SINGAPORE: Drama Teaching: Moving towards the hybrid model - Aishwariyah Shanmuganathan

Very often, drama lessons require live action, interaction, kinaesthetic experience, and co-collaboration in a shared space. However, the pandemic and the restrictions that followed, gave educators the opportunity to find innovative ways to teach, train and direct online.The effective utilisation of technology enabled the delivery lessons without compromising its rigour, academic and artistic qualities. During this time, students participated in individual improvisation activities, made virtual monologue videos, created, and analysed characters through process drama activities, devised and presented scenes in breakout rooms, explored playscripts and learnt about digital theatre. Students were made to present their research findings through interactive mediums and share their creations through live streaming. This required a balance of independent, peer-to-peer and group activities to encourage communication and learning from each other, even when separated.It became evident that teaching online was no longer about adjusting to an emergency but rather redesigning or re-strategising how drama activities are facilitated, and content is organised, transferred and shared online. In this presentation, Shanmuganathan presents reflections of teaching drama online to secondary level students in Singapore during the pandemic. She evaluates the effectiveness of the online assignment and discuss the factors that contributed to its success and discusses the changing pattern of delivery of this programme which now affords more opportunities for interaction and communication through a hybrid model that schools have adopted.