Experiential Learning Through Interactive Drama: An Alternative To Student Role Plays

This article introduces interactive drama as an alterative to student role-plays. Interactive drama increases student engagement and explores complex issues in management. It features scenes from organizational life being performed live by trained actors before a student audience, stopping at pivotal points so the audience can interact with the actors. These sessions result in highly energized students wanting to participate in lively discussions. Because the vivid scenes are so memorable, the students are able later to connect them effectively to management theory or their own experiences in reflective journals or other written assessments. After describing why instructors should consider using interactive drama, the article explains how to use it in the management classroom and concludes by providing five detailed examples of interactive drama scenes.