Roni Linser [HREF1], Simulations Director, Fablusi P/L www.Fablusi.com , Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ronil@simplay.net [Contact Author]
Albert Ip [HREF2], Director, Fablusi P/L www.Fablusi.com , Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. albert@dls.au.com
This paper describes how to design the foundations of an effective and engaging learning experience using the Fablusi™ online role-play simulations (RPS) authoring tool so that it creates learning opportunities for participants. It discusses the pedagogy of experiential learning supported by this authoring tool, compares it with associated experiential pedagogies and provides guidelines for transforming course material into a RPS.
There is an increased interest in the use of simulations in the rapidly expanding world of e-learning. But it is not always clear what is understood by the term ‘simulations’. For the purpose of clarifying the pedagogy and learning opportunities discussed in this paper we need to clarify the distinction between role-centred and rule-centred simulations. A ‘simulation’ is a dynamic artificial environment in which a particular set of conditions is created in order to study or experience something that exists or could exist in reality. 'Agents' can modify elements within this environment that, given the original set of conditions, will effect either the dynamics, other elements or conditions within this environment.
Using information and communication technologies (ICT) there are a number of ways in which such environments can be created and used. Rule-centred simulations are based on software implemented algorithms in the forms of rules, spreadsheet, game engine, physics engine, etc., that typically provide a finite set of choices. The interaction between the players and the material to be learned is mediated by the rules and is limited by the choices provided by the subject matter expert and the path allowed in the simulation. The multi-million dollar flight simulators used to train commercial and fighter pilots or the “business simulations” which attempt to address the needs of business and accounting or economic, ecological or weather modelling are such simulations.
By contrast, a role-centred simulation or a role-play simulation (RPS) (Linser, Naidu, & Ip 1999) is a dynamic artificial environment in which human 'agents' respond to a scenario by adopting and playing roles with defined characteristics and relations to one another. In the case we are discussing it is web environments in which participants (human agents) play the roles of different actors in organizations, communities, or other institutions. The interaction between the players and the material to be learned is mediated by the experience of playing in the environment created.
Rule-centred simulations are generally used to model physical systems whereas role-centred simulations are generally used to model social-institutional settings and relations. In the first, some sort of artificial intelligence mechanism is used to relate the input of choices to the output of results. In the second it is the interaction between human agents and the application of natural intelligence in a virtual social context that directs choices to outcomes.
To be sure, using a flight simulator, or an accounting simulation involves the user playing the role of a pilot, or accountant, but the output of playing that role is determined by the application of fixed rules to the input. On the other hand, participating in a role-play simulation clearly involves rules (both those that define the interaction tools and the social-institutional (soft) rules) but the output is determined by the interaction between participants – the rules are socially elastic. The distinction between rule-centred and role-centred simulations turns on how outcomes are produced.
In most computer-based games and simulations available today users interact with a computer which models and responds in fixed ways (given fixed rules) to specific inputs by users. In role-play simulations, computers and the World Wide Web are used as communication tools and resources to model environments for participants to interact with one another in mixed and varied ways. In both the end result is that participants experience the problems, dilemmas, and issues being modelled but the experience of the first is determined by fixed rules while in the second it is determined by the interaction between roles.
Role-play simulations have been found to be a very engaging and effective learning strategy for a number of soft skill subject domains, including politics (Vincent & Shepherd 1998; Ip & Linser 1999; 2001), leadership training (Linser, Waniganayake & Wilks 2004), marketing, work place issues etc. The success of these runs of RPSs obviously depended on a number of factors including creative design, the skills of the moderator (Ip, Linser, & Jasinski 2002), and other factors. This paper focuses on the foundation phase of designing RPS.
The Fablusi™ RPS authoring tool supports pedagogy we call Dynamic Goal Based Learning (DGBL) that expands on the work of Roger Schank and on the work of Vincent and Sheppard (Schank & Cleary 1995; Vincent and Sheppard 1998; Linser & Naidu 1999; Naidu, Ip &Linser 2000). This pedagogy shares many of the characteristics found in Problem Based Learning, Case Based learning, Scenario Based Learning, Game Based learning, Experiential Learning and others. To be sure there are also differences both in the focus and in ways that these pedagogies are implemented, but to a large degree these pedagogies share the underlying assumption that learning is best achieved by focusing on real world problems and that experience is the best teacher.
To this list of pedagogies we must add constructivism and collaborative learning which also share assumptions with DGBL - that learning always takes place in a social context and that collaboration with others is a more effective strategy for learning. We cannot debate the merits of each here, but we will to some extent note some points in this paper as they relate to how to create learning opportunities using the Fablusi™ authoring tool.
For some, learning opportunities are the points at which learners make mistakes, when they fail using their existing frames of reference, when their beliefs, values, or orientations conflict with new information or with what they experience - “failure is critical in the learning process” (Schank & Cleary; 1995).
In life only when we recognize that we have made a mistake and consequently act differently can we say we learned from the experience (if not we are doomed to repeat it.) But sometimes we also learn from the experience of others - having witnessed their mistakes we avoid making them or having been told about them we look out for them. Of course these 2nd and 3rd person experiences (Ip & Naidu 2001) are not as deep or as enduring as learning from one’s own experience.
On the other hand, and this is usually less emphasized, and indeed often ignored, we also learn from successes, both of others and ours. We try something and if it works we learn to continue to do this – and with practice we get better at it. Rather than failing or conflicting with our experience, our modes of action, beliefs, and orientations are appropriate and effective - they ‘fit’ with the new information we encounter. Often this is the basis of our habits, good and bad, our communication strategies etc. Though this is mostly an incremental, unnoticed and enduring process of refinement, and though reflection does not necessarily have to be involved, we can choose to reflect and this choice opens a learning opportunity.
The argument here is that both success and failure can be learning opportunities. In both cases, the point at which we begin to reflect on possibilities other than the course of action we have taken, or beliefs we hold, is the point at which a learning opportunity opens. Thus from the perspective of DGBL, learning opportunities are times at which learners (need to) reflect on alternatives for action to resolve one or more dilemmas regarding their knowledge, understanding, views, beliefs or indeed ways of acting and put these alternative to the test by acting on them and reflecting on their consequences.
To provide learning opportunities thus means providing an engaging information and communication experience that fosters reflection on possibilities and indeed demands it. This is precisely the reason RPSs are particularly useful and a moment’s reflection can reveal why this so. To play the role of someone else requires both reflection and self-reflection – “how do I do this?” and “how does it seem to me that someone else does it?” are the two immediate questions upon which playing a role is based. The interplay between “how I would act” (given my own beliefs, knowledge, values, orientations, modes of action etc.) and “how someone else would act” (given what I know about their beliefs, knowledge etc.) throws into relief the reflective process underlying a RPS – a collaborative process of engagement in reflexive reflection.
The key to creating learning opportunities for the players in a RPS is to create a dynamic scenario that supports on-going and reflexive reflection congruent with the learning objectives the author aims to achieve. It is the transformation of the material to be learned into a communicative environment of problems and interactive information with which participants must actively engage. In the process they can make mistakes or indeed find useful strategies to resolve such problems or test the limits of existing strategies, beliefs, values etc., and their applicability in different contexts.
As participants, using their roles to fulfil tasks like researching and writing a role-profile, reacting to the kick-start episode, interacting with other roles and feed new information in the interaction spaces, their input dynamically generates new scenarios, situations, information, events or conditions in the game that participants need to reflect and act upon. Thus by producing and using subject related material, the knowledge, understanding and skills aimed at by the course objectives are integrated as the participants’ experience of a collaborative and reflexive reflection.
Unlike rule-centred simulations, RPSs do not provide a definite set of choices pre-determined by the subject matter experts. Rather, subject matter experts provide an open ended frame of reference based on the learning material and objectives and the players themselves generate the choices, whether they are to read up on some issue, to respond to a sim-mail, to suggest a course of action etc. As such, creating a successful, engaging and effective role-play simulation for learning is quite different from rule-centred simulations.
What follows is a brief discussion comparing case-base, problem based and other learning pedagogies to our approach and then some of the design foundations for creating learning opportunities using the Fablusi™ RPS authoring tool that issue from this discussion.
There are similarities and differences in creating a RPS scenario, writing case for case methods, setting problems in problem-based learning and collaborative learning. But before we embark on discussing these we need to clarify our distinction between the Scenario, initial scenario, and the kick-start episode. In our role-play simulations the Scenario is a dynamic and evolving storyline that changes in accordance to the input of participants. In contrast, the initial scenario is the full environment, the number and type of roles available, the interaction spaces in which participants are distributed and the kick-start episode that participants find when they first enter the game – it is the pre-game static environment created by the author. The kick-start episode on the other hand is a specific story or narrative created by the author, which serves as the opening gambit to which the different roles must respond given the rest of the initial scenario.
Scenario is not a case study: A teaching case is a story describing, or based on, actual events that justifies careful study and analysis by students. In other words, a teaching case is a story about the “real world” told with a definite teaching purpose in mind. A teaching case is a way of bringing the real world into a classroom so that students can “practice” on actual or realistic problems under the guidance of their teacher. Case teaching, unlike conventional lecturing, is discussion-based and experiential. The teaching case replaces the lecture as the vehicle for learning, and the case becomes the basis for discussion, exchange of ideas, knowledge, and experience among participants (Lynn, 1996; Rangan, 1995) – it allows for collaborative reflection.
The initial scenario in RPS is similar to a teaching case in that there is a story that justifies study and analysis. However, in case based methods, the story is of a particular past experience to be studied whereas in RPS, the scenario is an evolving story-line created by the learners as they play out the various possibilities and contexts – it is the learners that create the story given the initial scenario. Though the initial scenario in RPS may indeed be based on a real case it need not be real. In fact, the initial scenario in RPS is likely to have one or more “what-if” factors inserted by the author in the kick-start episode.
Scenario is not a Problem: Problem-based learning (PBL) is a widely used approach that uses an instructional problem as the principle vehicle for learning and teaching. The selected instructional problem comprises the object of study and related issues arise in focusing on it. This design draws on the experience of individuals in the target group who need to work collaboratively to decide what types of information they need and negotiate within their group to assign the required tasks so that a solution is found.
The initial scenario of RPS like the instructional problem of PBL is a focus for participants. But in RPS it is like looking at the problem from within – a participant-observer approach - rather than as in PBL viewing the object from without. While PBL clearly leverages collaborative reflection on the instructional problem, the initial scenario of RPS (where the problem/s is/are embedded) is only the starting point for reflection. Once the game begins the "problem" may change given the negotiations between the roles and collaborative reflection of participants. RPS has therefore special value in tackling problems or issues that involve value judgments, have no "black and white" answers, and are negotiated through strategic interaction.
The art of running an effective case method and problem based learning hinges on the selection of teaching cases, or problems, so that learners may induce the overall pattern and theory or construct an understanding that may be applied in other novel situations. Learning occurs in the process of reflection, discussion and debate over the case or problem. In RPS, it is the playing out the actions and solving the problems and issues from the perspective of the role that induces reflection – a collaborative and reflexive reflection. Still it is necessary to acknowledge the utility of a formal post-RPS debrief for both further reflection and theorizing as well as giving back participants the voice that is not the role – completion and separation from an exercise involving their identity that was used in the RPS as a spring-board to reflexive reflection.
Collaborative Learning: During the discussion and debate in case-based learning and PBL, unlike RPS, the learners are not protected by the anonymity available in web-based RPS - peers directly confront each other’s intellectual articulations. In a suitable friendly supportive atmosphere these collaborative methods can provide a stimulating and important experience for learners. But there are drawbacks related to the way working group dynamics impacts on the identity of individual learners – for example the tendency for male voices to dominate discussions or other social and/or psychological pressures.
In the collaborative environment of a RPS, however, because they are playing roles, participants are free to explore possibilities and stances they would otherwise feel emotionally constrained to reveal in front of peers - that may threaten their identity (Linser, 2004). RPS is the sort of collaborative effort that uses reflection at the heart of identity without exposing the learner to constraining psychosocial effects. By taking on the role’s ‘persona’ (Latin for mask used by a player) the learner is protected and at the same time free to deal with the challenge that reflexive reflection demands.
In RPS, each role negotiates, requests or demands co-operation from, and competes with, other roles and groups of roles to advance the role's public and private agenda. There is no necessity for frank exchange of learning experience per se but taken as a whole, a community of inquiry emerges by the collaborative effort of all learners, authors and moderators. One can even deepen the collaborative learning environment by grouping several learners to play the same role in the simulation and hence encourage the discussion of "learning" as well as game strategy - this can also be done across parallel cohorts running the same simulation by grouping those playing the same role.
No doubt, the most important part of any learning design is the clear articulation of learning objectives. Whenever there is any decision to be made during the creation (authoring) process of a RPS, whether it be in creating a kick-start episode, role structure, interaction spaces, choosing resources, setting tasks or development stages, it is imperative to consult the learning objectives of the course and determine the extent to which the decision can contribute towards the creation of learning opportunities or direct the game towards the desired learning outcomes.
In light of the above, writing the initial scenario of a RPS is an art that borrows from the art of writing teaching cases and problems in PBL, but it is not the same as either one of them. Its uniqueness lays in the technique of distributing information in a safe communicative environment so that it models cases, problems and issues in the world. The initial scenario is of course only the starting point that transforms into a dynamic scenario in which actions and interactions by participants mould the learning material into an experience within given parameters specified by the author of the simulation. As the role-play develops, players may modify, change, or abandon previous goals and positions in order to achieve better outcomes for the role. The initial scenario is like the initial force in a shot-put athletic throw-event. Once the ball leaves the hand of the thrower, it is no longer under the control of the athlete, but the forces that surround the athlete and the ball, play a part in where the shot put will land.
The first question an author of a RPS must confront is how to translate the objectives and contents of their course into such an environment?
Firstly the author must be selective – a few central issues rather than many peripheral ones. She must decide which issues in the course material are critical to the course so that they link to at least some of the other issues in the course and articulate these in concise form. Experience teaches us that focusing on two or three interrelated issues is more than sufficient to bring forth other issues involved in the course. Trying to insert too many issues can backfire, as participants, trying to cover these will disperse their energies over too wide an area. More often they will focus on one or two issues anyway and disregard others as they prioritise their actions and interactions at any particular time. The importance for the author to articulate these issues is to enable a design for distributing information such that over the length of the simulation learners will encounter all the critical issues as set by the course objectives.
Secondly, the author must envision the real world context where such issues or problems are found. The author must reflect on the sort of situations and places, in which the knowledge, skills, and understanding he aims to foster in his students appear in socio-organizational contexts. He must evaluate these contexts by asking whether his learners confronted with similar issues in the real world will be better equipped to handle or understand them as a result of his simulation? By specifying contexts in the real world where such issues and problems are exhibited the author is now in a position to model this context using the Fablusi™ authoring tool.
What should emerge from the two considerations above is a problem or set of problems, a list of stakeholders involved in these, and places where these stakeholders communicate with one another in trying to resolve these issues. This is the foundation - the initial What-Where-Who of the RPS. It is the guiding blueprint for the initial scenario highlighting the kick-start episode, roles and interaction spaces (iSpaces). These components of a RPS imbued with course content, encourage learners to reflect on the internal relations they have to one another and thus open up learning opportunities by the simple process of participation.
The author must of course also think of resources for learners, so that they have some information on which to base their actions and interactions. The courses’ suggested readings is one place, but given that we are dealing with a web environment it is particularly useful to find or place resources for the subject on the web, or at the very least provide links to search engines so that students can search for themselves. We will not further discuss the provision of appropriate resources in this paper as it is dependent on the What-Where-Who of the RPS - it is part the second phase of authoring following the foundation phase and includes the authoring of development stages for the simulation, setting tasks to the roles, creating the graphic look and feel for the interface and deepening and altering variables from the foundation phase.
The initial scenario integrates the course material into the RPS by distributing it between the roles, iSpaces, resources and the kick-start episode as an open and holistic system (See Fig 1.) Taken together, they model the environment in which this information is found and used in the real world. The interaction of participants within this environment adds and reshapes what becomes a dynamic and evolving information system. In terms of organizing the course material, the kick-start episode, roles, iSpaces and resources serve as different foci for highlighting, problematizing, presenting and referring to various aspects of the material.
Fig. 1. Initial Scenario Information System
Kick Start Episode: Roles in a RPS will need compelling reason to act and this opens up a learning opportunity – participants need to be confronted with the necessity to reflect on a situation to which they must respond given the role’s objectives. As roles they must answer questions like if I was this person how should I respond (inevitably tying it to how I would act)? What would this person have to consider in response to the situation in the kick-start episode? How is this role expected to act or how did this role act in similar cases in the past? And where can I find this out?
The "Kick start episode" is the initial gambit that the roles need to consider and to which they must respond. It must therefore present the roles with dilemmas that evoke the issues in the course material. Utilizing the role’s position, character, aims etc., issues can be moulded to generate conflict between roles that would otherwise be cooperative or demand cooperation between roles that may otherwise have conflicting interests.
Stakeholders and Roles: A RPS is about issues that involve more than one stakeholder and it becomes interesting because different stakeholders will have different viewpoints on some issues under a certain scenario. Note that stakes holders are not the same as roles. A role can represent several stakeholders. For instance, one can be a teacher as well as a parent. On the other hand, a stakeholder view can be taken up by several roles with slightly different personalities or functions, e.g. the teacher’s stake in salary negotiation with management may have variation represented by young and retiring teachers.
It is possible to have a single character in a case and still makes the case highly valuable. A RPS necessarily involves more than one role in order to allow interactions between the roles. Hence, the initial scenario in a RPS would incorporate several characters with different and/or conflicting goals and viewpoints. However, teaching cases can be used as valuable and effective supporting resources for players at different stages of the RPS to demonstrate how stakeholders have acted in similar cases in the past.
Selection and Number of roles: As the name suggests, a role-play simulation is centred on roles, or persona (mask), which learners will assume in the learning process. Who are the stakeholders (or main characters) in the story? To select roles the author must list and prioritise those stakeholders in the real world involved in the issues under consideration. Further, he must consider which and why these stakeholders are critical and decide on stakeholders whose contribution can best advance the learning objectives – it is counter-productive to include peripheral stakeholders if their stake makes little difference to the issues involved. As in real life, people take on more than one role anyway. If necessary, combining different stakeholders' viewpoints into one role can engender roughly equal participation opportunities.
The number of roles to include essentially depends on the selection process relative to the issues, mentioned above, but it is also useful to consider the number of participants expected to play. Of course one can always assign multiple participants to roles or run the same simulation with different cohorts of participants simultaneously - but it is advisable to think through whether one has enough participants to play the roles envisaged. If not, decreasing the number of roles by either deleting the less critical roles or combining the stakeholder positions of two or more roles is advisable. From experience, designing a RPS with 8 to 20 roles with intersecting issues (threads) running simultaneously is probably the most effective way for a single moderator to stay abreast of the interaction and the issues being raised. Intervention of moderators at strategic points during the game opens up learning opportunities – moments at which reflection on certain actions or non-actions is deemed vital to understanding the course material.
Role specific information and information gaps: After a player logs into the system, specific information can be made available to each individual role that only that particular role can view. Here, background information for the role (e.g. husband and wife relationship between roles need to be made clear), specific resources to the role and general or specific guidelines for the appropriate public and private agendas are given – some of the elements in these agendas can be specified by the author, others developed by the participants themselves. In a way, specific role information describes a stakeholder viewpoint to the players. By providing different information and different stakeholder viewpoint to different roles, there will be a genuine need for the players to communicate in order to advance the public and private agenda in the game - the deliberate creation of information gaps is a technique commonly used to generate real need for communication among participants in collaborative learning.
It is generally helpful to provide only the minimum amount of information and description of a role and to encourage learners to embellish the role by researching and writing a role profile as part of the role-playing initiation process. This will promote opportunities of research (about the role if the role is based on existing or historical figures or institutional functions) and ownership of the persona. By articulating the public and private agenda of the role learners will have a better idea of how to respond to the kick-start scenario and provide them with guidelines for evaluating the issues that arise during the simulation. Publishing the role-profile for all to read also serves the purposes of providing basic information to other roles about what to expect regarding the position of the role - the likelihood of their cooperation and/or resistance to their other roles’ agenda and hence assist them in developing appropriate strategies to promote their own agenda.
General Information: This is information displayed to all players arriving at the RPS web site before and after log in. The kick-start scenario is part of the general information provided by the author after login. However, other kinds of general information will help participants to focus and reflect on the issues at hand. This general information provides an orientation to the whole game. Providing the learning objectives of the course, general questions, hypothesis, advice on strategy or tactics all open up learning opportunities for participants - they all help guide reflexive reflection on the issues and the world that is modelled in the RPS.
One of the key difference between using generic systems (asynchronous conference and email) and Fablusi™ for role-playing is the conceptualisation and management of the interaction among roles. The idea of iSpaces aims to capture the place, the medium and the appropriate social rules of interaction between stakeholders as they appear in the real world - who can say what to whom, where, how and in what channel? It is here that the idea of simulation and the idea of role-play combine as both modelling the world and role-playing within it. While the author provides the who, where and channels and thus provides a frame of reference to what can be said, it is the roles who can then choose what will be said to whom, when and which channel to use to best achieve their objectives.
Creating effective iSpaces thus require the author to consider what sort of relationships between roles would best bring to the fore the issues and material to be learned? Which institutional and organizational locations where these relationships are embedded would best exemplify the sort of issues the author wants to highlight? When and where are these relationships exhibited as formal relations, and where are they informal or personal? How do they relate and/or affect each other? Which group of roles belong to which organization and what are the hierarchical relations between them? And as in the real world - what are the appropriate social and discursive (soft) rules for these different spaces?
The iSpaces created by the author are communication areas that serve as functional divisions modelling various levels of organization in which roles interact with one another. - NATO, UN Security Council, Crown Casino, News Agency and so on. Each of these may have further sub-spaces that model particular areas or functions within the organizations represented by the iSpaces – eg. The iSpace “Crown Casino” may have sub-spaces like the Management Boardroom, Security Division, Water cooler, and a Gambler’s Help Room, or the iSpace “White House” can have sub-spaces like the Oval Office, the Situation Room and the Press Room. Some sub-spaces thus require the roles to interact in a more formal style, while others will allow them scope to interact more informally.
Participation in these sub-spaces is determined by different types of rights allocated by the author to the roles or groups of roles in each of the sub-spaces. Rights such as ability to read, write, edit, copy/transfer documents between sub-spaces, vote, allocate budgets, invite roles to participate in, or remove roles from particular sub-spaces, and the right to create new sub-spaces within an iSpace with some or all of these rights, allows the author to create a virtual social structure in which roles and groups of role interact.
These rights model power/authority and functional relationships that stakeholders possess in different contexts in the real world. By setting differential rights to different roles in different iSpaces and sub-spaces the author can model these social structural, organizational and discursive relations between roles so that they best serve the learning objectives. Further, a differential "address book" feature enables the implementation of scenarios where “knowing someone” is an important issue – thus at the start of the game each role has a contact list that includes only some of the roles and can only contact others if they are first introduced to him by his initial contacts. The ability (or inability) of a role to share or obtain information in one or more sub-spaces will give that role specific social power within the initial scenario but like all social power it must be maintained and negotiated by appropriate strategies or risk losing it. These socio-structural relations can be further reinforced by the differential information supplied to the role - role specific information as discussed above.
In sum, the iSpaces created by the author will have a crucial impact on the sort of issues that will be raised, how these issues are approached in different institutional settings and hence display the dilemmas and related issues intended by the author as an effect of the interaction between roles.
The challenge to authors is to create role-play simulations that generate learning opportunities regarding course material - to create initial scenarios that require participants to reflect on alternatives to what they know, believe, and ways of acting in the world in a dynamic environment. The technology is now available to do this. By distributing selected information among the components constituting the initial scenario and by creative modelling of iSpaces to reflect structural, functional and communicative relations in the real world learners engage in a dynamic and safe environment that demands reflexive reflection. Finally the authoring process itself challenges the author to reflect on her own worldview and understanding of her subject domain and thus presents the author with learning opportunities of her own.
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