ABSTRACT
The importance of
creativity has been gaining increasing attention over the last several decades
with both practitioners and educators promoting the importance of creative
thinking in the classroom. Apart from the traditional methods of teaching the
inculcation of innovative strategies will enhances the interest for learning
and cognitive skills of learners. This article describes the benefits of
considering role playing as an innovative strategy in classroom.
Key words: innovative strategy, role – playing
INTRODUCTION
Education innovation is about more than just new
technology. It is about addressing a real problem in a novel and
straightforward manner in order to promote equity and improve learning.
Education innovation scales the solution to the scale of the challenge. It
encourages students and teachers to conduct research, explore, and use all
available tools to learn something new. It also improves education by forcing
students to think at a higher level in order to solve complex problems.
Although innovation cannot be tested or graded, it can be instilled and
developed in students.
Over the last decade, role play has grown in
importance in education. There have been numerous studies conducted on the
importance of role plays in assisting children's learning. Role plays can
increase student interest in the topic being discussed in class. It can also
increase student engagement. Students transition from passive recipients to
active participants in the classroom. Students can also develop empathy
through role play. It helps them understand different points of view and allows
them to see things from another person's perspective.
OBJECTIVE
Role play provides insight into case based learning
(CBL). It not only helps to enhance communication, psychomotor skills and
knowledge but also helps to develop all domains of learning.
SIGNIFICANCE
Education innovation encourages teachers and
students to conduct research and use all available tools to create something new. Role-playing is a strategy that
allows students to explore genuine scenarios by engaging with other people in a
controlled environment in order to gain experience and test alternative
techniques. Depending on the purpose of the exercise, participants may be
playing a role similar to their own or they may be playing the opposite side of
the conversation or interaction. Both alternatives offer substantial learning
opportunities, with the former providing for experience and the latter helping
the learner to build an understanding of the problem from the 'other' point of
view. Participants are assigned specific roles to perform in a discussion or
other interaction characteristic of their discipline, such as an email
exchange. They may be given precise instructions on how to act or what to say
or they may be forced to act and react in their own unique way based on the
exercise's objectives. The scenario will then be acted out by the participants,
followed by reflection and discussion regarding the interactions, such as
various methods of dealing with the circumstance. The story can then be
reenacted with alterations based on the results of the contemplation and
debate.
Role play is
an innovative technique that assists learners in illustrating ideas or skills
by simulating roles and contexts in which ideas and skills would typically be
applied. This has some advantages such as:
- ·
It involves direct experimental
learning.
- ·
Motivate and engage students.
- ·
Make chances for peer critique
available.
- ·
Improve present teaching practices
- ·
Provide pupils with real world circumstances
to help them learn.
- ·
Develop real world skills such as
negotiation, discussion, teamwork, corporation, persuasion.
- ·
Develop systematic understanding.
- ·
It facilitates learning across different
areas of curriculum content.
- ·
It facilitates expression of attitude
and feelings.
- ·
It helps to make abstract problems more
concrete.
- ·
It helps to manipulate knowledge in
exciting and novel way.
- ·
It provides immediate feedback.
THEORETICAL OVERVIEW
The theory of role play is based on experiential learning. Many influential educational theorists have written about
the value of experiential learning, including Dewey, Lindeman, and Kolb. Role
play is an effective experimental technique which can enhance the interest and
perspective about learning among the adult students. Here the students take on
real-world roles and must apply and develop the knowledge and skills needed to
handle the situation or solve the problem presented. I apply the strategy of
role- playing in 9th standard students and they coordinate and perform
very well. It reflects in manipulate the knowledge in exciting and novel way.
Kolb’s experiential learning
cycle
The cone of learning
EVALUATION
This innovative work was extremely beneficial to the
students in terms of improving their attention, memory, productivity, and
problem-solving abilities. It also resulted in improved student collaboration.
Almost 90% of the students mastered the subject.
In addition to that the method seems to
be interesting for students. Apart from the traditional teaching method, an
innovative work is good Good for students with low attention span as it
effectively retains students’ attention because of the colorful interface. It helps
to create a sense of responsibility, accomplishment and maturity in students as
they are solely responsible for every decision they take in the course of their
projects and assignments. Yet it enables students to see the practical
applications of the concepts they have been taught as they try their hands on
what they were taught. It will help to creates long lasting memory/correlation
of a concept because of the experiential learning method. It facilitates
collaborative work among students. In collaborating during assignments, peer
tutoring was often possible among students’ where knowledge is passed on from
one person to another. The main advantage is Students tend to perform better,
i.e. research showed that student taught chemistry using role playing performed
better than those taught using conventional methods.
EFFECT OF THE INNOVATIVE WORK
The main learning goal for role play is to learn the
knowledge and ability required to approach or deal with a specific situation. The
learner gains this knowledge and ability by acting out the situation in a
controlled environment, and by reflecting on that experience. Simply saying, the
active participation in the innovative work reflects on their content knowledge.
This helped me understand the significance of innovative teaching. The overall
impression was positive. I discovered
that role play helps students understand a topic better than a typical
classroom experience. Students' responses and feedback exceeded my
expectations.
