Design, Play, Communicate, and Learn: Examining the Value of Learning History Through Avatar Role Play

• In Event: Roundtable Session 75
  In Roundtable Session: Second Life to Support Learning Across Contexts

Abstract

We examined the value of implementing a supported virtual role play assignment in a higher education history course exploring Cuban history in the twentieth century. Students sought improved understanding of the narrative history of the revolution; especially, its causes and aftereffects. The theoretical framework “Learning and Teaching as Communicative Actions” (LTCA), in which communication and discourse, and the interplay among the four communicative actions proposed as the basis of human understanding, supported the course. Active learning through role-playing and classroom discourse helped students develop a higher level understanding of the complex events by perspective taking both for and against the Castro regime. Based on positive student experience and evidence of successful learning outcomes, similar, virtual environment-supported assignments are suggested.

Authors

• Jenny S. Wakefield, University of North Texas

• Leila Mills, University of North Texas

• Scott Joseph Warren, University of North Texas

• Monica A. Rankin, The University of Texas - Dallas

• Jonathan Gratch, University of North Texas