Hello EC&I 834 colleagues! Our course prototype was co-designed with my colleague Meagan McLellan and is based on the Saskatchewan Grade 7 Drama Outcomes.
In our blended and synchronous course, grade 7 students will learn about the elements of radio plays, how to create soundscapes, and how to use Foley sounds to create sound effects. They will also record, edit, and produce their own radio plays in small groups. The focus is not on writing skills so that they will use pre-written stories; however, they will edit and adapt the stories to use soundscapes, effects, and voice acting wherever possible.
Drama can be a daunting and less desirable subject for students, especially those who are anxious or lack self-confidence. Meagan and I wanted to create an opportunity for students to meaningfully participate in the subject in a way that would ease these anxieties and fears and allow for freedom of expression and creativity in a FUN way.
When developing and mapping out our A.D.D.I.E. Course Profile, we considered our student audience at the foundation of our course. Our previous blog post details our A.D.D.I.E. Course Profile.
The course creation process begins with our learning objectives of this blended and synchronous course. By the end of this course, we hope students will be able to:
- Use drama elements, strategies, negotiation, and collaboration to help shape the direction of the drama and/or collective creation.
- Express ideas about the importance of place (e.g., relationships to the land, local geology, region, urban/rural environments) in drama and/or collective creation.
- Investigate improvisation using the voice, instruments, and a wide variety of sound sources from the natural and constructed environment.
Empowered Learner (Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.)
Some important notes regarding our creation process are that many of our students are EAL learners. This course is meant to foster an environment that promotes language development while meeting Arts Education’s curricular outcomes. All but one of our students have access to technology at home, and Meagan and I are a part of the Connected Educator Program with Regina Catholic School Division (one-to-one device access per student), which allows for ample opportunities for this course to be successful.
We have used three platforms to execute our course prototype. The first was Microsoft Teams, which was used as the central hub to post assignments and hand-in areas, chat with students and teachers, monitor student progress, and provide feedback and assessment grades. This was considered as our Microsoft-based school division, which provides free access to teachers and students. Secondly, we used SeeSaw to foster and promote home-school connections. Students access some of the tasks on this platform, and it invites parents and guardians to view their children’s work to see their progress in the course. Thirdly, we used WeVideo, which is a licensed and cloud-based platform that allows students to work in teams to upload, record, mix, splice, edit, and layer sounds. This is used to create their final product. Last, we used Lumi to create introductory videos for Modules 1 and 2 and BBC Sound Effects to access thousands of audio files, which are safe and free to download.
Here are links to our other course prototype blogs that highlight our learning process and development:
Course Prototype – Community in Online Learning: Guidelines
Course Prototype – Reflection to Feedback: Accessibility
Finally, our finished product! We want to thank our EC&I 834 colleagues for their valuable feedback, which was used to reflect on and improve our course prototype for our students.
Please enjoy our course walkthrough.
Arkin's EC&I Blog 
I have to commend you both on your excellent work. I was lucky enough to go to a school that had a sound booth in which we produced and mixed a half hour radio show with similar objectives to your course. Unfortunately, our editing had to be done with multiple tape decks (which was a nightmare), a mixing board (to this day I still don’t know what half of the faders did), and mini-CDs (which were bleeding edge stuff back then). Even though I am reaching back in my memory over twenty-five years, I remember that many of the students who were particularly shy in drama class had an easier time with recorded audio as it eliminated the anxiety of performing live. It is nice to see teachers finding new ways to facilitate student expression. Thank you for sharing a great course!
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Thanks for the kind words, Matthew. I believe we met our students’ needs, especially those who are anxious and our EAL learners. Learning and working with Meagan was great, and we are happy with our final product. Again, thanks for checking out our final project!
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