Summary

These exercises are a great deal of fun, for both lecturers and students. They can be inserted easily into existing course structures, and used in a wide variety of subjects and levels. They cover the subject matter at a speed comparable to that of normal lectures, and the lecturer workload is not unduly onerous. We therefore strongly recommend that you give these methods a try.

Classroom role-playing exercises are not, however, a magical panacea for student apathy: a great deal of care is required in the design and implementation of these sessions. This is also true, however, of conventional lectures. What is lacking is the accumulated experience of how best to design and run these exercises. If you use our exercises, or design your own role-playing exercises, we'd therefore like to hear from you: we will provide a central clearing house for the accumulated wisdom and tips of this technique.

© Copyright Astronomical Society of Australia 1997