Discover games and tools for improving engagement, collaboration and creativity during online teaching.
Students learning online have short attention spans, multiple distractors and easily get bored. Lecturers often aren’t equipped with tools and methods to maintain student interaction.
You will learn games from improv and theatre that you can easily use to boost student engagement online. You will also discover simple online tools that can help you gather feedback, increase participation and introduce more fun to your teaching.
Feel more comfortable with your body, voice and structure when lecturing or giving presentations.
Public speaking feels stressful and overwhelming for most of us. The question is whether the stress paralyses or energises you.
Carefully picked theatre and improv exercises will help you feel more relaxed, become more persuasive and confident as a teacher.
We will exaggerate, role-play and work on body language and voice across scenarios that are novel for you.
Nurture thinking without judging, stepping outside of the box and not being afraid to make mistakes.
Creativity is one of the key competencies needed for students in the 21st century.
We will use improv and theatre techniques to fuel free-flowing creativity, divergent thinking and to reduce judgment.
The workshop can serve as a warm-up for a group ideation process. Alternatively, the exercises you learn can be used with students during tasks requiring creative thinking.
Improvisation teaches you to adapt to novel situations, to listen to your partner(s), to quickly come up with ideas, and to be courageous and take risks. It engages your mind and your body. It shows you how to operate in constantly shifting circumstances. Applied improvisation and theatre approaches take the tools and skills developed in theatre and comedy and use them for non-theatrical purposes.
No wonder improvisation is taught in MBA courses at Stanford, MIT and Duke and Harvard leads courses in improvisation for educators. Improvisation is taught in primary schools, middle schools and universities. It is also used in business training environments in the USA and the UK, even by Fortune 500 companies.
My experience in psychology and theatre allows me to use improv tools in a self-developmental context. I readily notice group and personal needs. I work with what each person finds most challenging and useful.
Read more about my method, see references and descriptions of example activities.
School teachers of all levels, university lecturers and workshop leaders and trainers who want to inspire their students, become more engaging speakers and introduce innovative teaching methods into their toolkit.
"Short attentions spans really mean that I need to speak in a powerful manner as a lecturer. The public speaking training, especially the exercises on the use of voice proved invaluable. I can now maintain student's engagement for much longer than I used to."
Andy, Debate Mate
"In our courses we want to give students a glimpse into the subject that will inspire them to pursue further education. The training in theatre techniques gave us tools to show them that education can be fun and interactive!"
Jenny, Lanterna Education
"I notice that the educational system doesn't inspire students' curiosity and creativity as it should. Learning about ideation methods used in design and understanding the difference between convergent and divergent thinking turned a switch in my head."
Amelia, UCL