Why, What and How?
Why do we want you to play certain roles?
The most important and also the most experimental aspect of this course is the role-playing. Instead of just talking about different perspectives and actors, we actually want you to bring these actors to life and see their perspectives from their individual viewpoint. This comes with various new challenges and difficulties but hopefully also with fun and inspiration.
How is this going to work? What do you have to do?
Role-playing is taking place in some of the lectures 4- 10. Every role-play involves several roles, e.g. social scientists, economist, and is taking place at the beginning of the lecture. Each role-playing has four stages:
Stage 1: Lecture before the role-play (e.g. lecture A)
- The role-play is based on the input of the preceding lecture (e.g. lecture A) and will arise around a controversial question directly related to the perspective presented in this class.
- You will receive all necessary information on the upcoming role-play: involved roles and the question to discuss in the role-play.
- At the end of the class (here A), you have to choose a role. Each role will be chosen by a minimum of 2 students building a role-group. The role-group is your working and discussing entity.
Stage 2: The week before the role-play in the upcoming lecture (here lecture B)
- Define your role concretely. Some roles have different possible definitions. A journalist could be for example a tabloid journalist or a science journalist. Discuss your options and decide on one definition.
- Read, read, read. Try to dive deep into the world of your role.
- Find arguments for a reasonable position of your role regarding the question of the upcoming role-play. (We chose questions which allow controversial debates and contradicting positions.) Prepare for the discussion in your role-group.
- Decide on who is going to take be the major speaker in the upcoming discussion. Being the major speaker of the role-group does not mean that you have to talk alone. However, as the role-group speaker, you are supposed to make the major points and to summarize and synthesize the position of your role. (Be aware that each of you has to be the major speaker of a role-group in one discussion at least once. Talk to each other, so that each of you gets a fair share of the debates.)
Stage 3: The actual role-play in the lecture (here lecture B)
- At the beginning of the lecture, we will introduce the questions and start the role-play by asking every role-group about their answer to the question. The debate evolves around differences, similarities or other aspects. We aim to understand both, different reasonings but also unifying ideas.
- At least one student of the role-group has to take notes of important aspects of the debate. These aspects, your experiences, your arguments and the respective perspectives are the basis for your blog entry about the role-play. Make sure that you define tasks within your role-group clearly (one major speaker, at least one taking notes…).
- You can also take pictures or include other ideas in your documentation.
- After 15-30 min we will stop the actual role-play and will have about 10min for you to reflect on your experiences, ideas and thoughts.
Stage 4: Self-reflection, writing and commenting after the role-play
- Now, one of the role-group or the role-group as a team (but remember each of you has to have at least 1 individual blog entry in the end) should write a short summary/reflection/argumentation related to the role-play. Explain the position of your role, what arguments you have, what you learned in the debate, how did your perception change during the debate. We will provide you with more details on what we expect later in the class.
- In preparation for the essay, you have to write in the end, it is usefull to structure your blog entry around a hypothesis. Start by formulating one, go with your argumentation from your role’s perspective and come to a conclusion.
- Each of you should read the blog posts of your fellow students. You will have to comment them regarding content but also reasoning and writing in general. Before you do so, please read the feedback rules
What can you do to take the most out of this experience?
- You choose your roles for every role-play. Be aware that you get the most out of this when you try to get a diversity of roles. This includes talking to your fellow students to allow all of you to take different roles, while also meeting our requirements. The more you all think as a team, the more you get out of this.
- Understand, don’t act as if. You will get a lot more out of this if you really try to understand the arguments and perspective of your role. Aspects to consider are for example institutional settings, motivation, legitimation and working ethos. Don’t think or act in stereotypes. Bring the role to life by understanding its thinking and not by reproducing your understanding of that role.
- Communicate clearly and constructive. Always be helpful and open to new ideas.
- Don’t get frustrated. This is new for all of us. Things and plans will fail and others will be successful. We all are part of that process of learning.
- Ask questions!
- A role-play is a debate, not a fight. It is not about ‘right’ answers nor about finding any joint answer at all. It is about discussing and understanding uncertainty and about communication. The more you let go of the idea that not finding a joint answer is a failure, the more you will learn and enjoy role-playing.
- Have fun!
Roles
What roles are there?
There are various roles from natural scientist to lobbyist. Each role-play has particular roles depending on the question of the role-play. We will provide you with a description of the roles, involved in the upcoming role-play, in the preceding lecture.
Here, are a few examples of roles:
Role-play 1: “How certain are we that the global average near-surface air temperature has increased since 1850?„
- Mainstream climate scientists: expert in a climate-related field, agreeing with the majority of climate scientists about anthropogenic climate change
- Climate sceptic: expert in a climate-related or non-climate related field (e.g. researcher in theoretical physics) with a sceptical view on the anthropogenic nature of climate change and its evidences.
- Journalist: a person writing for newspapers (tabloid, science magazines,…) available (for free, on a blog, printed…) or collecting and processing information for (national, communal, public, private…) broadcast stations
- Politician: Decision-maker of a (right-wing, left-wing, neoliberal, conservative, communistic,…) party represented in a (communal, federal, national…) political entity
Role-play 2: “Question: „Considering the evolutionary potential in ecosystems and the related uncertainty, how should we decide on 2deg-related ecosystem management measures?“
- Natural scientist: expert in a natural science related to climate sciences with knowledge of biological processes and ecosystem dynamics
- Social scientist: expert in a social science coping with uncertainties within social systems and human behaviour as well as with the social dimensions of ecosystem services and management
- Economist: expert in economics dealing with economic values of ecosystems, conservation… believing in (liberal market economy, social market economy,…) and being paid by (oil-companies, research institutes, NGO’s…)
- Politician: Decision-maker of a (right-wing, left-wing, neoliberal, conservative, communistic,…) party represented in a (communal, federal, national…) political entity