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It’s spring and it’s burnout season for drama teachers - shows are in full swing, assessments are looming, and work/life balance is almost impossible to find. Join us to talk about how to avoid burnout, keep your eye on the prize, and learn some tips and tricks to make sure you find time for YOU during this busy season.

Spring is still in full swing, but it’s already time to start looking to the fall. Believe it or not, this is the time for choosing plays, and to start adjusting your curriculum for your next group of drama students. It’s never to early to get organized and start checking things off of that to-do list for next year. This will be a discussion of the do’s and don’ts of planning ahead.

The school year is rapidly winding down and you’re knee-deep in assessment, rubrics, and reflections. But as a drama teacher, you also have performances to worry about. Which begs the question: What’s the best way to assess performance? This is the time to discuss strategies with our expert panel, and share your own best practices, as well as ways to fairly assess the performance aspect of the drama classroom.

As the year that just finished rides slowly into the sunset, (or mercifully falls off a cliff!) this is the time to take a minute and reflect on the highs and lows of your classes and productions from this past year. What new things did you try? What worked? What didn’t? How can I make it better and what are my goals for the coming year? Join our panel for a discussion on the process of looking backwards and moving forward.

Join us for a discussion on Creating the Ensemble-Based Classroom. We'll have course instructor Gai Jones live to answer your questions about this DTA course, and about how this type of classroom can work for you and your students!

The new school year is looming large on the horizon. It’s time to check the standards, examine your curriculum and write some lesson plans. But how do you make sure that those lesson plans actually advance your curriculum and meet the standards? This PLC will examine how to create and execute a curriculum that meets both the needs of your classroom and the requirements of standards.

Summer has flown by and any day now your students will be coming through the door. Are you ready for them? Is your classroom?? Believe it or not, much of the success the coming school year will depend on how you set up your classroom now. Discipline, organization, concentration and classroom management all hinge on a well planned classroom space. Whether you teach in a classroom, a theatre, or something in between, this is a PLC that will help you put your best space forward!

How did your latest round of auditions go? Smooth sailing or full of choppy seas? This PLC will dive into best practices with the audition process whether it be for your spring musical or your next classroom production. Bring your best tips to share in the chat room.

It’s never too early for assessment planning. The work currently being done in your classroom is providing a baseline of growth throughout the year, but if you don’t capture this data right now, you can’t present it to your administration when it is time to assess your program. Join us for a discussion of tips and strategies when it comes to assessments in your classroom.

Want to try a playwriting unit but have no idea where to start? Or have you tried introducing playwriting in the past but didn’t get the results you hoped for? We’ve got a great panel of playwright/teachers who are here to share their most successful approaches and strategies.

Does your lizard brain make itself heard loud and clear? Do you sometimes feel like you’re living in your very own version of The Play That Goes Wrong? Or The Class That Goes Wrong? You are not alone. Let’s get together and discover how to plan for and even embrace failure. Failure can be a good thing for both you and your students!

Theatre History should be a part of every drama curriculum. But with all the plays and dates and people and places how do you avoid a month of textbooks, tests, and learning by rote? How do you make theatre history come alive in your classroom? Can you make it active? Can you make it fun? Join us for this discussion on bringing the past to life in the present.

The spring production season is upon us and shows are starting the rehearsal process. The cornerstone of any good production is good blocking, because good blocking makes good stage pictures. But are you using blocking to its maximum effect? Join us for a conversation about blocking and staging that is sure to spark your imagination.

You have a script, you have a space, you have some actors. What you don’t have is money! Can you still do a show? Will it be any good? Is there a way to get Broadway effects on a Main street budget? Join us to talk about low budget solutions to typical theatre problems and pinch those pennies ‘til they sing!

Monologues are the backbone of the performance process. They are a super-concentrated way for students to learn such skills as memorization, characterization, objective and tactics. But how does a teacher juggle 20+ monologues at a time and still give the kind of feedback that will help their students improve? Join us for a discussion about monologues in the drama classroom and find out how it’s done.

Your show opens in a week, but your kids aren’t ready, or worse still, they were ready a week ago! How do you keep them focused and fresh? How do you push them over the finish line? How does this seem to happen every year?? Join us for a conversation about ways to manage your rehearsals late into the rehearsal process so that everything comes together just right in the end.

Being a teacher makes its hard to say no. Being a Drama teacher makes it almost impossible! Drama teachers wear so many hats - instructor, director, designer, councilor (not to mention parent and partner!) that there is always something, or someone, that needs your time and attention. It’s just a matter of time before a ball is dropped and everything comes crashing down. It’s no wonder that drama teachers burn out! With so many people and projects fighting for your time how do you find balance? Sometimes you just have to say…No! Join us to talk about finding balance between life, work and art.

Drama teachers are professional problem solvers. Give a Drama teacher some cardboard, a staple gun and a can of green beans and they can take over the world! However, sometimes you get stuck on a problem and just don’t know where to turn. That’s where we come in! Send us your questions and we will access the hive-mind to maximum effect. In this special PLC we help solve your most nagging problems and get you back on track.

Reflection is a fundamental component of teaching. It is also a cornerstone of running a successful program or production. It can be hard to ask the tough questions once the year is over and all you want to do is just forget it all and move on. But that post-mortem is where the real learning happens! When you reflect on the successes and failures of the previous season or year, you bypass future mistakes before they have a chance to take root, and sow the seeds of a successful new year. So join us for the Year End Post-Mortem: What did you try, what did you skip, what worked, what didn’t. It’s time to build the foundations of the new year on the ashes of the old.

Summer is upon us and it is time to plan how we are going to spend those glorious months! Rest? Relax? Recuperate? Of course! But also Read, Recharge and Reimagine! These summer months are a great time to take a breath and recover from the stresses of the previous year, but they are also a great time to apply some professional “Me Time” in order to get you excited and prepared for the year to come. Remember: A small investment in the summer will pay big returns during the school year. This PLC will cover some of the summertime basics that will get you charged up and ready to tackle a new year.