Drama-based pedagogical approach to psychology in daily teaching practices

The Drama-based Pedagogy (DBP) constitutes an interactive drama approach to facilitating student engagement through dialogic meaning making in all areas of the curriculum, which has been demonstrated to enhance learning in terms of active participation, creative thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication skills. All these enhancements are compatible with the learning outcomes of Psychology learning in a tertiary educational context. Through the processes of role-making and role-taking in semi-authentic scenarios, DBP has been well-documented to enable students to better understand the psychological theories and the problems in teaching practices. Due to the COVID-pandemic, the initially planned drama performances had to take place in a virtual context via Zoom. Student helpers, who are fellow undergraduates at a local university, undertook to play the roles of teachers and students within a Zoom class session. Seven common scenarios pertaining to student misbehaviors in daily teaching practices—while embedded in three designated episodes—were featured in the performance, in addition to a separate forum discussion session immediately after each episode. Two 3-hour training sessions, in the form of interactive drama performances, were successfully conducted in Cantonese (local dialect) and English in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Via this presentation, we intend to not only walk you through the “how” of the Project (i.e., the implementation of a drama in a Zoom context), but also “what” we observed from the students throughout, regardless of their roles as a student helper or as an actor-spectator during the training. Future development of the project will also be discussed. Copyright © 2021 ICLT.