For the past twelve years, I have worked in academic technology at an institute of higher education (with a brief eight-month corporate stint that taught me that my heart and soul truly is in education). However, my academic background is not instructional design but rather in communication arts and theater. I have to say this pairing of work experience and academic education has served me well, as the two routinely go hand in hand with my job.
Toronto – Wintergarden Theater by Cannon in 2D (http://www.flickr.com/photos/16462767@N00/3286021531/)
If you think about it, teaching can be seen as a performance. A performance occurs when there is a performer and an audience and there is communication between them. Sometimes it’s unidirectional coming from the presenter to the audience, and sometimes it is bidirectional with feedback coming from the audience, so the communication cycle is completed. This is the topic for this academic year’s Teaching and Learning Conference at DePaul University—the play and performance found in teaching and learning. The keynote speaker, Nancy Houfek, head of voice and speech for the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University, will focus her presentation on the “act” of teaching. She will present specific skills that can be used by instructors to be more effective.
I have to agree that these skills are important for any instructor who lectures. The “Sage on the Stage” model of instruction will, in my opinion, always be present somewhere in our classrooms. There has, however, been a move away from a full “sage on the stage” model to a “guide on the side” model, where the instructor is more of a facilitator than a lecturer—a director rather than a performer. So how does the concept of theater play into this type of a classroom? Are the ideas and skills learned in a theatrical setting still useful?
Yes.
The classroom moves away from instructor-based play to student-based play. The students are the ones who experiment, create, and play with the content in order to present the material. They construct their learning like an improv actor would construct the scene or a playright would construct the script. The instructor needs to be well versed in the skills necessary to present, create, and perform in order to guide the students. He or she needs to be proficient in all of the beneficial performing and theatrical skills in order to be effective models for the students.
Theater skills in the classroom are twofold: for the instructor to use himself/herself in presenting content and modeling techniques for the students as well as for the instructor to teach to the students as they construct their own learning and become the “actors” in the room. While not every encounter needs to be worthy of an academy award, the basic skills of vocal projection, blocking, storyboarding, subtext, and storytelling, just to name a few, are skills that all students, regardless of disciple, will find valuable in their own teaching and learning.
Joann, I am an Instructional Design student at Walden University and my class is currently working on an assignment where we identify and interact with instructional design-related blogs. I have thoroughly enjoyed your post “To Act or Not to Act” because I have never really viewed instruction from the perspective of communications arts and theater. I can certainly relate to your view that teaching can be seen as a performance. As a lifelong student, I believe that I have learned more from instructors who share the same thoughts as you. Learning has to be interesting and delivered in a manner that captures and holds students’ attention, while simultaneously relaying information. My class has not gotten to the part where we talk about “methods of delivery” in terms of teaching and instructional design, but I am certainly very interested to begin a discussion with my classmates about how to incorporate “delivery” into the instructional design process.
Again, I thoroughly enjoyed your post.
-Sharon