Courses
PD COURSE
The Adult in the Room: Understanding Your Relationship to Your Students
by Matt Webster
How do we build or rebuild relationships in the classroom? Well, first, you must understand the difference between your relationship with your students and your relationship to your students. Once you understand the difference between those two relationships, you can construct a professional working relationship in your classroom. At the end of this course, you'll have a better understanding of the different relationships between you and your students and why establishing a healthy professional relationship is best for everyone concerned.
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PD COURSE
The Empathetic Classroom
by Steven Stack
Why should you take a class on empathy? And why is theatre the perfect vehicle for empathy?
Empathy, the more sought-after and inclusive cousin of sympathy, is the experiencing of someone else’s experience in the world. What it would be like if you were wearing their clothes, their life?
Teaching students to understand the clothes that they’re putting on, the characters and their lives teaches students not how to act but how to be. It allows the students to feel what someone else feels and experiences, which can and should translate to their fellow actors and peers away from the stage. It will lead to a stronger class connection, stronger performances and stronger students who will seek out understanding instead of isolation and fear.
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PD COURSE
Empathy 2.0
by Steven Stack
Brought to you by instructor Steven Stack, creator of The Empathetic Classroom, this course looks at ways to move on from the worldwide pandemic, while honoring the past and learning from it. In the past year, students had many things taken from them: school, hanging out with friends, freedom, hope, and innocence.
With this course, each session will highlight one specific topic relating to moving on. There will also be activities for each session that will help your students own the past, embrace their own and others’ narratives and scars, create a stronger classroom community, find ways to be where their feet are planted, and learn to play again.
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PD COURSE
Every Day You Deserve a Round of Applause: Self-Compassion and Care for You as a Theatre Educator
by Gai Jones
Gai Jones leads this course in social and emotional self-compassion and care for the theatre educator. Join her on this 5-module journey to practice self-care and self-compassion while teaching educational theatre.
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PD COURSE
Mindfulness & Wellness in the Drama Classroom
by Claire Broome
In this course, instructor Claire Broome shares what mindfulness is, and why it is so important in the Drama Classroom. The course covers how mindfulness and wellness can help both students and teachers.
Claire discusses how to prepare students for this kind of learning, and provides various activities to bring into your classroom, as well as a variety of extensions for these activities that can be applied to character creation and possible projects.
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PD COURSE
SEL Through the Lens of Theatre
by Christa Vogt
SEL stands for Social Emotional Learning. Theatre teachers know that Social Emotional Learning and its categories: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision Making, are innate in what we do.
The goal of this mini-course is to show you that you can take SEL in the way that your administration wants you to, using the language they want you to use, and apply it to lessons you already teach.
Instructor Christa Vogt will take you through the facets of SEL, and then take you step by step through an activity - to show you how you can apply SEL to each and every step.
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PD COURSE
Social Emotional Learning through Game Play
by Matt Webster
The skills identified in Social Emotional Learning are the same skills theatre teachers spotlight in the warmups, games, and activities, as well as group work and theater-related assignments found in the drama curriculum every day.
This course will break down the various games and activities in the drama classroom to identify, incorporate, and intensify the Social Emotional Learning outcomes we want our students to achieve. By the end of this course, you will be able to identify the five components of Social Emotional Learning and see the places in the curriculum where they intersect with basic games and activities in the drama classroom.
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PD COURSE
Soft Skills, The Tangible Value of the Drama Curriculum
by Matt Webster
This course is about the fact that so-called soft skills are sought after and highly valued in professional work environments, educational settings, and in everyday social interactions. They're valuable life skills, but we can't always identify these skills within a standard educational setting, and yet, they are incredibly useful in education and beyond. That's why it's important to be able to identify these soft skills in the classroom and in the educational process and to recognize that these soft skills are being taught every day in the drama curriculum. We need to concentrate our efforts into making sure that these skills are identified and utilized within our classrooms. They are built into every arts curriculum a school offers, especially the theater arts.
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Units
UNIT
Self-Management Playwriting
by Lindsay Price
In this unit, students will decide on a topic they care about and write a short play within a designated time frame. They will mostly write on their own, using class to discuss and share how they are managing their time, monitoring their progress, and adapting their writing plan of action. The goal of this unit is not the final product but rather the self-management skills they apply throughout.
In this unit, students will demonstrate their self-management skills by setting a goal, identifying a strategy to achieve the goal, creating a plan of action, monitoring their process, reflecting on what is working and what’s not working, taking personality responsibility throughout as they write on their own, and demonstrating an ownership mindset through self-assessment.
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Lesson Plans
LESSON PLAN
SEL Lesson: Analyzing Character Choice
by Drama Teacher Academy
In this lesson, students will consider what would happen if a character made a different choice within the context of their story. Students will work in groups to identify and analyze a decision made within the text by a character and then think creatively about what the characters might have done differently. They will then create and perform a scene demonstrating the character’s different choice.
If you’re looking to incorporate Social and Emotional Learning in your drama classroom, this lesson would fit well into a discussion about responsible decision-making. This exercise can be done individually, in pairs, or in small groups.
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Attachments
LESSON PLAN
SEL Lesson: New Relationships
by Drama Teacher Academy
In this lesson, students will start by working individually to either create and analyze a new character or to analyze an existing character. Then, with a partner (who has their own character), they’ll figure out a scenario where the two characters would meet and form some sort of relationship.
If you’re looking for a way to apply Social and Emotional Learning in the drama classroom, in this case building relationship skills, this is an active and theatrical way to do so.
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LESSON PLAN
SEL Lesson: Self-Awareness Character Study
by Drama Teacher Academy
If you want to incorporate Social and Emotional Learning into a play study unit, use this lesson. Students discuss self-awareness and apply it by analyzing characters in a play they are currently studying. Seeing fictional character examples will help students gain a deeper understanding of the concept of self-awareness. This can be done as a class, individually, in partners, or in smal groups. It can be done in person, virtually via distance learning, or as a written homework assignment.
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Individual Resources
RESOURCE
Create an Anti-Slur Policy
This resource offers guidance on working with your students to create an anti-slur policy. Included are two additional resources - Start With One Thing, and Social Awareness documents.
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Attachments
RESOURCE
Sankofa Musings: A Teacher Reflection Activity
This is a guide to trying a recorded video journal to use as a reflection tool. It can be used during a rehearsal period to reflect on the process, or it can be used as
a classroom tool to reflect on your teaching practice. This guide will walk you through the process and give suggestions for use with your class as well.
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RESOURCE
SEL Through the Lens of Theatre
In this resource, we will look at the components of SEL, suggest some activities and reflection questions, and go step-by-step through a Defining Ensemble Activity that you can use as a template. Finally, there’s a SEL Worksheet to take activities you use, apply SEL components and make connections: What specifically about the activity connects to the SEL component?
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RESOURCE
Self Care Bingo
Use this fun bingo card to give yourself some love over the holidays, or whenever you need a break!
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RESOURCE
Self-Care Package
This self-care package includes a workbook, calendar, and posters to help focus on the essential questions: How can you become a practicing self-care, compassionate person who teaches educational theatre? How can you make time for self-care and compassion?
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Attachments
RESOURCE
Self-Care Posters
A set of 9 posters focused on self-care, for teachers and students. A Spanish version is also included.
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Attachments
RESOURCE
Social Emotional Learning Module: PD Courses and Classroom Resources
This PD module is focused on Social Emotional Learning. In this module, you will have your choice of courses that will focus on SEL in your classroom, and attached to each course are resources to be used directly with your students.
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Attachments
RESOURCE
Social Emotional Learning Through Game Play
Looking to implement Social and Emotional Learning into your program? This resource contains SEL connections to specific games and activities that are commonly played in the drama classroom, and the underlying actions, skills, or outcomes affiliated with those components.
Use the provided SEL Component Worksheets to identify SEL connections to other games and activities you use. Lastly, use the Reflection questions to reflect on your personal thoughts and experiences using SEL in the drama classroom.
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RESOURCE
Soft Skills: The Tangible Value of the Drama Curriculum Workbook
In this workbook, teachers will identify soft skills, identify where we find them in the theatre curriculum, and identify the games, activities and assignments you already utilize in your classroom that use soft skills.
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PLCs
PLC
Classroom Management with Social Emotional Learning - Session One
Hosted by Matt Webster, Lindsay Price, Christa Vogt, Lea Marshall
If you talk to teachers these days, the same topic pops up over and over: Post pandemic classroom management. It doesn't matter if they are a highly experienced educator or fresh out of their student teaching, they all say the same thing - the vibe in the classroom has changed. Teachers say they need new tools in their classrooms to address these changes, so in this PLC we are going to break out the best tool in the toolkit: Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Join us for a timely conversation about how you can use SEL in your classroom to reset your students and improve your classroom management.
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Attachments
PLC
Classroom Management with Social Emotional Learning - Session Two
Hosted by Matt Webster, Lindsay Price, Christa Vogt, Shelby Steege
If you talk to teachers these days, the same topic pops up over and over: Post pandemic classroom management. It doesn't matter if they are a highly experienced educator or fresh out of their student teaching, they all say the same thing - the vibe in the classroom has changed. Teachers say they need new tools in their classrooms to address these changes, so in this PLC we are going to break out the best tool in the toolkit: Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Join us for a timely conversation about how you can use SEL in your classroom to reset your students and improve your classroom management.
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Attachments
PLC
How to Execute the Empathy Project in your Drama Classroom
Hosted by Matt Webster, Lindsay Price, Christa Vogt, Shelby Steege
As teachers return to their classrooms, they are desperate to rebuild the collaborative and supportive environments that are so vital to a well functioning Drama class. Thankfully, there is a resource in the DTA created just for such a task. The Empathy Project is one of the most popular resources in the entire DTA library. Based off the Empathetic Classroom course by Steven Stack, the project focuses on these essential questions:
• How can theatre evoke empathy?
• How can we apply empathy outside the drama classroom?
Join teachers who have used, adapted, and successfully led the Empathy Project with their students, and add this powerful tool to your classroom management toolkit.
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Attachments
PLC
Impowerment Improv
Hosted by Lindsay Price, Jennine Profeta
This PLC will be in 2 parts - an introduction to the course, and then an interactive workshop with Jennine for up to 15 participants. Jennine Profeta is DTA's go to resource for Improv in the drama classroom. Her latest DTA Professional Development course Impowerment Improv is designed to give teachers a framework in which they can use improv to develop real world social and emotional skills; taking risks, embracing failure, confidence, and word choice awareness. Learn about the course, and then join Jennine in this workshop as she personally takes you through the exercises for the course and shows you how improv is an excellent "Impowerment" tool that will help students beyond the classroom.
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PLC
Social Emotional Learning
Hosted by Matt Webster, Lindsay Price, Christa Vogt, Lea Marshall
Of all the learning categories that have been affected by the shift to remote education, the most consequential would have to be Social and Emotional Learning. Students around the world have been isolated from teachers and peers alike for months on end, and the result is an entire generation that needs help rebuilding their social skills and recognizing their emotional needs. Thankfully, there is no better place to teach these skills than the drama classroom. Join us for a PLC where we discuss the fact that Theatre teachers are uniquely positioned to help students both explore their emotions AND re-build relationships.
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Attachments
PLC
Social Emotional Learning in the Drama Classroom
Hosted by Lindsay Price, Christa Vogt
A new school year has begun, and the importance of Social Emotional Learning has never been greater. With everything that has been going on in the world, teachers and students alike are navigating a very different school environment, and Social Emotional Learning could be the key to establishing a healthy, high-functioning classroom this year. Join us for an exploration of SEL from concepts to curriculum and everything in between!
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Attachments
