This week I've been reading about play, simulation, and performance and how all are interrelated, in its own way of learning. This made me wonder about other than being just plain fun, what other advantages does play offer to adolescents? Does on-line role play, simulation and performance offer more purpose in their lives?
The pyramid by J. Finderstein shows Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Maslow lists the five levels with esteem being what is important for adolescents.
On his pyramid the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment line up with Erikson's stage for adolescents.
When viewing a website of Erik Erikson's psychosocial developments , I noticed that during the eight stages of human development adolescents are at the stage of identity.
Erikson's psychosocial theory basically asserts that "people experience eight 'psychosocial crisis stages' which significantly affect each person's development and personality."
Below I have included Erikson's stage of adolescence for ages 9-18.
| 5. Identity v Role Confusion | Fidelity & Devotion (self-confidence and self-esteem necessary to freely associate with people and ideas based on merit, loyalty, social and interpersonal integrity, discretion, personal standards and dignity, pride and personal identity, seeing useful personal role(s) and purpose(s) in life) | adolescent / peers, groups, influences / resolving identity and direction, becoming a grown-up |
How can I apply into teaching what I just learned from Maslow and Ericson? One way would be through the means of on-line role play and engaging in collaborative arguments that would lead to making a difference on issues important to students. Adolescents can get the opportunity to engage in collaborative arguments on topics that they care about and gain meaningful self-awareness that they can and do make a difference. This would enable the development of self-esteem, identity, and the other key characteristics listed in the above table.
In the March 2009, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy an article called "Learning Argument Practices Through Online Role-Play : Toward a Rhetoric of Significance and Transformation" addresses the benefits of determing important issues of students and having them participate in collaborative aruguments. By motivating then to gather information and synthesize their evidence and thoughts, on topics important to them, this helps them to form their identity, which in turn builds on their esteem.
I was thinking about what you said regarding having students choose their topics and how this might look with an online role play. I'm especially intrigued by how this might look in the area of service learning.
ReplyDeleteEvery year in English, we do a research project called "Change the World", and students choose a problem in the world to research that is of interest to them. A couple weeks ago, I gave students 4 choices for the read aloud book (they were all related to animal issues). My homeroom class chose "Saving Lily", which is about two students who are trying to save an elephant from a circus. I can really see this being a great online role play because there are so many characters (the classroom teacher who is opposed to this, the talented and gifted teacher who had them do the research, the circus owner, the circus manager, the media, the animal rights activists, etc.). Plus, my class is so motivated by it that they are doing research OUTSIDE of school and writing up a constitution to send to the city of Edina, telling the city to oppose circuses with animals. And they want students from all the other schools to sign it. This was all student-motivated. All I did was offer the book as a choice. I'm interested in your thoughts about doing this. Would you just let students choose any topic? How would you relate it to the curriculum?
wow, Erikson sounds like a fascinating scholar/thinker. I loved to know more this work. Thanks for sharing.
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