I had one of the most interesting and rewarding teaching experiences when working with the students on the session 'The Body and Society’, part of Theatre & Ideas I. I am sharing this experience to show how I tried to manage different group dynamics effectively.
As usual, I prepared for and structured my two discussion groups that took place straight after the lecture. In previous sessions, we started off with discussing the set readings and then went more off script into a discussion. As always, at the beginning of the class I asked the students if they had any questions. Since they made it very clear that the lecture and the readings, which were largely based on feminist and gender issues, were very straightforward, they did not have any questions at first. So it was my turn to provide some challenging points which we could discuss in relation to provided teaching material. I started with giving them an overview over the historical development of the key points raised in the texts and in the lecture. I then asked them about their own opinions and experiences, which set off a lively discussion in one of the two groups I worked with. Some students spoke up and the session proceeded in a way self-guided manner. I merely stepped in to elaborate on their points, asked further questions, and to show them two short videos which we then discussed. I was very happy that the conversation progressed fluidly. This made it very clear to me that my role as an educator is merely to provide them with time and space, and to offer them inspirational stimuli in order to engage them in class.
My teaching role was however not that non-hierarchical in the other group. The students did have a lively discussion too, but naturally their discussion progressed in a different direction and I continueously had to make sure that the conversation did not drift too far off the academic learning context and ended up in merely being a very honest and self-reflective experience-sharing session. Hence, the second group prompted me much more to reinforce my guiding and directional role to keep the discussion linked to the teaching material.
Given the two different experiences (although I structured both classes the same way), I realised how valuable it is to be well prepared for class and to have a focus in order to allow for fluid discussion to emerge and to guide them through the subject matter without appearing to be too shepherding.
Lisa Moravec
During a class about “Theatre and the Visual”, I introduced the class to a composition exercise devised by Jaq Bessel. The point of the exercise is to take 30 minutes to compose a performance piece incorporating the Laban Effort techniques and the Viewpoints, as well as, in any order:
Laban Efforts are actions the students can apply to their movement such as gliding, dabbing, punching… It helps them nuance their movement and become aware of their body’s abilities and expression. The Viewpoints are ways to explore a performer’s relationship to the space as a venue, but also the physical distance between them and objects/other performers, as well as the ways their movements interact with time, in terms of duration and tempo (stillness, repetition…) There were many benefits to this composition exercise: it served as a recap and practice of notions we had studied in previous sessions, such as ensemble work and movement awareness, as well as introduced the students to the notions of time and spatial awareness, something my students struggled with in the past. Most of our composition exercises had also been verbal up until that point, yet verbal performances sometimes put the students in uncomfortable, self-conscious situations, particularly in the case of students whose first language is not English. By allowing the students to be mostly visual and rely on a pre-existing text, I removed the verbal improvisation element and allowed them to focus on the form and not just the content of their performance. The response from the student was highly positive and their performances were very original and dynamic. They worked well as teams and despite the limited rehearsal time, offered seamless performances and improvised without realising it.
Chloé Arros, Drama, Theatre & Dance
Towards the end of Spring term, my Theatre & Ideas course looked at ‘The Mind and Memory’, a complex and somewhat technical topic, which for many students felt far removed from the idea of ‘theatre’ they had grown to know and experience. The lecture and set reading used cognitive science as a framework on which to explore and interpret performativity and embodiment, however many students were nervous as to how to work collaboratively between the two. Looking towards their end of term assessments, they were struggling to see how such seemingly complex and scientific ideas could be of use to their creative processes and practice. In an attempt to encourage them to look at what felt like inaccessible material in a more creative way, we spent the last part of our time together working on a memory based activity I had created, motivated by a moment from Theatre de Complicité’s Mnemonic, the play text they had also been assigned for reading that week. Inviting each student to spend some time considering a personal memory from any time in their lives, I asked them to then think of one movement (stylised or pedestrian) they felt they could associate with it. Once they had decided on a ‘memory movement’, I put them into small groups and asked them to devise a short movement based performance in response to or as a development of each of their individual embodiments, incorporating everyone’s personal movement to create one collective, synthesised movement piece. Following just under 10 minutes of devising time, several of the groups who felt they had a finished product performed to the class. This provided an opportunity for the students to see how theory could influence and inform both practice and analysis. The results were great! The students had created strong, thoughtful movement based moments informed by cognitive science, personal memories, and embodied performance, all of which had the potential to be developed further for their assessed performance lectures later in the term. Those students who chose not to perform were also given an opportunity to watch their peers work and begin to analyse and interpret what they saw through the lens of both the cognitive theory they had studied earlier in the session, and their own experience of taking part in the task. What had originally felt like inaccessible and isolated material became both the stimulus and the tool for their devising and analysing, allowing them to connect with the topic on a personal, but more importantly on a critical, creative and performative level. This activity provided a space for the students to consolidate their knowledge and a freedom to explore dynamic ways of putting theory into practice. By the time they left, many of the students were excited with what they had created, and enthusiastic about how they might work with other material they might not have initially looked towards for inspiration.
~Emma Meade Chapman
Lisa Moravec:
As I was also part of the teaching team of the course Theatre & Ideas I, it is good to read that you likewise opted for a physical exercise in the tutorial. Although the focus of our sessions was put on going through the content of the lecture and the set readings, the week on 'The Mind and Memory’, I felt, really tested our own creativity. In my first class some students found it challenging too to understand the concept and idea behind this session. While my second group had a much better foundation in science and could follow more easily. I did a mindful (meditation) exercise with them to loosen them up. Similar to what you have written, my students found the body work helpful to reduce the tension caused by their upcoming Performance Lecture, as well as to deepen the learned material and let it settle through the exercise. Some of the student enjoyed the exercise so much, that they did not want to end it. And when we finished, we were so much over our time and they actively started to discuss their shared experiences. I think that doing such small bodily tasks more often during the discussion groups and seminars would help to stimulate the learning process of students and keep them more engaged. It would be interesting to discuss how Maslin’s theories on body-mind relationships (An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001) could feed more actively into our teaching sessions at the partly practice-based Drama, Theatre, and Dance department, before we are re-starting the teaching next term in order to make the classes more engaging for the students.
During the first twelve years of my education I learned how to pass an exam and during the last three I learned what I needed to know in order to get a job in a specific field, a job that I chose on the grounds of what exams I was successful in and what other people told me I was good at. Overall, my education gave me some job skills but no life skills at all. It didn’t teach me anything about myself or my place in the world’s endless conversation. I learned how to succeed but I never learned how to lose. I did not learn how to look inwards and listen to myself. My education did not train me on how to live and work while maintaining a healthy balance between the two. It showed me the race but did not prepare me to fail. I had to learn this by myself, in the hard way, and if education’s role is to prepare us for adult life, well, this has been a major curriculum omission. Education systems should be able to equip students with inner strength, confidence and coping mechanisms necessary to be able not only to work but also live a balanced life and this ‘omission’ makes itself evident in the growing number of university students suffering from anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.
I'm aware that this could be the beginning of a long conversation but I'd like to think about ways education can develop "the whole person" rather than just one part of us that has to do with our professional life.
Angeliki Tsanikidou
I totally see myself in your experience as a student, Angeliki. I think that the education system as it is doesn't really prepare us to face the failure we often have to confront in our professional as well as private lives. There is so much emphasis on how to be successful when succeeding and nothing on how to be successful when failing. It's particularly in the context of a doctoral study that mental issues emerge and this is most likely due to the fact that students enter a PhD program without the necessary skills to overcome the psychological stress that comes with it. Even more sadly, students don't understand that it's not OK to just suffer without asking for help. This culture of acceptance really needs to change.
Pietro Morlacchi, Classics
I always see this type of situations the same as playing Role Playing Games on Playstation. Yes, we have to complete the main mission. But to fully experience everything that the game offered, we should try to complete the side missions as well and by doing this, the character we play can be stronger too. I cant blame the game (same as blaming the education system) if I just go straight ahead to complete the main mission and finish the game; and in the end feel sad because I did not really enjoy the whole experience plus, my character is not strong enough although I did managed to finish the game. Treat these 'side missions' as the other life skills and 'main mission' is the education. The choice is ours. It has always been our choice from beginning. And as an educator, I think it is our time to start reminding our students that completing main mission is important, but it will not be sweet if they does not play the side missions as well.
Khair Senan, Economics
I totally relate, especially from the perspective of how isolated you find yourself in a research degree. I feel like there is a lot of talk about it but very little is actually done and I am not sure why. I am sure though there are so many ways we can support each other in this process and maybe complement each other with this extra education you are talking about, each from their own experience, with the things they don't teach but one must learn.
Raz [DT&D]
In the last class of the term before the winter break, I conducted a summative activity. Its declared aim was to revise the main theorists, ideas and concepts, as well as the range of works of theatre and performance that were discussed in relation to these theoretical concepts during the course titled Theatre and Culture 1. I felt that this would be a useful wrap-up of the material before the students embarked on their individual essay writing. The revision took the form of a competition in which I presented two plays and asked a general question about them. The task for the class was to come up with as many arguments that linked the different theories studied to the two plays and the two plays to other works of theatre and performance through theoretical concepts. On a white board, I indicated the key for scoring: any new concept integrated into an argument gained three points, every new work two points and any new application of a concept that was mentioned already one point. Extra points were granted for elaborating and developing other students’ arguments. I only allocated thirty minutes for this task and indicated this should take the form of a leaderless conversation. I participated by announcing and writing down the points they scored, and only interfered when a concept was severely misunderstood and the misunderstanding was not challenged. At the end of the thirty minutes, we had a discussion for about ten minutes, reflecting on the activity. This has allowed for students to share their individual experience of the ‘competition mode’ and asking questions whilst simultaneously allowing me to go back and clarify concepts that required further elaboration or clarification. I think they had a lot of fun, practised some collaborative thinking and devised arguments for their essays.
Raz Weiner, Drama, Theatre & Dance
I really like the sound of this activity and will try something similar with my students - I think the competition has previously helped my students by motivated and this is a nice way to construct arguments which is something always needing to be practiced.
I have been trying to work out how to be more playful with it - this sounds like a good way to bring together organised ideas, but how to let them come up with their own world - something more improvised that they can make ideas into caricatures of themselves, or take opinions to their extreme or in a fantasy land sort of way "e.g. imagine what a media organisation would look like if it was a circus or in 100 years". This would let them own the ideas too I hope.
Amber Macintyre
This is a really good way to get students involved! It can sometimes be difficult in creative topics to make students aware of the importance of theory. They can be quite self-conscious about sharing ideas and not appreciate their own understanding of the literature. The competition element of this task removes the embarrassment component and focuses the students on the end goal. It also means that they have to work as a team, which is essential in drama, but also a valuable skill outside of creative subjects.
I like that you were still acting as a moderator, but allowed students to challenge each other’s understanding of the key concepts. Perhaps this exercise could also be adapted into a slightly shorter version as a recap at the end of theory heavy lessons.
Chloé Arros, Drama, Theatre & Dance