Teacher of the year speech 2016:
Example Syllabi:
Philosophy of Teaching
"Surely we are incomplete as teachers if we are committed only to what we are teaching but not to our students, or only to our students but not to what we are teaching, or half-hearted in our commitment to both."
- Peter Elbow, Embracing Contraries
I have extensive teaching experience in the area of Theatre Arts. Prior to Graduate school, I studied Theatre Education at Ouachita Baptist University where I received a solid foundation in the art and science of teaching. While there, I received Ouachita’s highest teaching award: the Delta Kappa Secondary Education Award for Excellence in Teaching. Following the completion of my undergraduate degree, I was given an opportunity to apply these principles first as a teaching assistant and then as an instructor while earning my M.F.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. During this time I was also hired to teach at Arkansas Governor’s School – a program that places a high value on teaching excellence. Upon the receipt of my M.F.A., I was given the opportunity to extend my teaching and directing experience in the position of Drama Specialist at Arkansas's premier performing arts magnet high school. There I teach year long, in-depth courses in Theatre History and Children's Theatre for theatre magnet students as well as direct the fall main stage production and a yearly student-devised performance for family audiences. I serve as an auditorium manager, and I assist in creating and supervising all technical elements. In my classes, I attempt to balance critical analysis and practical application, connect content to students’ lives, and challenge students’ interpretations through creative movement to maximize student investment.
In the classroom, I value both critical analysis and practical application. A former student now majoring in gender studies recently told me her knowledge of Brecht from my class has helped her immensely in understanding queer and feminist theory. To achieve this depth of understanding, I introduce Brecht’s Theatre of Alienation by showing students paintings representative of the Realist and Expressionist movements. We discuss how the paintings differ stylistically and philosophically. I then explain that the Expressionists’ emphasis on capturing emotion rather than reality influenced Brecht in his early years, but that his desire to teach the audience pushed him beyond Expressionism into Theatre of Alienation. I explain Brecht’s use of didactic performance techniques for the purpose of engaging the audience’s critical thought. After analyzing the underlying theory and motivation behind Brecht’s work, I ask students to create a performance where they apply didactic techniques such as direct address to the audience, telling the ending of the play at the beginning and making technical elements visible to the audience in a group performance. I believe that the process of performing forces students to grapple with ideas so that the abstract becomes concrete.
As a teacher, my goal is to connect content to students’ lives. Through application, students gain a deeper understanding of a given subject. When studying a period piece of theatre, I regularly incorporate contemporary examples in my lectures and ask students to consider what moments in a play relate to their own lives. Before I introduce Ibsen’s 19th century Realist drama, An Enemy of the People, for example, in which a doctor discovers the contamination of the city water supply, I show clips from the more recent film Erin Brockovich. As we watch the doctor struggle as the target of a bureaucratic cover-up, I ask students to describe a time when they stood for something they believe in even when everyone else stood against them. My intentional attempts to relate content to students’ lives results in their increased engagement.
By facilitating learning through movement exercises, I challenge students to go beyond simple interpretations. In one rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance, I facilitated students in exploring the three worlds of the play through improvisational movement. First, we stood in a circle. Each group, one at a time, entered the circle’s center. Once there, I instructed them to imagine being stuck in a room together—how would they interact?; how would they move?; with whom would they share physical space? Once each group completed this improvisation, we layered groups in together to discover how issues of class, gender, and the supernatural present. This text-free exercise established and clarified relationships that continued to deepen throughout the rehearsal process. I believe the physicalization of challenging texts like Shakespeare free students to play with the story without fearing the language.
I desire to create a challenging, caring environment where dialogue and inquiry are central to student learning. As a theatre instructor, I am aware of the unique and privileged opportunity I have to explore issues of human relevance with students. I want my classroom to be a place where this exploration is welcomed, where students are pushed to achieve excellence in their work, and where they may apply learning to their lives.
- Peter Elbow, Embracing Contraries
I have extensive teaching experience in the area of Theatre Arts. Prior to Graduate school, I studied Theatre Education at Ouachita Baptist University where I received a solid foundation in the art and science of teaching. While there, I received Ouachita’s highest teaching award: the Delta Kappa Secondary Education Award for Excellence in Teaching. Following the completion of my undergraduate degree, I was given an opportunity to apply these principles first as a teaching assistant and then as an instructor while earning my M.F.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. During this time I was also hired to teach at Arkansas Governor’s School – a program that places a high value on teaching excellence. Upon the receipt of my M.F.A., I was given the opportunity to extend my teaching and directing experience in the position of Drama Specialist at Arkansas's premier performing arts magnet high school. There I teach year long, in-depth courses in Theatre History and Children's Theatre for theatre magnet students as well as direct the fall main stage production and a yearly student-devised performance for family audiences. I serve as an auditorium manager, and I assist in creating and supervising all technical elements. In my classes, I attempt to balance critical analysis and practical application, connect content to students’ lives, and challenge students’ interpretations through creative movement to maximize student investment.
In the classroom, I value both critical analysis and practical application. A former student now majoring in gender studies recently told me her knowledge of Brecht from my class has helped her immensely in understanding queer and feminist theory. To achieve this depth of understanding, I introduce Brecht’s Theatre of Alienation by showing students paintings representative of the Realist and Expressionist movements. We discuss how the paintings differ stylistically and philosophically. I then explain that the Expressionists’ emphasis on capturing emotion rather than reality influenced Brecht in his early years, but that his desire to teach the audience pushed him beyond Expressionism into Theatre of Alienation. I explain Brecht’s use of didactic performance techniques for the purpose of engaging the audience’s critical thought. After analyzing the underlying theory and motivation behind Brecht’s work, I ask students to create a performance where they apply didactic techniques such as direct address to the audience, telling the ending of the play at the beginning and making technical elements visible to the audience in a group performance. I believe that the process of performing forces students to grapple with ideas so that the abstract becomes concrete.
As a teacher, my goal is to connect content to students’ lives. Through application, students gain a deeper understanding of a given subject. When studying a period piece of theatre, I regularly incorporate contemporary examples in my lectures and ask students to consider what moments in a play relate to their own lives. Before I introduce Ibsen’s 19th century Realist drama, An Enemy of the People, for example, in which a doctor discovers the contamination of the city water supply, I show clips from the more recent film Erin Brockovich. As we watch the doctor struggle as the target of a bureaucratic cover-up, I ask students to describe a time when they stood for something they believe in even when everyone else stood against them. My intentional attempts to relate content to students’ lives results in their increased engagement.
By facilitating learning through movement exercises, I challenge students to go beyond simple interpretations. In one rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance, I facilitated students in exploring the three worlds of the play through improvisational movement. First, we stood in a circle. Each group, one at a time, entered the circle’s center. Once there, I instructed them to imagine being stuck in a room together—how would they interact?; how would they move?; with whom would they share physical space? Once each group completed this improvisation, we layered groups in together to discover how issues of class, gender, and the supernatural present. This text-free exercise established and clarified relationships that continued to deepen throughout the rehearsal process. I believe the physicalization of challenging texts like Shakespeare free students to play with the story without fearing the language.
I desire to create a challenging, caring environment where dialogue and inquiry are central to student learning. As a theatre instructor, I am aware of the unique and privileged opportunity I have to explore issues of human relevance with students. I want my classroom to be a place where this exploration is welcomed, where students are pushed to achieve excellence in their work, and where they may apply learning to their lives.
EXAMPLE APPLIED THEATRE TEACHING PROJECT
Click on the above link to see an example of an applied theatre teaching project.