Mantle of the Expert for Pre-service Teachers in Wellington

This post sent in by Priya Gain from Wellington. You can read in more detail about the Mantles described here by visiting the Murutai school blogs (see ‘links’ on the right)……. Priya writes:

Pre-service primary school teachers, as part of their teacher training
programme at Victoria University of Wellington, are going to be
introduced to the dramatic inquiry learning approach of Mantle of the
Expert.

Delia Baskerville, drama lecturer at Victoria University, and Priya
Gain have collaborated to create a lecture and a follow up workshop on
Mantle of the Expert.  The lecture and workshop will be co-presented
by Delia and Priya and will be part of the coursework on curriculum
and pedagogical content knowledge for
planning/teaching/assessment/evaluation in the primary school
curriculum.

The lecture introduces pre-service teachers to Mantle of the Expert
(MOTE) by taking them through a MOTE unit of work that Priya did with
year 3 and 4 students at MURITAI SCHOOL.  Delia was involved in this
unit of work when she visited the classroom in-role to add the key
dramatic tension.

The lecture will illustrate:
•    how drama was used to build belief and commitment to a fictional
company of sea science researchers,
•    the range of curriculum based tasks that students did in order to
successfully complete their commission, and
•    how dramatic tension was used to drive an active response from
students and active reflection on their learning.

The lecture uses the voices of the students throughout to illustrate
and honour the high level of thinking, creativity, and collaboration
of the students who took part in this Mantle.

In the workshop the pre-service teachers will be taken through another
MOTE unit of work that Priya did at MURITAI SCHOOL.  This unit was
with a group of new entrants students in-role as garden designers.  In
the workshop the teachers will have the opportunity to participate in
three episodes from this MOTE unit including:

•    entering a fictional space and adding signs to take ownership of this space,
•    responding to a simple commission (using a picture book), and
considering how this can drive inquiry learning, and
•    experiencing and responding to some dramatic tension to see how this
element drives active learning and reflection.

It is exciting to think that these pre-service teachers will have the
opportunity to see how teachers can use drama to teach across all
curriculum learning areas, and take the role of genuine facilitators
in child-led inquiry learning through Mantle of the Expert.
Hopefully these teachers are inspired by the student’s work and take
this inspiration out into more primary schools and share the magic of
MOTE.