Using ROLE Play to Develop Self-Regulation for Learning Strategies

Self-regulation for learning allows students to balance affect, behavior, and cognition to be successful learners. Teachers can support students in helping students develop self-regulation strategies. In this article, we will explore a role-playing activity that can be used across subjects and help students build both skills and content knowledge.

ABC’s of Learning for Self-Regulation

Self-regulation for learning is the ability to balance affect (how you feel), behavior (what you do), and cognition (what you think about yourself) to be successful in learning. I call ability, behavior, and cognition the “ABCs of learning.”

Benefits of Role Play for Self-Regulation

Using the creative dramatics tool of role-playing can have a significant effect on helping students develop self-regulation. Role-playing is taking on the persona of someone else (either real or fictional) to act out a situation or solve a problem. Role-playing is used in many situations to develop acting skills, to work through difficult situations, or to build self-confidence by “practicing by doing.” In the classroom, you can use role-playing to help kids develop their self-regulation for learning skills by working through different situations.

Role-playing can be a safe way to deal with problems and consider solutions from many different perspectives. It also develops self-esteem, self-awareness, and even deeper levels of content knowledge. Working through different situations helps students understand there are different ways to solve problems.

ROLE: A Role Play Structure

A fun way to help kids build their self-regulation for learning skills is through an activity I developed for my classroom called ROLE. ROLE is a structure for helping kids role play.

I developed ROLE out of my work as a children’s theater actor, writer, teacher, and director. ROLE stands for

• Role
• Occasion
• Location
• Emotion

This activity develops creative thinking, critical reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. It also is powerful for helping kids acquire planning, listening, speaking, and collaboration skills where every idea has value, and all ideas are considered.

Using ROLE

Create four categories of different colored index cards, so each category is always on the same color card. On each index card, write one word that corresponds to that card’s category. For example, cards may include these cues.

• Role: mechanic, florist, patrol officer
• Occasion: birthday, wedding, graduation
• Location: at a lake, on a boat, in a park
• Emotion: happy, sad, crabby, delighted

Divide the students into small groups. Each group randomly selects one card from each category. The students in the group must then create a scene or develop a story that incorporates all four categories. Each group presents their scene or story to the other groups. Other groups can then guess which four cards the performing group drew.

As an example, let’s say a group pulls these cards.

• Role: student
• Occasion: taking a test
• Location: on the playground
• Emotion: frustrated

Give the group about 10–15 minutes to collaborate on their scene. They must discuss what will take place using the ROLE cards and how the situation may evolve. After each group acts out its scene, you can ask the other students to make recommendations for how to resolve the situation.

Consider extending this activity into a writing project or creating ROLE cards from works of literature for groups to create a prequel or a new ending for the stories.

Connecting ROLE Across the Curriculum

There are many ways to use ROLE to make curriculum connections that will maximize the impact that the structure has on self-regulation strategies. Here are ways that you can use ROLE in different subject areas to support self-regulation for learning.

Language Arts

• Create new and creative stories or poems.
• Use vocabulary from literature for the four category words.
• Use the ROLE cards to write a descriptive essay or personal narrative.

Math

• Have students create math word problems using the ROLE cards.
• Have all the cards in the “Role” category be geometric shapes. Then, using all four categories, write a creative story about the shape. (For example, Role: triangle, Occasion: fundraiser, Location: in a grocery store, Emotion: excited)

Social studies

• Change the cards in the “Role,” “Occasion,” and/or “Location” categories to fit a period in history or a topic you’re studying and have students create journal entries, letters, or correspondence between individuals from that time period or topic.

Science

• Change the ROLE cards to ROBE cards: Reaction, Outcome, Bond, Element
• Have students create their own set of ROLE cards, which they can swap with other teams’ cards
• Use content vocabulary or words that may be unfamiliar to the students—they will investigate the words and then use them within multiple contexts.

Problem Solving

Another way to use ROLE play in the classroom to develop self-regulation or social and emotional strength is to use the content to solve problems. Let’s take a social studies lesson on the Boston Tea Party. After the lessons on the content (why it happened, when it happened, who were the influential people involved, the outcomes of the protest, and so on), have students create ROLE cards (either real or imagined) for this event and use them to act out how the people involved in the situations felt about the action or how it affected them personally. A great follow-up would be to have students write about their experience portraying a historical figure and how that personalizes history.

To deepen ROLE playing in this context, use the overall concept of the lessons, but apply it to students’ real lives. For example, with the Boston Tea Party event, a major concept is “taxation without representation.” Put that into the world of adolescents and ask students to think of a time when they experienced “taxation without representation,” such as when they were forced to do something and had little to no input about it. Maybe they even defied the imposition. Have them discuss how it impacted their lives.

Have students construct the situation (changing names and getting rid of personal information) and then share it through ROLE play with the class. The class can debate or discuss the ways the situation could have developed or consider other ways to solve the problem.

Role-playing can be a valuable tool for helping students develop self-regulation. The ROLE activity can support student’s self-regulation strategies and be used across the curriculum in multiple subject areas and contexts. Use ROLE to support your students with the ABC’s of learning.