Understanding our present

Teaching disputes resolution through online role-play

Abstract

The Disputes Resolution unit in the School of Law at Charles Darwin University demonstrates how new technologies can be used in higher education to design connected, innovative and interactive learning environments that stimulate the teaching of practical mediation skills. A pedagogic approach suited to online teaching is used in which online role-play scenarios are conducted using a variation of the online fishbowl approach. With this approach internal and external students take on character roles and interact in a synchronous online environment during a two-week intensive teaching block. The students jump in and out of their roles over the course of the two weeks as they research, role-play, interview and conduct peer reviews of the interactions. New technologies combined with innovative pedagogy enable the repositioning of external students as very much internal in the learning process and a new level of connection and interaction is possible between internal and external students.