A Tabletop Role-Playing Game for Building Interpersonal Skills: Demonstration and Feedback

Event Date & Time

Event Description

In-person

This event is part of the CTLT Spring Institute, taking place from June 3–6, 2024.

This session will focus on demonstrating the use of a tabletop role-playing game (RPG) as a training-tool-in-progress to support the development of empathy in student support roles. In the proposed RPG game, participants are invited to take on the role of a student character to experience and make difficult decisions while balancing courses and other academic and non-academic experiences and obligations. After playing the game, players debrief by discussing the difficult decisions their characters made, demands on their character’s time, insights for their professional practice, and exploring further areas of learning to support students in their staff roles. Learning outcomes include: identifying demands students may have on their time, discussing common student experiences, identifying the impact of privilege on academic success, and questioning common myths regarding student academic performance.

In this presentation, participants will experience a demonstration of the role-playing game, and we will discuss other options and modifications that can be made to the game for different applications and contexts. Participants will be invited to share feedback on the demonstration and explore the benefits of this type of gamified learning experience.

Facilitators:

• Jessica Lowry, Academic Communication Consultant, UBCO
• Jo Scofield, Student Learning Hub Coordinator, UBCO