In classroom workshops, we all know how effective roleplays and simulations can be.
I like to think of two kinds of roleplay tasks: Learning roleplays and rehearsal roleplays.
Learning roleplays are more fictional and are designed to allow the participants to try out some skills in a safe environment. They are normally followed by a discussion and feedback on how it went and how well the participant applied the skill set introduced in the workshop.
Rehearsal roleplays are designed to replicate as much as possible the kinds of things that will actually happen in the workplace. This could, let's say for a customer service training workshop, involve somebody playing the customer and workshop participants playing themselves. Feedback is based on the performance of the participant and whether they were able to achieve their goal, not explicitly on the skills they leveraged.
When writing such a workshop, it's relatively easy for the training designer to think of a learning roleplay since the situation can be (and is often better) quite fictional and far removed from the participants' actual situation. Rehearsal roleplays, however, need to be as realistic as possible to be credible and give the participants a chance to reliably test their own abilities during the workshop. This means that as designers, we need to work quite closely with the course sponsor to get enough information to create these roleplays.
So what do we do if the sponsor is not forthcoming with examples and detailed situations to allow us to build decent rehearsal roleplays?
Replies
I agree with Chris about his two role plays. As both an instructor and a student I find it more exciting and motivating if I can participate in an inital role play that maybe is not related to my work. In fact this can actually provide more of a benefit as quite often it makes the learner aware that the key points or process of this role play can be applied in many other situations and not just work related. Of course the real workplace role play MUST occur sometime during the workshop, this is imperative to create the linkage from the learning content to the workplace application.
Hmmm, what to do if the SME doesn't supply relevant examples for the rehearsal roleplay? One option is to have the class summarise the key learning points from the learning roleplay and then ask them to discuss how they would apply these KLPs to a real workplace situation and then have them perform the rehearsal roleplay. Now, this assumes they have some basic knowlewdge of the workplace role which may not happen if you're running an orientation workshop for new staff.
Really interesting points from Mark!
I agree that learning activities or tasks can really motivate and help the learners in the learning and assimilation phase while the rehearsal activities and tasks are useful in the 'transfer' or 'application' phase.
The point about using learner generated content to create and perform roleplays on the spot for experienced staff but not with new or inexperienced staff is enlightening. Does this mean we as designers should adopt a completely different design strategy depending on the experience level of the audience? Should we rely more on learner generated content in the workshop with experienced staff and use more generic, pre-written content for pre-service or induction training?
Of course, to use learner generated content, to which the trainer reacts and provides feedback and discussion, you need a very experienced trainer, who is not only fully versed in the content but is also a good facilitator.