Sticky Impact – Building Teaching and Learning on Performative Practice

Abstract

Based on research into the long term impact of participation in drama-based workshops focusing on goal setting, this workshop hoped to investigate how we can make the performative more ‘sticky’. How can performative approaches be combined with other modes of learning, methods of teaching to allow students and teachers new pathways to learning? Taking inspiration from the symposium question – ‘Wherein exactly lies the benefit of applying performative approaches?’ – this workshop asked participants to play with, and reflect on, different approaches to performativity in the classroom/seminar/lecture setting, with the aim of allowing participants to create ‘sticky impact’ – impact from participation that stays with the learner. The workshop was a practice based session with a focus on performative exercises and activities that have been/could be used in a teaching and learning context. The session began with an initial introduction via slides outlining the workshops themes, theoretical contexts, and the practice based nature of the workshop. Following this the workshop section began with participants engaging in a series of performative drama activities that allowed participants to suggest/influence/lead how the activity developed. An initial ‘warm up’ activity of a name game involved participants individually saying their name followed a sound and ...