Final Project Proposal

Full Concept Proposal

Introduction

From the author's experience in the suburbs of New York, there are no formal avenues of education for theater production, or stagecraft as it will be referred to throughout this writing.  Stagecraft encompasses all of the aspects of design and production of theatrical plays which include set design, lighting design, and sound design.  The worth that the field has to developing minds is great and this concept proposal's purpose and subsequent project, is not only to enlighten people to the merit of this field but also make this field of education more attainable within schools.  Some of the barriers that exist in the widespread acceptance of this field are the perceived unimportance of theater education and the lack of resources available to teach.  I can attest that both of these notions are untrue and further examination will prove such.  

Not only is theater education important on its own, but it has the capability to enhance other fields of study.  In traditional education, there are little opportunities to practically apply knowledge outside of written examinations which are not entirely satisfying.  The well known theory of Bloom's Taxonomy creates a pyramid with ideals that aim to facilitate higher thinking in education.  Through the guidance of this pyramid, the highest levels of competencies can be achieved through stagecraft. The activities used in creating a set are completely practical and connections between core subjects and the set production are quite clear.  For example, in a math class students can learn the formula for finding a side of a triangle.  Given information, they can plug it in and find the information they need.  Students can test their knowledge of the formula and apply it on quizzes and tests.  What stagecraft does that their class cannot do is see that theory in action.  

Let's say that students are designing a platform and need to figure out how to make it bend.  The realization through design would show them that they need to make a triangle to "bend" the platform.  That is the first place they will test their knowledge, in the recognition of their need for the formula.  After that, students would need to figure out what they have in terms of dimensions and what information they need to get.  Therefore, students can use the information like they would in the test and apply it.  Through another layer of understanding that is not apparent in traditional education, students can use a power tool to cut out the triangle, install it, and realize why learning such information is necessary.  It is in this way that stagecraft has the ability to meet all of the levels of Bloom's taxonomy.  

My goal is to create a learning system will introduce students to all of the different aspects of stagecraft so that when they are able to actually create, they have a foundational understanding of how everything works.  The smaller module that I will create for this class focuses on a large and important aspect to stagecraft, set design.  The set that will be designed will be for the show Little Shop of Horrors.

Why is set design important?  Set design is important because it has so much function within a show.  The set is as important a part of the story as the actors are and provides a setting for the story, sets the mood, and is a point of actor interaction.  Single handedly, the set can often make or break a production.  If the set does not function well in both appearance and operation, it can be a distraction for the audience.  It the set works, it increases the realism or adds to the allusion of the productions story and allows the audience members to immerse themselves in what is taking place on stage.  

As much as people want to believe that set design is an art form, it is truly a process and if the process is not followed, the outcome of the results will be jeopardized.  It is for this reason that this module is important in that it provides the base for prospective theater students to flourish.

This module will take students on a journey of designing a set for the show Little Shop of Horrors and provide the vocabulary and theories that have become the standard in theater production.  

Audience

The audience for this module will be beginner level, high school age males and females, within the age range of 14-18 years old.  All content will be universally appropriate for both groups and will feature multiple learning aspects to appeal to the different learning styles that students may have. 

Delivery

This module will be delivered through an asynchronous learning system that functions like an interactive slide show and has a final quiz at the end to test the understanding of the concepts learned.  The program will be made with various software within the Adobe Suite, such as Illustrator, Photoshop and Captivate as well as Microsoft Powerpoint.  The system will be assembled and processed in Adobe Captivate and then put online for students to use.  All students would therefore need is a networked connected computer that has a flash player installed on it, the player itself is free to download.  

In addition to text, the module will also utilize audio and images in multimedia fashion to meet the needs of students with different learning styles and aid in cognition in accordance of Allan Paivio's Dual Coding theory.  

Need Analysis

Through my experience, as stated before, students with interest in this field, have little opportunity to learn about this field in an easy, interesting way.  This program not only provides information necessary to work on sets, but does so in an interactive way that increases learning retention but keeps students interested.  

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this module, students will be able to:

-Identify different types of stages and the anatomy of a stage and use vocabulary to describe various stage locations,

-understand the steps in developing an idea for a set,

-identify the basic set pieces of theater,

-learn principles of design and how they apply to theater,

-identify different ways to create a mood with colors and set pieces,

-analyze how a set comes together.

Time Line

Week 1-3-Project Research and Development

Week 4-Story Board and Ethical Assessment

Week 5-Generate Materials for Production including text

Week 6-Make Video recordings and Edit Materials

Week 7-Assemble Video Elements and Text into Captivate

Week 8-Present Final Project

Budget

The only thing that is needed for this production is a large newsprint pad, which costs ten dollars.  After that, there is no need for a budget for this project due to the fact that all the materials are already owned and any additional material will be produced by me.  There also is no need for concern with copyright infringements or any other rights as they pertain to intellectual property as all images will have come from me as well.  

Literature Review

Literature Review

Introduction 

Developing an online learning system is a difficult task.  There are pedagogical considerations you must make with the content as well as the medium.  For my Advanced Design Seminar project, I am looking to create a series of asynchronous lessons that will help high school students design a set for a theatrical production.  My goal in this project is to allow students to grow as designers and critical thinkers and walk away with an example of a design that they develop which shows that they have learned. 

The works collected below pertain to the content that I will cover, the medium, instructional design and the learning theories that will be the basis of my design. These sources give insight into considerations that I will make as I work my way from the earliest stages of development to the uploading of instructional materials for use.

Content

The way I wanted to begin my journey in research and development is by doing reading in the subject of interpreting a script.  As a recent immigrant to theater production, I needed to brush up in the subject matter.  With my fine art background, I understand the basic concepts of design and composition but wanted to ensure that my approach was appropriate for the stage.  That led me to an article I found in the in the Spring 2014 issue of Theater Design and Technology magazine.  The article, written by Eric Appleton, seemed to come in the same direction that I was coming in.  As another professional that lacked the formal training in technical theater, Appleton researched classical perspectives on design and discussed key principles in getting meaning from a script and applying those ideas to a set.  He quotes a book titled Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading plays by saying, “understanding the structure of a play will lead to good story telling” (Appleton, 2014).  I find this statement very important as it gives a beginning to developing a set.  Of course you need to get concepts as to time, place and mood of a script, but Appleton goes further by saying that scripts should be read more like works of literature and that while designers can interpret/add their own spin on concepts, that they should stay true to the design as intended by the playwright.  It is with that perspective that I would like to keep my course focused on a traditional interpretation of set design as it may be the clearest way for students to understand these concepts. 

Learning Environment

As far as a learning environment to house my content, it seems that e-Learning environments are advantageous for many reasons.  In a reading about the use of simulation in medicine, I found it fascinating how useful these constructs are in a real world application.  Through the use of simulations, medical students feel that they are more prepared for situations and patients feel less like they are being “practiced on, [as] clinical medicine is focusing more on safety and quality than on bedside teaching and education”(Okuda et al., 2009).  Not only have the simulations led to improvements in education, but the feelings of preparedness are also increased.  Moving into the realm of high school, unsure students may feel less likely to participate if they are not informed and creating a simulated environment may help to ease those feelings of apprehension. 

Virtual environments are effective in controlling the feelings that students have toward classmates and situations they may encounter in training environments.  In an article that discusses the integration of a business school in France, the author states that before the use of the technology, French students did not work together with culturally different classmates nor co mingle (Witte, 2014).  This type of behavior is not productive, especially for those in business and the use of the virtual learning environment made it so that the students did not have the same predispositions to their classmates in the virtual world that they had in the real world.  In an article by Liz Falconer, research showed how virtual environments make it so that learning situations can be created and practical and ethical issues do not stand in the way of necessary learning (Falconer, 2013).  These things are important to keep in mind when teaching about theater productions because the entire process is collaborative and learning environments can lessen inhibition and open students up to communicating more freely as well as coming into situations that are otherwise difficult to create in real life. 

Audience Consideration

In terms of the audience consideration, I was curious about the current make up of the students that are going to be instructed, being that the majority of them female.  My concerns were put to rest when I read an article about gender efficiency in online learning.  In it, the author says that the cognitive abilities and the way information is retrieved in female students is more advantageous than their male counterparts (Pohnl and Bogner, 2012). 

Instructional Method

What also must be kept in consideration is the instructional method that is used.  Being that I would say that design work goal oriented, I am excited a Rapid Prototyping Model, a variation of the ADDIE model.  In the classis ADDIE model, students move through the steps of Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (Boulet, 2009).  In the original model, “they offer clear guidance, emphasize…logic of design [and rely on two assumptions of the quality of information and the assumption that there is expertise in leadership]” (Boulet, 2009).  Where I see the rapid prototyping model succeed is that it stresses the importance of making a working model and the evaluation and learning loop that would occur in the testing of that model and making revisions.  Other positive traits of the model that will parlay into this theater education is the amount of formative feedback that is likely to occur and the communication skills that it encourages (Boulet, 2009). 

Learning Theory

As far as a learning theory, I believe that a constructivist approach is very appropriate in this field.  Being that the students are essentially coming to the table with little to no formal training in this area, making content relatable to concepts that they already understand is of definite value.  The “reflectivity, the process whereby a student becomes aware of how their own thinking processes work” (Singh and Rajput, 2013) is useful in that the metacognitive progression would help students become better designers. 

Conclusively, I aim to utilize all of the principles and concepts that are presented here in a way that is useful to my high school student demographic. Making all of these concepts work should be a little easier given the technology which will be used.

Appleton, E. (2014, Spring). Mechanics and Meaning: Script Analysis Lessons from Design History. Theatre Design & Technology, 50, 53-61.

Boulet, Guy. (2009). Rapid Prototyping: an efficient way to collaboratively design and develop e-learning content.

Falconer, L. (2013). Situated Learning in Virtual Simulations: Researching the Authentic Dimension in Virtual Worlds.Journal of Interactive Learning Research,24(3), 285-300.

Luo, Y., Pan, R. (., Choi, J. H., Mellish, L., & Strobel, J. (2011). Why Choose Online Learning: Relationship of Existing Factors and Chronobiology. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 45(4), 379-397.

Okuda, Y., Bryson, E. O., DeMaria, S., Jacobson, L., Quinones, J., Shen, B., et al. (2009). The Utility Of Simulation In Medical Education: What Is The Evidence?. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine: A Journal of Translational and Personalized Medicine, 76(4), 330-343.

Pöhnl, S., & Bogner, F. X. (2012). Learning with Computer-Based Multimedia: Gender Effects on Efficiency.Journal of Educational Computing Research, 47(4), 387-407.

Rosen, Y., & Salomon, G. (2007). The Differential Learning Achievements of Construtivist Technology intesive learning environments as compared with traditional ones: A meta analysis. Journal of Educational Computing Reserach,36(1), 1-14.

Singh, D., & Rajput, P. (2013). Constructivism: A Practical Guide For Training Colleges Teachers. International Journal Of Educational Research & Technology, 4(4), 15-17.

Witte, A. (2014). Serious Games: A seminar Map for International Business Schools. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 77(1), 31-49.

Concept Proposal-TheaterTEK

     Through much self debate, I have decided to continue on my path of creating a system for theater production.  My goal, which still intrinsically motivates my projects, is to see students becoming more capable members of a stagecraft club.  Not only do I have the resources to make the project but I have a whole group of willing participants to test out what I make!  

     For the class Designing Online Learning Environments I focused heavily on teaching students about the uses of wood, which was one section of many that I hoped to complete.  While learning about the orientations of grain and the types of cuts seems riveting to everyone I'm sure, I think that I'd like to go in another direction.  Doing the initial self guided research for this course got me thinking about the bigger picture.  Instead of creating a learning environment that is structured very linear like a traditional education, I'd like to do something that resembles more of a web like structure.  

     Why make something that is so similar to what is taught in a classroom if it is a completely different medium?  I think that some subjects necessitate a sequential framework but in this instance I don't think it does and if it did, I'd like to see the path that the learner takes.  Given the whole overview of what a set looks like, why wouldn't they want to see in more depth how projects are made.  Members, being that they are in this club to begin with, have the curiosity to look more in depth at what they are doing.  By this, the learner can bounce around to topics that interest them and whenever they "master" a subject, they would get a badge for that.  Hopefully, the yearning to get all the badges would lead them to all points of the web and ultimately to my goal of creating experienced club members.  

   Specifically, I would like to make this semester's project closer to the entirety of set production.  I want to propose to the learner a show and have areas around the screen that discuss different things like design and material choices.  Why do designers do the things they do?  I think that this project will really be a sort of crash course in set design and will allow the learner some basic information on how to make decisions and be a problem solver when it comes to good design choices.  When presented in the right way, I believe that everyone has the practical tools to design a set, people just need to use their brain to make it happen.

     In terms of me developing this project, I would like to use Adobe Captivate as it sort of puts everything together in a nice package and to me requires less specific knowledge that I don't have.  I really like the interactivity that you can have with it and for some reason I find some of the features more intuitive that some other programs that I've seen.  I would also make use of Illustrator and Photoshop as the means to create the graphics in the program.  In the past I've used Powerpoint to create the basis of the learning vehicle but I'd like to focus more on the Captivate side as I think it may make a cleaner presentation.  

     As I complete more research, I am sure to find more reasons why pre-training is not only very valuable but cost effective at the same time.  Please be sure to see my literature review in the future to see what influences are shaping my constantly evolving plan.  Here is the article that really got me off in the running.  

The Differential Learning Achievements of Constructivist Technology-Intensive Learning Environments as Compared with Traditional Ones: A Meta Analysis by Yigal Rosen and Gavriel Salomon

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