Drama-based Pedagogy


Book Description

Drama-Based Pedagogy examines the mutually beneficial relationship between drama and education, championing the versatility of drama-based teaching and learning designed in conjunction with the classroom curriculum. Written by seasoned educators and based upon their own extensive experience in diverse learning contexts, this book bridges the gap between theories of drama in education and classroom practice.




Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis


Book Description

This volume explores whether theatre pedagogy can and should be transformed in response to the global climate crisis. Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy present an innovative re-imagining of the ways in which the art of theatre, and the pedagogical apparatus that feeds and supports it, might contribute to global efforts in climate protest and action. Comprised of contributions from a broad range of scholars and practitioners, the volume explores whether an adherence to aesthetic values can be preserved when art is instrumentalized as protest and considers theatre as a tool to be employed by the School Strike for Climate movement. Considering perspectives from areas including performance, directing, production, design, theory and history, this book will prompt vital discussions which could transform curricular design and implementation in the light of the climate crisis. Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of climate change and theatre and performance studies.




Teaching Theatre Today: Pedagogical Views of Theatre in Higher Education


Book Description

Through thirteen essays, Teaching Theatre Today addresses the changing nature of educational theory, curricula, and teaching methods in theatre programs of colleges and universities of the United States and Great Britain.




Theatre in the Secondary School Classroom


Book Description

If you’re a preservice teacher planning to teach the theatre arts, an in-service secondary teacher considering a foray into teaching theatre, or a theatre professional considering the classroom, there’s a lot to learn. But you don’t have to know everything to teach well from the start, you just need Theatre in the Secondary School Classroom. Theatre in the Secondary School Classroom is the trusty guide that every new theatre teacher will be grateful to have as a ready reference. It’s not an encyclopedia on secondary theatre, but a collection of musts that every beginning instructor needs to know. Theoretical, practical, and friendly, Theatre in the Secondary School Classroom introduces key instructional methods and successful strategies, and works through the problems of practice that face all instructors, regardless of their experience. With discussions of finding appropriate spaces (both personal and physical), assessing students’ learning, encouraging involvement, and more, you’ll find the crucial information you need to hit the ground running. Patterson, McKenna-Crook, and Ellington provide numerous illustrations, model letters to parents, work samples, rubrics, checklists, and example test questions to show you precisely how the nitty-gritty of theatre education plays out. In addition each chapter contains suggested extension activities for students, Internet links to valuable resources and research materials, and experience-won hints on topics of specific interest to the new theatre teacher.




Key Concepts in Theatre/Drama Education


Book Description

Key Concepts in Theatre Drama Education provides the first comprehensive survey of contemporary research trends in theatre/drama education. It is an intriguing rainbow of thought, celebrating a journey across three fields of scholarship: theatre, education and modes of knowing. Hitherto no other collection of key concepts has been published in theatre /drama education. Fifty seven entries, written by sixty scholars from across the world aim to convey the zeitgeist of the field. The book’s key innovation lies in its method of writing, through collaborative networking, an open peer-review process, and meaning-making involving all contributors. Within the framework of key-concept entries, readers will find valuable judgments and the viewpoints of researchers from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The volume clearly shows that drama/theatre educators and researchers have created a language, with its own grammar and lucid syntax. The concepts outlined convey the current knowledge of scholars, highlighting what they consider significant. Entries cover interdependent topics on teaching and learning, aesthetics and ethics, curricula and history, culture and community, various populations and their needs, theatre for young people, digital technology, narrative and pedagogy, research methods, Shakespeare and Brecht, other various modes of theatre and the education of theatre teachers. It aims to serve as the standard reference book for theatre/drama education researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students around the world. A basic companion for researchers, students, and teachers, this sourcebook outlines the key concepts that make the field prominent in the sphere of Arts Education.




Teaching Classroom Drama and Theatre


Book Description

Teaching Classroom Drama and Theatre will be an essential text for anyone teaching drama in the modern classroom. It presents a model teachers can use to draw together different methodologies of drama and theatre studies, exemplified by a series of contemporary, exciting practical units.




THEATRE AS PEDAGOGY IN SCHOOL


Book Description

There are many problems faced by students in terms of learning or grasping what is taught in class. Students undergo difficulties where complex subjects and terms taught through conventional methods do not really have the desired effect. Theatre is a great medium for teaching school subjects as students will themselves perform the roles and involve in learning the subject, at the same time they have fun. This is what theatre does, fun learning. Children enjoy and are motivated as they themselves perform. The history of theatre can also be seen as a creative evolution of Human Art. Though theatre is one of the art forms, it is seen today with all its technicalities and creative use of all other art forms, such as painting, music, design, and architecture. It can be seen as the history of human art.




Acting Religious


Book Description

My passion is embodied learning. Through twenty-five years of teaching, I've learned that students engage with material best when their bodies are active participants in the learning process. I have found this to be particularly true in teaching religious studies and theology. --from the Introduction People are torn by conflict, fractured by cultural, religious, racial, and economic divides. Religion has often been a prime motivator for this violence. Classrooms must be places in which we learn to hold differences and commonalities. Classrooms are opportunities to rehearse, to practice, how we want to live with one another. Religions, says Rue, are more than ideas: they are lived, enacted by human beings in particular ways. And courses in religion need more than a cognitive understanding of central concepts. Rue asserts that students need to viscerally encounter belief, religious practice, religious imagination, and religious experience. Acting Religious, a practical handbook, maps a new approach that uses theatre to teach religion. For many years, Rue has used theatre techniques and plays to introduce students to what she calls the experience of religion, showing how theatre makes theological ideas palatable, visceral, and available. Acting Religious is at once a call to experience meaning and a theatre method to embody it. Experienced and beginning teachers at both college and high school levels, as well as religious educators, will learn how to use the following techniques in the religion or theology classroom: improvisation, characterization, memorization, script writing, performance. From these methods, students will be able to engage religious traditions experientially as well as cognitively.




Theatre in the Classroom, Grades 6-12


Book Description

This latest edition, Theatre in the Classroom, Grades 6–12, equips prospective theatre teachers with key instructional methods and proven strategies for student learning. Building on the previous edition’s strengths, Patterson extensively modified and updated the entire text, incorporating the most recent theatre standards by the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. This indispensable guide, whose theoretical and philosophical underpinnings and practical classroom applications endow it with a lifetime of use, includes ideas for resource portfolios, checklists, rubrics, and other assessment tools. Of additional value are discussions concerning managing the classroom, linking school play production with classroom learning, and recognizing and responding to classroom diversity. Patterson details important considerations and resources for planning productions, ranging from those available from professional organizations to those found within the community to those generated by students. He believes theatre learning must go beyond the study and performance of established play scripts and stresses the importance of productions written, directed, designed, and managed by students. End-of-chapter sections include: “Extension Activities”—ways to help prospective teachers further explore the subject in the college-level methods course; “Stay Connected”—websites for additional resource and research materials; and “Professional Development”—suggestions for expanding personal and career development.




A Teaching Artist at Work


Book Description

The works presented are moving and impressive; their authenticity and tone in harmony with the story teller's voice. The story itself may open new windows ... for those intent on enriching and humanizing what occurs in contemporary schools. - Maxine Greene A fabulous book for arts and theater education. -Merryl Goldberg Author of Integrating the Arts, Third Edition Are you a theatre teaching artist, or considering it? No matter what kind of educational setting you're in, the theatre skills you teach are intimately linked to your own artistry: you've got to know how to teach from your own practice while you learn to practice the art of teaching. The key is discovering how the educational setting, the students, and the stage link. A Teaching Artist at Work helps theatre teaching artists develop connections between their pedagogical and artistic selves. The book presents a framework for thinking about the work of teaching artists in general and theatre teaching artists in particular. Through descriptive examinations of practice, the book also provides theatre teaching artists and those who prepare and work beside them with concrete examples of three theatre-education projects in three different educational settings as well as the collaborative processes that helped them succeed. Replicable in other settings-such as community outreach programs, after school and summer programs hosted by professional theatres, and not-for-profit educational theatres-these projects provide a jumping-off point for others who work to create interesting theatre curriculum. In any educational setting, theatre teaching artists create spaces where teachers and students can envision a new, different, and exciting way of learning and doing that they can apply to theatre education and many other content areas. With emphasis on linking personal artistry with pedagogical artistry and examples drawn from McKean's own practice, A Teaching Artist At Work is an invaluable resource for teaching artists and the arts-education community.