NSW Department of Education and Training

• Home
  • Director's message
  • Educational institution links
  • Copyright, trademarks & discalimer
  • About us
  • Contact us
• Kindergarten-Year 6
  • Creative Arts
  • English
  • HSIE
  • Languages
  • Mathematics
  • PDHPE
  • Science and Technology
  • Connected Outcome Groups
• Years 7-12
  • Creative Arts
  • English
  • HSIE
  • Languages
  • Mathematics
  • PDHPE
  • Science
  • Technology
• Curriculum policies
  • Animal Welfare in Schools
  • Curriculum planning, assessing and reporting
  • Environmental Education and Sustainable Schools
  • Gifted and Talented Students
  • Homework policy
  • Libraries in NSW Government schools
  • Literacy Policy
  • National Assessment Program
  • Numeracy Policy
  • Religious Education
  • Road Safety Education
  • Curriculum guidelines & memoranda
• Curriculum initiatives
  • Australian Government Quality Teaching programme
  • Consistent Teacher Judgement
  • K-4 Initiatives
  • NSW HSC Online
  • Middle Years
  • Quality teaching
  • School Libraries and Information Literacy
  • UNICEF's Day for Change
• Curriculum services
  • The School Magazine
  • Professional learning courses 2008
  • Curriculum Support Newsletter
  • Education Week

Quality Teaching in Drama

Quality teaching

The units of work in the DET Drama 7-10 support materials have been written with consideration for the Quality Teaching in NSW model available at
http://www.curriculumsupport.nsw.edu.au/qualityTeaching/index.cfm
As an individual teacher you can

• Use the NSW model of pedagogy to analyse a lesson you have taught or are planning to teach.
• Use the NSW model of pedagogy as a reference point to focus your reflection and self-analysis.
• Use the NSW model of pedagogy to experiment with some of the areas you have identified that need development.
• Use the following questions to help you plan your own unit of work or lesson that aligns with the NSW model of pedagogy:

1. What do you want the students to learn?
2. Why does that learning matter?
3. What are you going to get the students to do (or produce)?
4. How well do you expect them to do it?

The NSW Quality teaching model provides a stimulating way into the new Drama Years 7-10 Syllabus. The model provides a framework for our units and assessment tasks and a way to reflect on our classroom practice so we can deliver the best learning outcomes for our students.
Links between the new drama syllabus and the model

• Consider the potential of the new syllabus to support the NSW model of quality teaching
• Imagine a Playbuilding unit for Stage 5 addressing outcomes 1, 2 and 3 and using the issue of bullying as a chosen theme*
• Lets go through the elements from the dimension of Intellectual Quality of the Quality teaching paper with this unit in mind

DEEP KNOWLEDGE

• Knowledge brought into the classroom via teacher, students, guest speaker, Internet, primary sources etc
• Knowledge is deep when complex relations are established between the central concepts being addressed in a text or unit.
• Deep Knowledge is gained through the synthesis of research and ideas on the theme of Bullying and the conventions of playbuilding, which are already established in making, teaching and learning activities in the unit.

DEEP UNDERSTANDING

• The students' ability to demonstrate the relationships between the central ideas and their understanding of the deep knowledge.
• In the issue based unit of playbuilding students will have a cultural understanding of bullying as mean or cruel as well as the assumption not to dob on your mates.
• Deep understanding occurs when students can articulate the cultural assumptions.

HIGHER ORDER THINKING

• Occurs when students combine information and ideas with accuracy in order to explain, generalise, analyse, hypothesise, evaluate, conclude and synthesise.
• Our task as teachers is to create an environment and those activities that cause our students to solve problems and discover new meanings and understanding.
• In analysing and evaluating bullying as a social issue within a playbuilt performance context, students will synthesise, process and articulate their ideas collaboratively to communicate dramatic meaning.

METALANGUAGE

• Students need to name and analyse textual materials and techniques, using and explaining the language of resources and the elements of drama.
• Students need to engage with a range of performance styles, dramatic techniques and theatrical conventions for different purposes, audiences and contexts.
• In playbuilding, using bullying as a starting point, from improvisation to rehearsed performance students will make choices to develop and refine a scene collaboratively, discussing elements of drama and the desired dramatic intention.

SUBSTANTIVE COMMUNICATION

• Refers to the regular engagement in sustained, analytical conversation about the concepts and issues in a unit.
• Moves beyond IRE (initiate-respond-evaluate).
• The communication is reciprocal i.e. the content of one persons contribution is taken up by others.
• Group discussion about the analysis of the theme of bullying is enhanced by the students own narrative structures and characters.
• The reciprocity inherent in the playbuilding process allows students extensive substantive communication to the point they eventually all own the playbuilt piece.

*Note that a sample unit of work: Playbuilding (using bullying as the chosen theme) for the essential content and including assessment for learning, is illustrated in pages 21-38 of the Board of Studies document, Drama Years 7-10 Advice on Programming and Assessment. You can access this document at http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/

© State of New South Wales through the Department of Education and Training, 2008. All rights reserved.

Conditions of use | Contact us
Report incorrect, out-of-date or missing information