The R.O.L.E. Model Explained
The R.O.L.E. Model is our educational model.
R.O.L.E. stands for Role-Oriented Learning Environment.
This model is based on a number of different experiential, play-based, and role-oriented approaches to teaching such as the EduLARP model, EdVentures, and SimuLearning. At its foundation, the ROLE Model is all about taking students out of the 'traditional' and power-saturated roles of student and teacher and placing them into roles that situate them in real-life and imagined scenarios with varying levels of role-play, game-play, and immersion.
The ROLE Model combines these many education modalities to bring story to life and create a space where learners can separate themselves from personal failure through play and experimentation.
Role-Oriented Learning Environments (our model) teach people:
-How to learn
-Why learning is important
-How to have fun with learning!
-How to collaborate with others
-How to think critically and creatively
-How to face challenge and overcome it
-How to innovate and think outside the box
Our Programs and CAMPaigns give learners a head-start on entering the real-world by encouraging innovation, engagement, interest, and motivation to begin their own initiatives and projects. They learn that people at any age have the power to change lives and change the world.
Rather than just tell you about it, we'd love to show you how our ROLE Model works.
CONTACT US NOW TO SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION OR REQUEST A PROPOSAL
Check out the videos and articles below to get an understanding of what EduLARP is and how it promotes engagement and learning!
EduLARP
is a collaborative form of storytelling and play, and a spontaneous and immersive method of learning. EduLARP has few rivals for promoting student engagement with subject matter. EduLARP has students and learners put themselves into a story in almost any setting as a character within the story. They may become a bush during a wildfire, an atom in a molecular space, or an investigator in a mystery novel. In these spaces they may use classroom learning or research activities and act out scenarios towards a goal in order to learn and practice academic concepts through in vivo application and play.
SimuLearning
takes people through a workshop or lecture and then places them into 'life-like' simulations as themselves to act out and practice skills and abilities. This helps them to try out what it might be like to participate in a certain activity without all of the associated risks and dangers of those activities. This prepares people for participation in these activities in real life. Doctors, Engineers, Nurses, Administrators, and many other professions use SimuLearning as a method of preparation for work in real-world situations.
EdVenture
is any type of educational venture that takes students out of the classroom and into the broader world. Students become more than just students; they become members in a community, serve on a committee, become part of a project proposal, or intern for an organization. EdVenture includes place-based learning, project-based learning, outdoor education, adventure education, alternate reality games, and many other types of immersive, experiential approaches.
A Brief Explanation of EduLARP
Living Games Conference: EduLARP in Elementary School
Other LARP Summer Programs
How is the ROLE Model Different?
A question we get again and again is, "How is the ROLE Model different from EduLARP, EdVenture, or SimuLearning?"
The ROLE Model may not be entirely different from these other forms of education. Yet it combines them under one umbrella, in powerful ways, early on, and situates them so that learners and educators can access them year-round. Our educational programs prepare teachers to design, plan, and carry out ROLEs in the classroom and in worlds beyond the classroom. Whether you want to
One difference we bring is that while EduLARP, EdVenture, and SimuLearning use the power of play and simulation to teach and encourage engagement with lessons, they are often short, one-shot games, projects, or campaigns, rather than multi-year expanding worlds like our CAMPaigns. Existing EduLARP teaching methods can switch from scenario to scenario, rule set to rule set, without a cohesive story arc. If you read a series of books or watch a television series, you might have noticed that a large story arc 'glues together' the stories in television shows and even in the stories of our world cultures.
The ROLE Model introduces the meta-element of one cohesive story arc across summers to bridge the gaps between different simulations, games, activities, and EduLARP elements. This cohesive story arc offeres a backbone to the EduLARP process so that ideas and lessons can be developed, grown, and integrated. Described another way, the ROLE Model introduces an intentional culture and a consistency on which lessons and community bonding can be grafted. Characters, people, events, and ideas aren't wiped from the slate after each game, they contribute to the continuance of the game, giving participants in the ROLE Model the ability to shape the future of the game and giving their ideas persistence. Campaign Live Action Role Playing games such as this do exist, however their primary goal is not education it is entertainment. While cultures often emerge spontaneously wherever humans interact, by creating a backbone culture (for instance the InterStellar Fleet or ISF for "Unsettled" and other Project Interstellar CAMPaigns), different elements can be set and can build off of one another without departing from the consistent and immersive universe where learning takes place. It is this extra immersion element that makes the ROLE Model a powerful tool for teaching across time.
ROLE Model Design Components
Contiguous Story Arc:
People who join us in our educational programming are not enrolling as mere participants. They are enrolling as contributors to the story, contributors to the camp experience. This vital difference puts personal agency back in the hands of young people and more accurately reflects the way people influence one another as part of other communities. This enables contributors to develop an experience and understanding of what "citizenship" means.
Immersive Elements:
The ROLEs we help design use a method that helps contributors and educators create immersion so that they can enter the story arc without leaving the real world behind. We not only bring our own immersive elements in, we enroll contributors to practice their skills by building more and more immersive elements. This way, people become part of the camp and part of the culture.
One-Shot Scenarios:
Within the larger story arc, various groups of contributors will participate in one-shot scenarios which take the form of EduLARP, SimuLearning, events, or fun Live Action Role Playing games.
Games:
Contributors take part in a number of different camp games in order to promote physical and psychosocial health while having fun. These games relieve stress, allow contributors to take a break from the larger scenario as they enter the magic circle of play.
Activities:
In addition to games and scenarios, contributors in the ROLE Model take part in various activities such as experiments, vehicle and construction builds, crafts, out of camp (OOC) experiences, and stewardship engagements. For those who are interested, we can even help them start a business, a non-profit, or a long-term project.
Research:
To support STEAM² Competence, contributors will take part in research activities. This may include online research, library research, experimental research, classroom learning, workshops, or personal reading and involves discussions about research design and assessment to teach a critical thinking approach.
Simulations:
Simulations are a graduated form of scenarios, where individuals will take on their characters in the world of the education program. These simulations are the meat of the ROLE Model as they enable contributors to not simply 'play' at skills and talents, but to really practice and enact these skills and talents. Rather than a 'montage' to competence, this connects contributors to the ongoing practice needed to develop skills and maintain them throughout life.
Culture and Storytelling:
Contributors to the different summer camp and educational programs will be asked to re-tell the story of who they were and what happened during different scenarios, games, activities, and simulations using a 'peer council' debrief approach.