Role playing technique by Arjun Gupta (AP, MBA)

Whole class involvement as judge of the activity. We can understand the feelings and complexity in other’s mind if we can put ourselves in someone’s else shoes, this is where role playing technique comes handy. During business communication lectures students are encouraged to learn by putting themselves in someone else shoes. For example, during one such activity 5 students participated, and remaining class worked as a judge of the event. I was the moderator of role-playing session. 5 students were first asked to choose any profession of their choice, they opted for the Teacher, C.A., Doctor, Lawyer and Police as profession. Then they were presented with the situation that all 5 are floating in a Boat and the boat has hole in it. Boat will sink in few minutes. We have only one life jacket to save anyone of you. Now you are to present your arguments profession-wise why your profession should we saved. They presented their views on why their profession should be saved. After the rest of class voted for best arguments presented and concluded that this profession should be saved so such activities are open often encourage and conducted to promote critical and analytical thinking. By this way they can also explore about the group dynamics and about their personality to face difficult situations.

Real Time Practical Example:

During the class students are taught with real time practical examples. For instance, while teaching lecture I noticed a student have his birthday on that day, he had just offered some samosas and cold drinks to his four-five friends. I asked him if you had offered samosas to whole class at this particular time, college canteen might be able to supply 40-50 samosa right now, but if had you gone for throwing the party to whole department student then he may have to face problem while supplying 250-300 samosas right now. Had you gone for offering the party to whole college students then it might be very much difficult for canteen owner to supply thousand plus samosas right now. It requires time and patience, so by this way real time examples are given to students they can learn instantly while studying in lecture. I try to connect the student learning by giving real time examples of the surrounding area/situations so they can learn the concept instantly. A student can learn better if he can see and visualize things.