){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
Role play is a didactic technique that I apply in my class for the teaching of Environmental Engineering. It is relevant because students must apply their knowledge and experiment in realistic, safe situations to identify and evaluate various contextual problems. These considerations may incorporate the environmental activist’s perspective, legislative proposals, the issues concerning environmental groups, and points of view of an area’s inhabitants, groups, and ethnicities. In each case, the students should position themselves with the perspectives of the groups they represent. This activity can address topics such as the conservation of species in protected areas, waste management, land use, tree felling, problems with pests, biopesticides versus conventional pesticides, and many other issues.
“During the online classes, I perceived the students as uninformed and oblivious to the current environmental problems in Mexico.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, role play was an in-person activity I used with my students in the classroom. However, during the lockdown, education had to make a mass migration to online education, affecting class dynamics, student participation, and interaction. Likewise, the role of teachers changed to adapt and manage online content, considering student collaboration as a critical point without forgetting that all kinds of issues could arise at home. The roleplaying activity previously carried out in face-to-face classes had to be adapted for virtual interactions in the virtual classroom.
Relevance of role play for education
Role play is a very appropriate activity to handle challenging aspects or topics in which it is necessary to take different postures to understand them better. It consists of the spontaneous representation of a real or hypothetical situation to introduce a problem or information relevant to the course contents. Each student plays a role, although they can also swap their roles. In this way, they can approach the problem from various perspectives and understand the different interpretations of the same reality. (Tec de Monterrey, 2010).
Various research into the importance of roleplaying as a pedagogical tool agree on its usefulness in strengthening the classroom experience, a process in which the individual appropriates knowledge in its different dimensions, focusing on acquiring habits and developing motivating activities (Polo-Acosta, 2018). It is a technique applied in diverse areas of study, including humanities, politics, tourism (Dosso, 2009), and psychology (Polo-Acosta, 2018), among others, to analyze various roles or tasks.
“I observed the students became more critical since taking the assigned role; they faced the need to investigate the bases of their dissertations, leading them to propose more complete solutions.”
During the online classes, I perceived the students as uninformed and oblivious to the current environmental problems in Mexico. In regular times, we would have been able to visit research centers where these problems are raised and addressed. However, we could not do these activities due to the pandemic’s confinement. The silver lining was that I discovered the role technique as an ally to bring this knowledge and experiences to my students.
Role play applied to online learning
I currently apply the roleplaying strategy in my online class, assigning a topic and a role to each team, usually two days in advance. It is worth mentioning that teams of two or three people prepare information for debate in advance through research, presentations, graphics, or simple annotations. While applying the online technique, I detected a lack of participant interaction; however, raising controversial issues, questions, or assumptions improves the situation.
Despite the advantages of roleplaying, obstacles arise when done online; the most challenging, I would say, is effective communication. One of the ways to overcome this problem is by facilitating interactions and motivating the participation of online team members. Among the improvements I propose are integrating multidisciplinary teams, in which team members self-evaluate and evaluate their peers, introducing attractive topics, and establishing times for each participatory event.
This past year, I applied roleplay in the online modality for subjects such as Edaphology, Evaluation of Soil Pollution, and Organic Chemistry. For example, in Edaphology, we addressed the issues of butterfly reserves and the felling of trees for logging. With pleasure, I observed that the students made maps of the study area to support their dissertations. I also observed that they became more critical of fundamentals because, when taking the assigned role, they faced the need to investigate the basis of their dissertations, which led them to propose more complete solutions. In parallel, I observed that they were motivated to participate effectively.
At the end of the case presentations and the teams’ dissertation, we decided on the winning team by voting for the role best supported by arguments coinciding with the applicable environmental legislation. I contributed my point of view after each participation. The students were enthusiastic at the end of this activity, most having performed good research work.
Reflection
After applying the technique of teaching role play, I found the need for our students to get involved with environmental and general problems where the environment is negatively impacted. It allows them to become aware of the challenges they may face at work and in the world at large, as we are all involved in the deterioration of the environment in one way or another. We must consider our shared responsibility with environmental education and the environment.
I consider this activity a success story if students actively participate, develop a sense of teamwork, and encourage the search for information and research for learning.
I want professors to feel encouraged to apply this technique in environmental issues, engineering, or other subjects. I hope my experience helps encourage other teachers to implement this activity in their teaching practice. I remain attentive to questions or share experiences in the comments section.
About the Author
Diana Isis Llanes Gil López (Diana.llanes@une.edu.mx) has been a member of the National Research System since 2021 (candidate level). She has a Ph.D. in Advanced Technology and has three patents before the IMPI: * Composition and process to obtain nutritious pasta flour comprising sugarcane bud – Registration MX/2016/092895 (granted). * Process of elaborating dough from sugarcane bud with high antioxidant content. * Mixed corn-bagasse flour with nutraceutical properties and increased antioxidant capacity. The author has three publications in high-impact peer-reviewed journals: “Production of dietary fibers from sugarcane bagasse” and “Sugarcane tops using microwave-assisted alkaline treatments,” Industrial Crops and Products, Volume 135, 2019, Pages 159-169, ISSN 0926-6690, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2019.04.042. Also: “Data supporting the production of dietary fibers from sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane tops using microwave-assisted alkaline treatments,” Data in Brief, Volume 24,2019,104026, ISSN 2352-3409, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2019.104026.
References
Ricardo Dosso. (2009). EL JUEGO DE ROLES: UNA OPCIÓN DIDÁCTICA EFICAZ PARA LA FORMACION EN POLÍTICA Y PLANIFICACION TURISTICA. Aportes y Transferencias, 13, núm. 2., 11-28.
Polo-Acosta, C., Carrillo-Estrada, M., Rodríguez-Barrio, M., Gutiérrez-Meriño, O., Pertuz-Guette, C., Guette-Granados, R., Polo Palacin, A., Padilla-Muñoz, R., Campo, R., Estrada, M., Vergara, R. y Osorio, A. (2018). Juego de roles: estrategia pedagógica para el fortalecimiento de la convivencia. Cultura. Educación y Sociedad 9(3), 869-876. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17981/cultedusoc.9.3.2018.103
Lonngi Reyna S. D., Hernández Baruch A.C. (2016). Aplicación del juego de rol para el desarrollo de competencias colaborativas en la solución de problemas dentro de la Universidad Veracruzana, Sistema de Enseñanza Abierta (SEA) , Universidad Veracruzana.
Mauricio Rangel Jiménez. (2021). Lanzando los dados: aproximaciones académicas a los juegos de rol. Ciudad de México: Universidad Iberoamericana.
Tecnológico de Monterrey. (2010). Juego de roles. 30 de junio del 2022, de ITESM Sitio web: http://sitios.itesm.mx/va/dide2/tecnicas_didacticas/juego_roles.htm
Edition by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Edu bits and Webinars Editor – “Learning that inspires” – Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education of Tec de Monterrey.
Translation by Daniel Wetta.
){kind=icon}
){kind=icon}
This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
