom, earn better grades and feel more satisfied with their education. Learning theories explain that when students spend time discussing, investigating, and applying new concepts, they acquire long-lasting knowledge about the new material. This type of environment helps students
There are many methods, strategies that can be used by the teacher to apply the lesson in the class to make the student more active to improve their speaking ability and explore their knowledge but the fact is many students still shame to explore themselves because some factors. Role-play is one of the activities to support students’ speaking ability. Through role-play activities, the students learn how to express their ideas, opinions, or feeling to others by using words or sounds of pronunciation. Larsen Freeman (2000:68) explains that role-plays are important in the communicative approach because they give students an opportunity to practice their communication different social contexts and different social roles .A role-play
The sixth factor is “Assessments” (McBer, 2000). Assessments and instructions are inseparable. This is the factor that decides if the effective learning has taken place, which I will cover in the latter part of the essay. Effective teachers employ different assessments techniques and tools to know the understanding of their pupils. Assessments not only serve as the tool for measuring students’ understanding, it is also for the teachers to improve their teaching. They also need to differentiate their assessments based on the cognitive needs of the students. Effective teachers use three types of assessment. Diagnostic Assessment (DA), which is widely known as pre-assessment or prior knowledge assessment is used by the teachers to check the skills of the students, which will be helpful for the planning and guide DI (ASCD website). Formative Assessment (FA) is those ongoing assessments, helps teachers understand the grey areas, and helps them to clear the misconceptions by immediately acting on it. FAs can include both formal and informal ways such as written test, oral questioning, quizzes, and group discussions. It is not necessarily being graded. There are also few modern differentiated FAs such as ThinkDots, Cubing, Tic-Tac-Toe used by formally trained and trainee teachers in IIS. Using these differentiated FAs breaks the monotony of the class, and students find these FAs to be interesting activities. The fear of failure is reduced here. The Summative Assignments (SA) is nothing but the traditional way of assessing the students at the end of the topic/course. Though the SAs are important, it does not give opportunity for the students to rework on it or for teachers to support the students in building the concept. But the teachers ...