Just a moment...

The constructivist paradigm has as its central focus is not abstraction (reduction) or approximation (modelling) of a single reality, but presentation of multiple, holistic, competing and often conflictual realities (including the inquirer's).

Using dramatic techniques to improve learning through 'meta-process' enhancement. Psychology has long employed drama techniques for therapy (e.g. Gestalt) and the author suggests that we might do the same for learning. Key focus on embodiment, integration, reflection on the experience, and gives some examples of employing this method, which tends t... See more

Jerry Gill argues that ‘learning to learn’ is of ‘primary importance . . . for when one knows this, he or she will always be able to learn more’. Because of its emphasis upon participation, communication, reflection and the negotiation of reason and emotion, the meta-process of learning to learn is made particularly accessible through drama.

On the workshop: The low teacher-student ratio (4:16), the deliberate cultivation of community, the concentration on fun, the valuing of personal experience, the adaptability of staff and the open acceptance of differences among and between students contributed to an inclusive and diverse learning environment — an ideal teaching environment, one wi... See more

It is important that the embodied experience be understood as available to the many different participants in the communication process. It can be that of the actor or speaker or writer just as it can be that of audience or listener or reader. Such experience demands reflection. This calls up creativity and herein lie opportunities for even greater... See more

The learning cannot be isolated within a script. As Piaget says, ‘it touches everything’ (Gardner, 1982:352).

It is within this paradigmatic drama that learning is realised. Invariably, such experience also raises questions about how learning comes to be understood and communicated. These epistemological questions are similar whether the experience is considered from the viewpoint of ‘dancer’ or ‘learner’. ‘What does it feel like?’ ‘How do you understand i... See more

If the knowing process is thought of as a kind of dancing, as an interactive, reciprocal, give-and-take relationship between knowing subjects on the one hand and the physical and social environment on the other, then the resulting pattern of thought and behaviour, the known, may be thought of as the dance itself.

Participant interview: I felt like my life was very directed in one way, but when I came here and communicated with everyone else and heard their ideas and their ways of thinking, I found there was more that I could offer. In a way, I have different paths going off my tree, with more branches and that kind of thing.