IF YOU WANT TO:
Creating opportunities for role playing.
An education professor has found that having students role play professional situations is an effective strategy for involving them in the course material. He poses a situation typical of some aspect of professional practice and assigns a few students to take various roles. Sometimes students are told in advance that they will be responsible for a certain role; other times assignments are made spontaneously at the beginning of class.
An engineering professor makes use of role playing to encourage students to develop skills they will need in their careers. "I give students copies of an engineering report, for example. Then one half of the class is asked to assume the role of the authors of that report and prepare an oral presentation for the client or funding agency. The other half of the class is assigned to act as representatives of the client or funding agency and to prepare questions to be asked of the engineers.
"About a week later, during class time, I select certain students to actually enact these roles in front of the class. The students do not know ahead of time whether they will be called, so everyone has to be prepared. Those not called join me in the role of the observer. When the students have enacted the meeting, the rest of us give a critique of each side's performance."
Limitations on Use of Suggestion
Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California