I will be teaching a leadership course in three weeks and part of the learning involved role play with the coach monitoring/observing and giving feedback to the participants. I am wondering how this can be accomplish in an online synchronous format? Any suggestions?
Hi Alan - good question and I am glad you are asking for ideas from our community. I think role playing is still possible in a synchronous online environment. You would build the scenario as you would in a face 2 face environment and the participants would then role play using their mic's and video with other people (including yourself) listening. After the role play you could give your feedback. If you wanted privacy then you could create a breakout room for that purpose.
Other ideas?
Thanks Ross - helpful thoughts.
hi Alan,
I'm curious about the set up for the role play. In an actual class, it's relatively easy to assign the roles and get people thinking about the situation. Sitting in a room together is an assumed part of the role. But I would imagine that in the online synchronous format, you would even have to ask people to imagine that they are in a room together. So there's even more to the role.
A technical question: Have you got more than one monitor? I could see value in having your role play going on from one screen, and with another screen you could be typing your observations in some kind of prepared Word doc with headings or categories of the kinds of issues/topics you would expect from the role play. Then you've got space to do your work without getting scrunched by the screen.
I've taken a couple of those courses, so I'm really interested to see how they work! (is this for JIBC?)
Dave
Dave, Yes - JIBC is rolling out two online course in a couple of weeks. The TELT team is busy building the online course on Collaborate. I'm eager to see what it looks like from a pedagogical perspective.
I use three computers for my online work - 24inch all in one PC, laptop and an iPad. Just bought a vlogger webcam and headset to boost my readiness. I use the iPad for my Zoom/Bluejeans calls and will use the 24in for the online course with a split screen. The laptop is the most reliable tool and it will be back up or main tool since my 24in is finicky.
I think the role plays will be ok online. We already do some online mediation and online coaching so I am hoping the students jump in with as much real time play as possible in this format. The upside is that many are converting their conversation to online anyway and the online role plays.
Alan
Hi Allan,
This is a great question and I am also interested in people's ideas. As part of the teaching that I do for health care professionals, there is lots of role playing scenarios. I haven't thought about how I will integrate these into an online platform. If there is only one facilitator in the session, would you create breakout rooms for each pair/group to practice the role playing scenario and then as the facilitator can you rotate between all the breakout rooms to check-in on participants?
Hi Mariane - that is definitely possible to enter into / exit each breakout room. I am wondering how that would flow with multiple breakout groups? There would be quite a bit of time when groups are "on their own". I guess the key would be to have clear direction to the groups about whats going to happen and what to do when the facilitator is not in the room. Asif and I are going to be demonstrating breakout groups in Tuesday's session. Hope to see you there. Ross
Thank you for your reply Ross. I definitely want to know more about breakout rooms. For training health care professionals we use a lot of case studies and groups have to work on case studies and then present to the larger group. I am trying to think about how I can best support this type of activity in an online platform.
Hello Mariana,
One health care instructor I know recorded role-play scenarios or cases in a What's App Group which lead to very active conversations during the day in the Chat. She found it was difficult for everyone to meet up synchronously because of their work but easier for people to share ideas and create a conversation with their mobile phones during break times.
I use What's App Groups and Chatwork Groups actively when designing the course because it is very much like talking synchronously and we can quickly do a What's App call as well if we need clarification. There is also a written record of the conversation which we can save and refer to later which everyone can store and refer to later.
I am very interested in this. We use role play a lot in our employee workshops - I believe that applying learning is really important. I am hoping to figure out how to do that in break out rooms for my practice session in this course.
I co-facilitated a webinar teaching the skills of debriefing and we actually had great success with pairs pausing to call each other on the phone and trying out the framework. Feedback was great from the group. This was a workplace learning event and so people used their work phones.
What a great idea Gayle - and a reminder that 'synchronous' does not necessarily mean within a single or webinar-type platform.
Pausing a synchro session for realtime small-group collaboration activities in online documents, online whiteboards, videoconferencing platforms -- and yes, the phone -- are great ways to 'break out' into groups. Thanks for this share.
Asif
Gayle
Thank you.. I had not thought of having people call each other 'off-line' as an alternative to the breakout room. I am restricted to using Microsoft Teams for my employee workshops, which does not have breakout rooms, so that might be a possible solution.
Patience
Hi Alan,
The role-plays could be recorded in the breakout rooms which can then be used for coach, peer and self evaluation. Most videoconferencing tools have that capability. It would provide a way to monitor several sessions happening at the same time with different groups.
My students are generally pleased to observe the interactions and find reflecting on the video a powerful learning tool (once everyone gets over the initial discomfort!).
Lynette
HI Lynette,
I believe my Collaborate platform will not allow recordings of the breakout room meeting. What platform are you using?
Alan
Hi Alan,
We use Big Blue Button within moodle. We can record group discussions and presentations n the Breakout rooms which is very useful. I'm new to Collaborate! Too bad.
Lynette
Hi Alan - yes I can confirm that breakout sessions are not recorded. And - if everyone is assigned to breakout rooms and the moderator leaves the main room then the recording is stopped for the main room as well - so you have to remember to have one moderator in the main room - or just remember to press record again.
Ross