Context and Objectives: The Demo-Dram: Young Civic Thinking project aims to address a range of issues essential for democratic classrooms and schools that are facilitated by competent teachers aiming to increase student civic engagement and democratic awareness and participation. Democracy is in a crisis and this has led to a crisis of engagement on a number of levels. The project aims at addressing the need for a systematic approach to Civics education and the teaching of Democratic practice by offering trusted high quality content (learning scenarios, lesson plans, etc.), enriched by drama techniques and tools that help the teaching community improve their methods and engagement with pupils. The approach will be evaluated in terms of its impact, paying particular attention to the effectiveness of institutional and pedagogical change and innovation through drama. Participants: Six participants are involved in this project. This is a consortium rich in diversity and expertise. BCU the lead UK partner has a long and successful tradition in training secondary Drama teachers and brings a rigorous training dimension to the project. The Drama department of Heartlands Academy has a close relationship with the Drama department of BCU and will provide the educational platform (students and teachers) for experimentation and modeling of dramatic materials. It will host workshops and will lead practice. InSite was part of the successful EU Lifelong Learning Programme DICE (2010) and this project is a natural successor to the DICE project. Ellinogermaniki Agogi has worked with BCU successfully in EU projects before. Their experience of ICT is something partners are keen to exploit and also their knowledge on developing schools of the future. The University of Rome brings the Italian experience of a new “humanistic model” of education that claim the development of empathic capacities that are essential for a successful democracy. and significant experience in a different dramatic model to the one suggested by BCU and InSite that aids inquiry into the phenomenology of human expression. The Children's Rights Knowledge Centre (KeKi) our Belgian partner has an extensive expertise in the development of citizenship for children and young people in different contexts, both within and outside the educational setting. Description of Activities The project will develop a 100 hour foundational, blended learning training course with an e-book that offers an innovative novel and practical integration of three areas: 1. evidence-informed practice in philosophy for/with children; 2. interpretative approaches to education about civics education; and 3. drama-based methodologies. It will provide a. transferable skills that can be adapted across the educational spectrum, b. enhance teachers' abilities to facilitate and support enquiry, c. creating the conditions for teachers of languages, humanities and drama practitioners to engage young people in discussion and analysis of complex issues, concepts, beliefs and values, and d. ensuring the participation, voice, and inclusion of all students through teacher-training. Methodology We have formed a partnership which brings a huge array of talent and experience to this project from different settings across Europe. We plan to have lead organisations covering topics relevant to their strengths and for transnational meetings to be used to exchange practice and develop frameworks and content for our products. All our outcomes will be available through on line resources which are free to use. Results/Impact At a local and regional level, the project is intended to have a direct impact on secondary teachers who will participate in the training activities and in multiplier events. Given that the aim of the project is to enhance teachers' capabilities to facilitate civic engagement through the use of various drama methodologies, it is expected that teachers will disseminate the outputs and overall messages to other teachers in their schools and their wider networks. These actions are intended to have impact on those participants directly involved in the activities, as well as those indirectly involved, their students, who will participate in classroom activities informed by this facilitated model and other stakeholders concerned with the relevant questions, pedagogical strategies and curricular content addressed in the project. There will be an attempt to communicate the outputs from the project to institutions responsible for curricula design in Initial Teacher Education in the UK and Italy. As BCU and University of Rome are both directly involved in the training of teachers, the consortium aims to incorporate the final outputs of the project in future courses in these third level institutions. At a National and European levels, the partners will make use of the ODS and contacts from European networks and associations in education.
DemoDram’s overall aim has been to empower teachers of humanities and languages to work with young learners to explore democratic values through the use of theatre and drama in education methodologies and tools. It also aimed to facilitate the introduction of these into their teaching repertoire. The consortium originally defined the following specific objectives: To use and offer drama in education and mimesis in education tools to teachers looking to explore and facilitate democracy and student civic engagement; to explore humanistic aspects of curricula subjects that could engage students in dialogic discourses and accelerate student agency, empathy, responsibility and the acquisition of transferable skills; to engage in knowledge transfer and exchange of pedagogical philosophies that will enable teachers to address the issue of democratic crisis and its effects on the European context; to explore a repertoire of drama forms to develop student skills essential in multi-cultural societies; to develop Open Education Resources including 4 comprehensive drama workshops available also in an e-learning format with elements available in 4 European languages; to Develop an e-learning platform with an online teachers’ training academy (MOOC) in the Open Discovery Space (ODS) platform; to develop an assessment toolkit for democratic classrooms aimed at being flexible in order to allow use in a variety of educational and cultural settings. Here is what the project has achieved: DemoDram has developed 5 extremely innovative intellectual outputs ready to be used and implemented by teachers in their classrooms: A Conceptual and Methodological Framework (IO1) on how democratic spaces can be created through drama, identifying the central concepts and outlining the pedagogical approaches appropriate school classrooms (https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/sites/default/files/demodrama-conceptual_and_pedagogical_framework.pdf). A Methodological Framework (IO2) exploring the necessary groundings different and selected methods of Applied Drama and Mimesis in Education and the positive impact which these could have on the work of teachers and educators supporting young people’s development and empowerment as young European citizens (https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/democracy-through-drama-methodological-framework-851759) A complete set of 28 thoroughly designed lesson plans/workshops (compiling the IO3 DemoDram Open Education Resources), offering concrete examples of how drama supports teaching in the humanities, languages and the arts through practical explorations of curricula within the classroom. It is worth mentioning here that the consortium had originally proposed to develop 4 in the bidding stage. https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/democracy-through-drama-open-education-resources-859476; https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/demodram-workshop-crossing-borders-856753; https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/demodram-workshop-scene-homers-iliad-856751; https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/create-your-own-workshop-template-and-guide-857295 A holistic online environment, the Democracy through Drama digital community in the Open Discovery Space platform incorporating a community building element with registered members; a resources section with 25 resources; a group section with 5 unique groups dedicated to particular countries and languages with elements translated and adopted for the purposes of these national contexts; an events and a blog sections. One of the most unique aspects of the ODS Democracy through Drama community is the Teachers Academy section incorporating the DemoDram MOOC with its 4 learning modules. It is also the project’s main sustainability tool. (https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/community/democracy-through-drama-849147) A comprehensive Civics Assessment Tool (IO5) that has been designed as a travel journal towards a democratic classroom and incorporating all aspects of Democracy through Drama approach (https://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/en/edu-object/your-travel-journal-odysseus-guide-navigating-your-eventful-journey-towards-democratic). An engaging website to further promote the work of DemoDram (https://demodram.com/). To achieve these, the project conducted a comprehensive Needs Analysis and worked with Advisory Groups of teachers in 5 countries (UK, Belgium, Greece, Italy and Hungary). The project reached over 1,170 teachers, trainee teachers, school students and educational stakeholders through its 3 MEs and the additional dissemination activities. Finally, the project has formed two important long-term partnerships with Hungary’s prestigious Örkény Theatre and Greece’s Athens Coordination Centre for Migrants and Refugees a joint structure of the Municipality of Athens, the UN Migration Agency - International Organisation for Migration and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.