Describes an innovative training strategy that can be used to make role plays a more realistic learning experience for counseling students. The method involves using techniques that screenwriters use to create believable characters and applying these techniques to help students create realistic role-play clients. This approach also resolves some…

The Mad Hatters, a nonprofit organization offering educational theater programs to foster understanding of people with disabilities, presents techniques for training needed to improve compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. (SK)

Successful videotaping of role playing requires an environment that encourages natural, uninhibited behavior. Developers should pay attention to the setting, camera positioning, sound quality, and psychology of being on camera. (SK)

Blending the arts into students' learning of science concepts through role-play and drama is unusual pedagogy in schools. For seven Australian Year Five students seeking extended learning, advanced scientific concepts were learned during the creative process of script writing and production of a science play called "Hectic Electric". A…

This article evaluates a learning method that used theatre students as family clients in an advanced social work practice course. Data from 47 advanced graduate students showed that observing peers conduct simulated sessions can be an effective and valued learning experience. Quantitative findings indicated that simulations are perceived to be…

The open-ended, informal, and socially negotiated nature of role-playing games creates a distinct learning challenge for newcomers to the hobby. The explicit rules of the game provide only an incomplete framework for structuring the actions of players, and the expectations and mores of a given group will add other, unspoken rules that discourage…

Descriptions of speech act realisations of native and non-native speakers abound in the cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics literature. Yet, what is lacking is an analysis of the cognitive processes involved in the production of speech acts. This study examines the cognitive processes and perceptions of learners of Spanish when refusing…

In this article, the author provides an overview of Second Life[trademark], or simply SL, which was developed at Linden Lab, a San Francisco-based corporation. SL is an online society within a threee-dimensional virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents, where they can explore, build, socialize and participate in their own economy.…

Objectives: The study examines street children's daily lives in Khartoum, Sudan to recommend ways to improve their conditions and to successfully assist them off the streets. Methods: In 2000-2001, eight researchers conducted participant observation for 7 weeks; 20 groups of children engaged in role-plays and drawing activities; over 500 children…

In today's global environment, intercultural teams may become the most effective teams in an organization when their diversity is managed as an asset. However, because of miscommunication and conflict, intercultural teams often become dysfunctional. This experiential group exercise demonstrates how cultural dimensions such as individualism and…

Audio or video podcasts can be a useful tool to supplement practical exercises such as business simulations. In this paper, we discuss a case study in which different types of podcast were utilised to support the delivery of a course in international business. The students work in groups and run a fictional company using business simulation…

For a growing group of educators, the online role-playing game World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment's massively popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is a place to go to relax, network, and discover potential learning strategies-- and slay a few monsters if they get in the way. The online role-playing game World of…

Participation of environmental chemistry students in mock congressional hearings is described, as a means of helping them better develop their speaking and debating skills. The activity brings active learning principles into the classroom and greatly increases student participation in an otherwise traditional lecture course.

Most children learn social skills from interaction with others--other children, family members, friends, and adults. Some children with disabilities need to learn social skills more directly. This may include the use of a specific curriculum and the use of individualized methods. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of social…

Life Skills Education (LSE) is a novel promotional program that teaches generic life skills through participatory learning methods of games, debates, role-plays, and group discussion. Conceptual understanding and practicing of the skills occurs through experiential learning in a non-threatening setting. Such initiatives provide the adolescent with…