Play, Pretend, And Promote: Supporting Early Childhood Preservice Teachers’ Professional Development Through Creative Drama
Open Access
- Author:
- Arda Tuncdemir, Tugce
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 07, 2020
- Committee Members:
- James Ewald Johnson, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
James Ewald Johnson, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Jacqueline J. Reid-Walsh, Committee Member
Fran Arbough, Committee Member
Deryn P. Verity, Outside Member
Christine Marmé Thompson, Outside Member
Michael Burroughs, Special Member
Gwendolyn Monica Lloyd, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- play
creative drama
preservice teacher
teacher education - Abstract:
- Qualified teachers are a crucial component of preschool programs for improving young children's social, literacy, cognitive, and academic outcomes. Research shows that children are more sociable, exhibit a more developed use of language, and perform at a higher level of cognitive tasks if their teachers have bachelor's degrees and specialized training in early childhood education. To educate high-quality ECE teachers, they need to be prepared more adequately with skills, knowledge, and confidence in providing different subjects and skill sets, and one important area concerning play and creative drama. Program policies and school cultures are critical in influencing teachers' views and practices of children's play. Teacher preparation programs focus on not only improving teachers' competence to negotiate the politics of play but also including how to play with children. Play activities and improvisation are powerful play practices for teacher education programs. However, most teachers do not know how to play with children or include play in their daily curriculum. These teachers are often afraid to be playful, to giving the appearance of looking silly, and not knowing what is going to happen next. To enhance teachers' playing skills, they need to gain more specific and play-based training during their education. This dissertation is timely in its response to ECE’s field concerns. Creative drama is an alternative and useful way to respond to teachers’ needs of play. Creative drama is designed and implemented to enhance both children's and teachers' skills and abilities. Creative drama activities create an interactive and positive learning environment that enhances participants' social relationships and knowledge construction. This environment has possibilities and innovation, and failure, risk, exploration, experimentation, participation, ideation, and intrinsic motivation. Moreover, creative drama supports problem-solving, change, and learning, and conversation skills among students. These skills are essential for teachers to understand students' different skills, cultures, and needs. In this environment, the appearance of looking silly, and not knowing what is going to happen next is acceptable and manageable. The purpose of this study is to focus on preservice teachers' professional training by incorporating creative drama into education activities. Another aim of the study is to discover preservice teachers' understandings, teaching practices, and professional development experiences and dispositions (attitudes and confidence) regarding play and creative drama. Twelve preservice teachers participated in the Creative Drama Module for 15 weeks. The primary data sources were the interviews, including the demographic questionnaire, weekly drama module reflections, teaching practices, the researcher's journal, and documents, including practice notes, drawings, and artworks. The study’s findings indicated that participating in the Creative Drama Module activities promoted a deeper understanding of creative drama and play education and resulted in preservice teachers appreciating the module as a worthwhile experience. The four major themes that emerged from the data were: (1) creative drama beliefs and understandings, (2) confidence to act and to teach creative drama, (3) communication skills, and (4) professional preparation. After receiving the Creative Drama Module training, the preservice teachers were able to provide a broad and deep definition of creative drama regarding make-believe/fantasy play, teacher-guided play, expression, and creativity. They start to like to act and feel more comfortable about being in front of people doing creative drama activities compared to their pre-module thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. They also stated that their relationship and communication skills were improved after they experienced and created their own creative drama activities with their peers. At the end of the study, these preservice teachers endorsed the idea that a broad age range of children at school need to be exposed to creative drama because children have different learning styles, and they discover things in different ways. Therefore, teachers need to improve their social skills, and they also really need to play. Creative drama training helps serve these needs. The findings of this study suggest that participating in a 15-week Creative Drama Module can improve PTs’ confidence, skills, and competence in integrated creative drama activities into the curriculum. Moreover, the module gives preservice teachers and in-service teachers an idea about how they can use play in their future classroom by practicing creative drama. The Creative Drama Module enables PTs to practice, reflect, and reframe their understanding of play and creative drama. The module increased the feeling of ability, ownership, and motivation of PTs to integrate play with their teaching such that they are able to speak about the importance of integrating play and creative drama into other areas. Furthermore, this module has the potential to be inserted into the play courses and different teacher education courses through including improvisations, role plays, and warm-up games that are considered to be integrated learning in teacher education. Issues and challenges in teacher education are discussed, and this study shows some creative drama activities for teacher education programs. Teacher education programs can play a critical role in empowering preservice teachers’ professional identities and supporting their skills, knowledge, and beliefs in powerful and meaningful ways. I recognize that there is a need for further research and understanding about creative drama and how teacher educators can insert creative drama activities into their courses. While this study provided an example of how creative drama activities fit in the play course, more creative drama examples in similar courses are needed to improve preservice teachers’ understanding and practice of creative drama.