Teaching Practicum Cohort

2022 Theme: Role Play as Reflective Practice and Critical Pedagogy

As many of us transition from online teaching to the physical classroom, new yet familiar questions emerge: what do we do with our bodies? How should we act around our students? And how do we support our students in this transition as well?

Teaching inherently involves certain elements of performance and storytelling: volume, tone, non-verbal cues, social skills, plot, characterization, atmosphere, and so on. But not every teacher feels comfortable in all areas of their teaching. One place where teachers can explore different aspects of their teaching presence is through role-playing. Role play games, like Dungeons and Dragons, are great platforms for trying out different communication styles. This cohort practicum will not ask participants to play specific roleplay games; rather, it will outline best practices, inspired by different roleplay games and storytelling methods, and facilitate practical opportunities for participants to try out new strategies to enhance their teaching toolkits.

This year’s cohort practicum will consist of four two-hour synchronous workshops that explore the creative and pedagogical value of role playing in postsecondary education.

This cohort practicum has three purposes: 

  1. To support participants’ critical understanding of how to incorporate elements of role-play into the university classroom as well as non-academic teaching roles. This purpose includes an understanding of the ways role-playing can promote or disrupt considerations of equity and accessibility in the classroom, such as exploring the impact of incorporating physical movement into a lesson or engaging with fears concerning public speaking and performance. 
  2. To encourage participants to adopt role-playing as part of their reflective teaching practice in order to enhance their self-authorship. For this second purpose, participants will explore different role play games, character development, and worldbuilding scenarios to support their statements of teaching philosophy.
  3. To re-establish an important link between the content and form of postsecondary teaching by thinking about the role of the body, emotions, and other aspects of performance in how we teach critical thinking and situate ourselves in our work. 

4 Workshops (2 hours each)*:
Character development – Tuesday, March 8th, 2pm – 4pm
World building – Tuesday, March 15th, 2pm – 4pm
Improvisation and Encounter – Tuesday, March 22nd, 2pm – 4pm
Meta-gaming  –Tuesday, March 29th, 2pm – 4pm

*Participants must attend all four workshops to receive credit for the practicum component of the ATUP certificate.

Learning outcomes:

    • Demonstrate some level of comfort/confidence participating in and/or facilitating role-playing activities related to postsecondary teaching and learning.
    • Reflect on meaningful ways of incorporating role-playing into their teaching and facilitation toolkits.
    • Develop some initial ideas for how to incorporate role playing into a current or upcoming teaching/facilitation role.
    • Understand how roleplay and storytelling methods can help teachers facilitate for equity and accessibility.
    • Recognize where to look for more support and inspiration to adopt role-playing into course learning outcomes.

Please register for this practicum in the Certificate Portions area of the AUTP certificate in EVE.