Hold on, a simulation game without tech? Exploring the power of role play in experiential learning

‘We must all do theatre- to find out who we are, and to discover who we could become’ (Boal, 2006). Empowering learners to learn ‘how to learn’, equips students with the potential to be perpetually relevant and resilient beyond university education. Today’s continually evolving knowledge society, is rapidly moving away from routine and manual work, placing great significance on HE institutions in teaching students how to learn, rather than what to learn (Tanaka et al., 2016). In addition to domain-specific knowledge, students must acquire critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills to be prepared for the labour market, yet students have few chances to participate in real-life problem-solving activities in Higher Education (Chernikova et al., 2020). This presentation focuses on the design and delivery of a level 6 module employing a role play game simulating an advertising agency environment, which responded to programme level feedback from students wishing to gain more practical experiences to prepare them in a career advertising. While technology-based simulations are well cited in pedagogic literature as useful vehicles for learning and experiencing decision making in close to real environments, studies on the implementation of drama-based simulations and role play in these settings are comparatively rare. Utilising the drama-based approach, the module explored the relationship between creative drama and emotional development (Rao and Stupans, 2021), (Briones et al., 2022), providing students with the opportunity for students to form broader learning and career goals facilitated through the development of metacognition. The six, separate, live advertising challenges were designed to integrate employer feedback into the recursive process of experiential learning (Kolb and Kolb, 2009). This presentation is aligned to the peer learning and collaboration theme and seeks to provoke discussion on the impact of drama-based simulations on students meta-learning.