Experiment Design
Primary Research
How do people learn and use this space productively? / 70 Participants
How does drama activate learning?
Example Lessons
Moral education class, 8th grade, China1
Learning objective: Sense of empathy, justice and moral reasoning
I. Initial activation
Students line up from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ in response to a statements about a moral story
II. Expanding context
Students made to role-play opposite characters in the story one after another
III. Flow
Students improvise plot-lines based on their own moral sense
IV. Integration
Students role-play a courtroom trial to defend and prosecute the characters in the story
Academic language class, 3rd grade, Australia2
Learning objective: Complex academic words and sentence formation
I. Initial activation
Students role play as historians, teacher plays a tour guide bringing them into an archaic site and showing them around
II. Expanding context
Students work in ensembles of 3 to compose a snapshot of the site; asked to describe it in one sentence instantly after
III. Flow
Teacher asks students a rapid-fire round of questions about the site to answer as historians
IV. Integration
Students write up research reports of the site as historians; automatically started using more academic language
Heritage education class, 5th grade, Turkey3
Learning objective: Respect for heritage sites
I. Initial activation
Students made to discuss things they should and should not do at a heritage site
II. Expanding context
Half the students role play security guards at a temple, the other half role play visitors
III. Flow
'Visitors' play with boundaries of what they're allowed to do more and more inventively, security guards respond to them
IV. Integration
Students discuss the gray areas and the clear rights and wrongs involved with acting respectfully, then each asked to write their own ‘constitution’ for a heritage site
MRes,
Royal College of Art
Supervised by
Prof. Gemma Blackshaw
February – June 2025
Royal College of Art
Supervised by
Prof. Gemma Blackshaw
February – June 2025
