Conferences & Symposia
Dramatic Inquiry Network Aotearoa Symposium
Planning is underway for a much anticipated event in the Dramatic Inquiry Network’s calendar for 2021. Our first symposium for many years will be held in Gisborne in the October school holidays (8th – 10th October). Past symposia have been amazing events, in which teachers have shared practice and learned from each other. With so…
Read MoreFree public lecture in Auckland
The Centre for Arts and Social Transformation is hosting a free public lecture, Te Rito Toi: The Twice Born Seed on the role and place of the arts in education. The lecture will be held at the University of Auckland on November 4th from 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm.The lecture will open with the findings of a 3 year…
Read MoreDrama from a picture book – Taniwha
Here’s the planning for a simple process drama based on Robyn Kahukiwa’s beautiful picture book Taniwha. This drama was shared at the Literacy conference and the TRCC course in October 2019, with participants coming up with some really thoughtful responses. Robyn Kahukiwa’s gorgeous book has enormous potential for rich exploration across the arts and the…
Read MoreReal Learning in Imagined worlds – Dramatic inquiry and literacy
The National Literacy conference was held last week at Rangi Ruru school in Christchurch with the theme of “Arts as a Bridge to Literacy”. As promised, here’s a PDF of slides from Viv’s keynote address with notes to help make sense of the visuals. There are also links you can click to further information. Many…
Read MoreNational Literacy Conference 2019
Have you heard about the 2019 National Literacy conference in Christchurch? The conference, which is being held Sept 29-Oct 2, has the very inspiring title of “The Arts as a bridge to Literacy” and the programme promises a rich feast of workshops and presentations from across the Arts. I am privileged enough to be one…
Read MoreResearch project: How well does Mantle of the Expert prepare students for intermediate school?
These slides are from Renee Downey’s presentation at Drama New Zealand conference in Christchurch, April 14th 2019, with findings from her Masters research. Renee wanted to know whether students from her class (who had experienced 4 years of learning through Mantle of the Expert) felt prepared for inquiry learning at Intermediate. So, she interviewed them,…
Read MoreResearch project: Teachers report 35 benefits for writing & 50+ other benefits from Mantle of the Expert.
These slides – presented at the Drama New Zealand conference in Christchurch on 14th April, 2019 – reveal exciting new findings from a two year research project exploring dramatic inquiry and culturally responsive pedagogy in a Northland primary school. Here’s a quick guide to what’s inside: Slides 1-10 provide background information about the school and…
Read MoreSlides from primary teacher’s conference 2019
On Monday 15th April, Renee Downey and Viv Aitken had the pleasure of presenting a workshop at the primary teacher’s conference in Wellington. We began by offering a taste of a Mantle of the Expert experience. And to keep things simple, we chose the first Mantle of the Expert Renee ever taught, four years ago,…
Read MoreConferences & courses 2019
Here’s a heads up about some events coming up in 2019 that will be of interest to folk with a passion for dramatic inquiry. First, the Drama New Zealand conference, which is being held in Christchurch from 12th – 14th April. Website for registration is here schedule is here with information about the workshops and…
Read MoreSpeaking truth to power
This short clip is something rather special. It was captured at the recent Te Aho Tapu symposium, in Hamilton (October 2016) and shows the climax of a teaching demonstration by Prof Peter O’Connor and a group of young people from Rototuna Junior High School. Peter and the children worked together over two sessions exploring ideas and moments from John Marsden’s Home and…
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