Items tagged "Social Emotional Learning"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An overview of The Empathy Project resource.

The first step on the empathetic journey is with yourself. How can you connect with others if you don’t know who you are? Students will explore activities that allow them to think and reflect inward.

The second step on the empathetic journey is forming a link with others. Students take on activities where they have to work together and connect with others.

The third step on the empathetic journey is forming a link with your character. Students will work to link with characters who are quite different from them.

After forming a link with yourself, each other, and your character, the last two links in the empathetic journey are the audience and the outside world.

Students decide, design, and implement a culminating presentation that uses theatricality to share the concepts of empathy.

A poster for your drama classroom; quote from John Leguizamo.

Steven Stack's Keynote speech "Empathy: It Begins With You", from the DTA Virtual Conference, recorded July 2019.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

If you have used The Empathetic Classroom or The Empathy Project or you're just looking for a way to approach what everyone has dealt with this past year and a half, join this discussion with Steven Stack. Steven's new DTA course Empathy 2.0 looks at empathy through the lens of what's now: how can students embrace their own and others' narratives and scars? How do we create a stronger classroom community? How do we learn to play again?  Steven will share activities and exercises in the course that you can take directly into the drama classroom.

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.

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!