Speculate on why role playing activities may not be promoted in math and science and elaborate on your opinion on whether activities such as role playing should be promoted.
Sadly, when we consider the stereo-types that go with the subjects of math and science, we think of rigor, and facts, and memorization, and often less creativity. Though those of us educators confident with these subjects know this not to be true necessarily, often individuals thrown into teaching them don’t think of utilizing some of the strategies often employed by the arts. One such strategy is role playing. Craciun (2010) describes role playing as something that can “help students to understand things from the perspective of another person,” (p. 175.) Utilizing such a strategy in the math and science classroom is not employed as frequently with older students as it is with younger ones. Though it can provide opportunities for students to “become more interested and involved, not only learning about the material, but learning also to integrate the knowledge in action,” role-playing is often thought of as a less “serious” way of learning in the math and science classroom. (Craciun, 2010, p. 175).
Using role playing in the science classroom seems to be a little bit more common amongst educators than the math classroom. Because of this, I attempted to find some examples of utilizing role playing for learning math. One that came up was the use of role playing in online math games from Ramadan & Setyaningrum (2022). They found that utilizing role playing in the context of these online games helped with both student motivation as well as the learning of mathematical concepts. Oldridge (2019) discusses the benefits of a “playful approach to math<’ by sharing that “playing and thinking are not at odds with each other.” Allowing students, especially in the older grades to experience play in the math classroom can benefit their thinking processes and can allow teachers to “guide students to engage with big and interesting ideas of mathematics,” (Oldridge, 2019).
In many ways, utilizing more arts-based pedagogical approaches in the math and science classroom invites in more knowledge mobilization. The learning becomes more social and in turn, more collaborative. Something powerful occurs when students are given permission to let down their guard and learn without the typical math and science stereotypes.
References:
Craciun, D. (2010). Role-playing as a creative method in science education. Journal of science and art, 1(12). 175-182.
Oldridge, M. (2019, July 24) The playful approach to math. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/playful-approach-math/
Ramadan, S., Setyaningrum, W. (2022). Attractive ways to teach and learn mathematics using role-playing games: A literature review. AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0111155