Reflection Journal 7: Scenario Design

Now, you will put your new knowledge into practice. In this course, we want you to design and submit a scenario based on your disciplinary context. Then, you will practice facilitating your scenario with your peers.

• * The scenario should include a short scene and the framing of the scene using the following formula:
  • * Person A who is confronting Person B about a conflict. Person C is also involved, either in the conflict itself, as a support to one of the other characters, or a witness.
• * The scenes should not take more than 5-8 minutes to play.
• * The whole scenario, including the framing, should not take more than a maximum of 20 min.
• * The scenario should be designed for 2-3 players and one facilitator. So you should be able to run it no matter if you have 2 or 3 players. 

* * *

Supporting activities and materials (optional):

If you need help getting started, try this activity:

1) List as many situations you can think of in which conflict is present in your field:

A) As part of the subject matter you teach, and/or
B) As part of the environment in which students will either learn or work

2) Pick one (1) of the situations and then list who is involved with these situations, both directly (key figures within it) or indirectly (either bystanders or people involved in a minor way). 

You can also always return to the Deeper Dive—Design video, where we present the template for designing a scenario. Here are some examples of conflicts that can be used as a base for a scene from that presentation:

• * Issues with group work dynamics, e.g., being late, ghosting, not contributing work​
• * Issues with power, e.g., feeling overpowered, cut out of decision making, unfairly treated, talked over​
• * Issues with rejection, e.g., feeling overlooked, ignored, one’s ideas being removed or not considered, one’s culture critiqued​
• * Issues with demands on time​
• * Issues with different belief systems​
• * Issues with different cultural norms
• * Issues with different needs, e.g., one person needs to be social whereas another needs to get work done alone 

You can find the full Deeper Dive—Design video and the slides in the Deeper Dive into Transformative RPGs module.