Debra
McLauchlan (Brock University): When
context battles
concept: Preaching transaction in a
transmissive teaching environment.
Fundamental
precepts of drama in education eschew a
transmissive model of teaching and learning, while embracing a
transactive or
transformative paradigm. In successful drama classrooms, teachers
facilitate
student achievement by adopting such interactive strategies as
teacher-in-role,
side-coaching, and rich problem-posing, creating organized structures
that
minimize student uncertainty while allowing students to explore and
express
ideas in a safe environment. In pre-service classrooms in Ontario faculties of
education, however, it seems impossible
to model this pedagogy, given the few hours allotted to drama education
and the
pressures to provide generalist teacher candidates with a tool-kit of
fool-proof lessons that satisfy the wide variety of provincial Ministry
of
Education curriculum expectations.