Drama classes are filled with opportunities for students to work collaboratively to create. Learning to negotiate and navigate working relationships with peers is one of the many benefits of the subject. Students must find a balance between listening and leading within their group; this can be a breeze for some, yet an insurmountable challenge for others.
How may we support our students in building their teamwork and collaboration skills? Should these skills be a by-product of the drama class or could we shine more of a spotlight on the process for our students?
Metacognition is defined by The Educational Endowment Foundation as the process of supporting pupils to think about their own learning more explicitly, often by teaching them specific strategies for planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning. It is considered a very high-impact approach backed with extensive evidence. Read more about the findings here.
Recently, I have been introducing some more explicit strategies for effective group work in my classes and encouraging more reflection and group discussion focused specifically on the process of creating the work.
One strategy we explore is the “yes and” attitude. As a class, we discuss the benefits of approaching the ideas of others with a “yes and” as opposed to a “no”. We also contemplate the effectiveness of applying the questions “How may I help to build this work with my team?” and “Am I listening and contributing”? This forms part of the success criteria of the task alongside the drama-specific content of the lesson.
Something that I have found to be particularly effective is discussing some imaginary scenarios with the class. These scenarios will be specifically based on a group of students creating a piece of drama. An example scenario could be
a group of students are asked to devise a 2-minute scene. The teacher gives them 15 minutes to create this scene. Most group members wish to begin creating but one group member keeps thinking of reasons to challenge their teammates’ suggestions and oppose them.
We would then proceed with a class discussion where students evaluate the scenario and think about why this may be a problem within the team dynamic. We will do this for a few different scenarios based on situations I have witnessed in the past where groups have struggled to cooperate. The aim is for them to build connections between these scenarios and their own participation in group tasks.
The exciting prospect is that the more students get better at evaluating the effectiveness of their participation within the team, the more chance the team has of success. This is an invaluable transferable skill for life.
