Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Description

Tabletop role play games (RPGs) like Dungeons and Dragons, Elderscrolls or World of Warcraft allow players to participate in a variety of worldbuilding and storytelling practices. RPGs have been used in the classroom to help learners shift their perspectives and engage them in new ways of thinking, they can also be used to consider teaching identity and create a safe space for experimenting with different teacher identities. Just as players might develop a customized character in a fictional world that responds to the conditions of an emerging storyline, workshop participants will be led through a series of interactive, reflective exercises to describe their teaching identities in the university classroom. Using a modified character sheet (typically used by players to build an identity in an RPG), participants will reflect on how their personality traits, backstories, “advantages” and “disadvantages” can be further developed and honed to respond to the emerging demands of postsecondary teaching.