Abstract
Our research focuses on the use of theatre techniques as an instructional tool in teaching science in primary school within the context of scientific literacy. A teaching course on weather phenomena has been designed and developed consisting of a progressive sequence of theatre techniques such as pantomime, role-play and argumentation. The course has been attended by 10-year-old pupils in primary school. The qualitative data analysis of the videotaped sessions provides key-ideas concerning the potential of using theatre techniques for teaching science. In our interpretation of the data a three dimensional cognitive, meta-cognitive and emotional framework has been used coupled with the theory of multiple intelligence. In the developed course focused on weather phenomena such as rain, snow, hail and the circle of water. Science concepts and phenomena about weather and water may become a multi-level platform for introducing pupils to the scientific way of thinking. The challenge for the d ...
Our research focuses on the use of theatre techniques as an instructional tool in teaching science in primary school within the context of scientific literacy. A teaching course on weather phenomena has been designed and developed consisting of a progressive sequence of theatre techniques such as pantomime, role-play and argumentation. The course has been attended by 10-year-old pupils in primary school. The qualitative data analysis of the videotaped sessions provides key-ideas concerning the potential of using theatre techniques for teaching science. In our interpretation of the data a three dimensional cognitive, meta-cognitive and emotional framework has been used coupled with the theory of multiple intelligence. In the developed course focused on weather phenomena such as rain, snow, hail and the circle of water. Science concepts and phenomena about weather and water may become a multi-level platform for introducing pupils to the scientific way of thinking. The challenge for the developed course has been actually to motivate pupils to participate in theatre techniques as this includes exposure of speaking, moving, acting styles and they had no previous training. In order to gradually introduce them to the theatre techniques and help them use this creative environment in order to learn science, a progressive sequence of theatrical techniques has been developed focusing each time on a new element of acting (or rather learning through acting) and encouraging the related skill(s). As a first step, a special focus has been given on moving and pantomime has been used. As a second step, speaking has been the main focus and the techniques used are dialogues and story-telling. As a third step, a multiple focus has been given on moving and speaking, while dramatization has been chosen as the most suitable technique. At the last phase, the focus has been on debating. During the application of the developed progressive sequence of theatre techniques, learning science became more and more creative and appealing to pupils, while their involvement in learning increased rapidly. The qualitative data analysis of the videotaped sessions provides key-ideas concerning the potential as well as the limitations of using theatre techniques for teaching science. In our interpretation of the data a three dimensional cognitive, meta-cognitive and emotional framework has been used coupled with the theory of multiple intelligence. The results of the data analysis indicate that the use of the developed progressive sequence of theatrical techniques for teaching science made a valuable contribution to the pupils’ understanding of the nature of science. In particular there is a significant shift towards an appreciation of the interactive nature of experiment and theory. Also, an effect was recorded on two aspects of language development (linguistic intelligence): narrative comprehension and narrative production. The findings indicate that the adoption of multiple role perspectives also contributes to the quality of writing and is another thread connecting theatre and writing. There was substantial evidence that, during the course, the children were fully engaged and actively involved in the learning experience, increasing their motivation and improved their interpersonal, intrapersonal and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.
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