Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Improv and Education and Museums -- the Art of Doing





is:
Specializing in improv, presentation, movement and theatre classes and workshops, The Engaging Educator strives to help educators work towards a primary goal – education that engages both students and teachers to the top of their potential.
As educators, we spend hours worrying about what to say to our students. How often do we worry about HOW we say it? Our communication and presentation skills are just as important as any fact. Students pay better attention when we are interesting and the job is more fun when we enjoy ourselves.
In a classroom, at a residency or in a gallery – we work with all educators to make them the absolute best they can be.


Improv(e) Your Teaching."

It neatly summarizes how improving listening skills and using movement can stimulate thinking and learning in educational spaces, such as schools and museums.

Cover
Improv's emphasis on listening to the other person -- using the response "Yes, AND..." -- was in fact my key takeaway from Tina Fey's autobiography Bossypants.

"Yes, AND..." works really, really well in meetings, conferences, and VTS in front of an object....

Sometimes the most creative educational work comes from outside the school, such as the museum or the comedy club.

And we can learn a lot from multiple modalities.

Thanks, Jen!

Monday, April 1, 2013

A Passover Thought


Passover_Seder_Plate by Sheynhertz-Unbayg from Wikimedia Commons

I had a great conversation today with a colleague as he ate sardines and matzoh for lunch.

He made the point that a full Passover seder (the traditional one, hosted on the first or second night of the holiday) really got at the essence of the flight from Egypt: take whatever one had -- no time to allow the bread to rise -- and subsist on what was available.....

"Experiential learning in a nutshell," I said.

He agreed.

What other events, religious observances,  items of culture embody significant experience?



Sunday, March 24, 2013

The Physicality of Emotions

Listening to WBUR's Here and Now promo a couple of weeks ago had me perking up at the mention of a story about Botox being an anti-depressant of sorts...

Seems that limiting the range of facial expressions that the forehead is able to produce means that there are corresponding changes of experienced (i.e., felt) emotions as well.

In other words, "freezing your face" makes you feel fine... ?

There is something to this  -- thinking of mirror neurons and the mind-body connection.

At the same time, I really want to see quantified experimental studies.

I will say that my "theory of mind" of Botoxed faces is that emotional empathy and creative thought seems to be limited....

But mainly, the body can influence the mind.

Read more here.


Monday, March 11, 2013

Kinesthetic Learner Video


Found this while researching something else. It's from About.com.

Note the blurb for field trips and museum visits.  ;)

It also brings back memories of teaching in an all-girls school!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Role Playing is Gaming with the Whole Body

Fighters with rapiers and daggers at a reenactment, , 11:57, Crossed Blades, Jean, upload by Herrick, from Wikimedia Commons


Apparently, role-playing is undergoing a "renaissance."

Which is a wonderful play on words, as a lot of these stories are really medieval.

According to the WBUR story "You Be the Dragon Slayer":
The term interactive storytelling is used to describe all manner of games where both the audience and actors are part of the performance: live-action role-playing (LARPs); alternate reality games (ARGs) that often mix in technology or mobile devices; interactive theater; and everything in between, including old-fashioned role-playing games (RPGs) like D&D.

There is also the Society for Creative Anachronism.
(Sorta the anti-sport fencing.)

The connection here to museums is pretty clear, as there are a number of living history museums -- Old Sturbridge Village, Conner Prairie, and Plimoth Plantation to name a few -- that use role play as interpretation.

And there is a host of information coming out about gaming as educational, as well.
(Or not.  There is some debate.)

So is there some way we can combine these?

Higgins Armoury Museum already is.

Can we at indoor, non-armoury museums use this experience?


Monday, March 4, 2013

More Wii Research in Motion...!

This just in:

Wii use helps surgery students translate the 2-D to 3-D world of laparoscopy surgery.

A recent study by Dr. Gregorio Patrizi, a professor at the University of Rome Medical School, "found that the gamers performed significantly better than another group of residents who didn't undergo this grueling video game training" according to a February 28, 2013 NPR story "Nintendo Wii Helped Budding Surgeons Move To Head Of The Class."

Additionally, "Several earlier studies suggested that playing video games can boost laparoscopic skills, but those studies were largely based on surveys of surgeons' prior video gaming habits. Patrizi's study is one of the first randomized trials that had some surgeons undergo a structured game-playing routine and also maintained a separate control group.

"Patrizi and his team had surgical residents play three Wii games — tennis, ping pong and one that involved shooting balloons from an aircraft. As the researchers write in their article published online by PLOS ONE, they chose these games because they all required strong hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional visualization of a space."






Thursday, February 28, 2013

Playing Beck means PLAYING Beck



Today on WBUR's RadioBoston show, there was a piece about Beck's "Song Reader," the album that isn't.

Well, it is, if you actually play the music yourself, because "Song Reader" is boxed sheet music.
Which makes it a "box set" in the original sense.

As Beck's website for the music says, "Only you can bring Beck Hansen's Song Reader to life."

Making people actually play the music both democratizes and experientializes* it.

Listen to the story here.



*yes, I know this isn't a word, but what would you say here?