Switching Roles: a critique of the constructivist perspective on teachers and students – the case of online role-play simulation games Ron Linser Fablusi P/L e-mail: ronil@simplay.net Abstract The paper examines the way constructivists present the roles of teacher and students and argues that it idealizes both their roles and the nature of their relationship. It takes role-play simulation games, one of constructivists' favorite methodological bastions as a background to show that what actually occurs, in other words, what teachers are actually expected to do and what students are expected to do, as well as the relationship between these expectations, falls short of the constructivist image of the process. The argument is that there is a need to re- conceptualize the role of teacher and student within the constructivist paradigm in order to provide a better understanding of the process of present online education generally and experiential learning in particular and to provide teachers a way to better understand the implications of using experiential learning in general and role-play simulation games in particular. Introduction Constructivist and experiential pedagogy, that underlies online role-play simulation games in education which is the focus of this paper, has put the student at the center of the learning process and consequently placed the teacher in the role of 'facilitator' or mentor of learning. At least that's what seems to be the argument taken by many constructivists who examined the role of teachers in online education (Waniganayake et al., 2007; Linser et al., 2004). Yet face-to-face classrooms have certainly not disappeared and online components of education are still far from being the bulk of the teacher-learner interaction. Teachers, for the most part, still stand in front of classrooms applying didactic pedagogies, their authority intact, while students, even in hybrid learning environments, still expect not only guidance from teachers, but for teachers and the school institution to provide not only the tools for learning, but to teach students how to use them and to impart knowledge. The new role of teachers called for by constructivists, such as facilitators, providers of learning environments, mentors, moderators, etc., therefore seems to provide a metaphor that is hard to sustain. It attempts to present the new roles of the teacher under the light of a mediator of knowledge environments and tools rather than their authority. However it is hard to avoid the reality that most of today's teachers are still under the scrutiny and authority of institutionalized knowledge transmission that includes the expectation and responsibility that they must cover certain content knowledge within certain time frames that are imposed by educational authorities – and these are specifically defined as to how much time should be devoted to each segment of content. Thus, despite valiant attempts by pedagogically constructivist minded educators and theorists the social and structural realities of the classroom are by enlarge oriented towards the transmission of knowledge and not its social constructivist grounding. Similarly, in the light of constructivism, students are active learners who construct their knowledge through reflection and experience of their social environment, content material and tools at their disposal. But the fact of highly organized class schedules, their expectations of being examined and evaluated individually relative to their peers, the perception that knowledge which is somewhere out there and should be found, acquired, rehearsed and regurgitated in exams, and that the institutions which they attend are the arena in which all these process occur, remains hidden behind the constructivist scheme.