Role Playing in the Classroom

Role playing is an effective activity for classrooms to use because it is not only engaging, but also makes students think critically. It is an effective teaching strategy if every student does their assigned part. They must take on the role of the person(s) or event that they are given. They will learn to look at topics from different points of view and develop a deeper understanding for the matter at hand. Some students learn better by being engaged in a topic and they are allowed more freedom to discover the topic for themselves. They are required to develop quick, but well supported, thoughts to prove their point and raise their concerns in a respectable manner. In regards to history teaching, role playing can help students to see how culture different in the past. This is important in them understanding how our society is the way that it is today.

I do not think it is completely necessary for students to have a solid base of basic knowledge in order to learn. It is possible to learn from experience and seeing things. They then will be able to demonstrate this knowledge back in the form of speaking because their writing and reading skills are not sufficient. However, I do believe that students should have a good grasp on their basic skills before engaging in complex learning tasks. They are able to make connections to different sorts of material to prove their point and use other techniques to follow up on their message. While students are able engage in complex learning without strong basic skills, they will not be able to make their point proven in many ways. They should be able to prove their point in different ways in order to reach a larger portion of their target audience.

Most communities listen to the high achieving families before they listen to the other representatives of other families. Schools like to show that their program makes some of the strongest students. I think that sometimes schools make the assumption that the lower achieving students just do not want to learn. They forget more of the economic and social factors that play into their learning and label these kids as challenged. The families of higher achieving students might be more willing to invest in a school or community than a family of a lower achieving student, so the district wants to keep the higher achieving people happy.

Emotional engagement in a subject can really determine how well a student is going to do in that class. Interest in a subject will lead to a child asking more questions and looking for broader knowledge of it and relating that topic to other areas in their life. If a student does not engage in a topic then he/she will just try to memorize and spit out the information for tests and quizzes. This strategy does not allow a student to develop a deeper level of thinking, which is critical to their development as a learner.