Drama for Teaching

Drama for Teaching and Learning

DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT:

Drama and performance techniques are well established tools for teaching and learning. In the field of education drama – based teaching and learning has long history. You may have encountered terms like creative dramatics, drama in education, improvisation with youth, process drama, educational drama, or drama for learning – each of these describes the drama-based method for teaching and learning.

As far back as we can trace, evidence exists to suggest that dramatic activities were used in rituals, ceremonies, classrooms, and daily life to teach and reinforce knowledge, stories, and skills. For centuries teachers have used drama-based pedagogy to connect children’s inclination towards bodily-kinesthetic imitation as they try on identities and understandings of their world. Over the last 200 years this process-oriented way of teaching through theatre and performance techniques was defined as drama, a verb derived from Creek word dran meaning to do, act or make. While we can safely assume that imaginative play as a way to discover, practice, and imitate as old as humanity itself, drama for teaching appeared as a distinct discipline in the US [in UK at the same time] during the early twentieth century.

Drama contrasts with theatre, an art form that aims to produce an artistic product for an audience, through its orientation towards process. Unlike theatre, a product is not necessarily the main outcome of drama, even though participants in drama- based learning may share results of their work with co-participants and sometimes with larger public. Drama –based learning focuses on deepening understanding of self; on fostering creative and critical thinking skills; on exploring modes of expression and communication; on bringing together cognitive, emotional, and kinesthetic domains to make us human. Whether drama is used as teaching strategy in education, in community work, or otherwise, the benefits of drama as a teaching method are multiple.

OBJECTIVES:

Reach participants who are not served by traditional methods of teaching and learning;
Connect participants to themselves and others;
Transform the learning environment through collaboration and explorations of uncertainty and ambiguity;
Adapt to fit needs of diverse learners, providing both challenges for those participants who are already considered successful under traditional learning paradigms and support for students who experiences difficulties within contemporary classroom settings;
Create space for new modes of creative and critical inquiry and expression;
Enhance understanding of regular curricular subjects, helping learners understand human experiences of heart, body and mind;
Stand as subject in and of itself;
Advance the goal of metacognition (an awareness or analysis of our own learning and thinking processes).

APPLIED METHODOLOGIES:

Linear drama methods are designed with the clear beginning, middle, and end.
Process-oriented drama (sometimes referred to as „holistic drama“ or simply „Process drama“ is open-ended, often with only the skeletal structure of activities designed to evolve based on participants input throughout the lesson.

LINEAR DRAMA METHODS are organised around specific goals and objectives and consist of exercises and activities, that build the course of lesson or unit. These exercises are divided into broader categories related to drama and theatrical skills and may include concentration, sensorial exploration, imagination, character development, and/or guided or independent improvisation.

During the lesson a teacher or facilitator outlines a plan, sets it in motion, and has a clear understanding where she wants to go. She teaches concepts, skills, and terms; introduces and facilitates activities and provides necessary leadership from outside of the drama world. For example, learners take part in different type of improvisations facilitated by teacher but their inputs barely influence the course of the whole session.

Linear drama was most common method of drama-based instruction in the US until about the mid-1990s, and it continues to be vital methodology.

Pioneers in linear drama in US: Winifred Ward, Geraldine Siks, Viola Spolin.

Core techniques in linear drama are

Sidecoaching – act of facilitating learning without stopping the action of the lesson,
Spotlightning – allows participants to informally view other participants work, take inspiration from others ideas, and safely share moments of work in progress,
Sharing- insted of formal production or performance, linear drama uses sharing that is typically done at the conclusion of the activity. As the rehearsal time is brief, mistakes may happen. The sharing gives particiapants the opportunity to make decisions about how to organize the space, how to sequence events for the sharing, and how to use brief rehearsal time.
Storytelling – telling stories should be integrated into drama, it helps the development of linear drama and means that leaders tell stories instead of reading them to a group of participants. Telling a story involves knowing the narrative arc and recounting it in your own words with your own flourishes and details.
Image-based activities

tableaux are frozen pictures that people create with their bodies,
pantomime is the act of dramatization without using words,
improvisation is dramatisation in the moment

PROCESS-ORIENTED DRAMA

Process-oriented drama sets out a main goal of learning about life through dramatic methods. Process-oriented drama is participant-oriented, with the group being collaborators with the facilitator to help shape the drama. Leader often structures learning processes from inside of drama functioning as in-role facilitator. Process-oriented drama typically avoids a performance or production component, the process is the purpose.

In the typical process-oriented drama, participants often find themselves immersed into a story or dramatic scenario (based on real or imagined events) in which they, as players in the drama, directly contribute to the development of events and outcome of the story or scenario.

Well-known drama educators in process drama in UK: Dorothy Heathcote, Gavin Bolton, Cecily O’Neil, Allan Owens

Process-oriented drama techniques are

Mantle of the Expert – group of learners collectively articulates areas of interest, then develops a group-designed fictional world that allows them to explore this interest together. MoE techniques do not impose a subject on participants, but instead allow them to decide together what they will explore in the session. The learners act in the classroom as experts and construct their knowledge step by step by improvising and personal investigation (see more Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton 1995).
Facilitation – the leader/facilitator focuses on guiding the drama and offering encouragement and motivation to participants without directly steering their contribution. The leader might step into and out of role for questioning, checking how participants are feeling, provide information to push drama forward, pause to provide opportunities for additional dramatic exploration, or present research task to deepen understanding of the topic. Facilitators also maintain control and safety in the room, but adjust their leadership and in-role work based on contributions from participants.
Role-play in process-oriented drama is typically grounded in a set of given circumstances (conditions of a real or imaginary world in which participants must operate) with the goal of creating believable and realistic characters with the vested interest in the topic at hand. Role-play involves two components: role-making and role-taking, participants may generate their own roles, completing additional research to help justify decisions about characters and context.
Facilitator-in-role then the leader acts in role-play as well and facilitates drama from inside of the group embodying different functional roles during drama.
Expert role is foundational technique in MoE. Students agree to take on the role of knowledgeable and skillful experts, for example they are archeologists exploring an excavation for the museum, or City council members offering advice on improving playground spaces. Through the expert roles participants generate knowledge to the topic, while also encouraging an increased level of engagement and confidence with events the drama.
Simulation provides a context for participants to work in-role. Simulation is an imitation of real-world experience. In process-oriented drama facilitators often design simulations based on both real and imaginary. The simulation sets out to inspire action from participants as they work in-role.
Interviewing is the simpler version of simulation. One player takes the role of interviewer, the other
Sound tunnels are auditory-oriented in-role activities that help with brainstorming perspectives, synthesizing ideas, or concluding the residency.
Writing-in-role helps to get inside of the roles, to look events in drama critically and to raise empathy to characters.

REFERENCES:

Drama and Education: Performance Methodologies for Teaching and Learning. Manon van de Water, Mary McAvoy, Kristin Hunt; Routledge 2015