#Article Play your way to SUCCESS SUBRAMANIAN KALPATHI WRITES ON LEARNING THROUGH GAMES AND USING TECHNIQUES FROM IMPROVISATIONAL THEATRE TO IMPROVE CREATIVITY AND COMMUNICATION The most watched TED video till date is Sir Ken Robinsons talk on how schools kill creativity (over eight million views).Sir Robinson makes it clear that creativity today is as important in education as literacy.He once remarked,Human resources are like natural resources;theyre often buried deep.You have to go looking for them;theyre not just lying around on the surface.You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves. Improv provides a good starting point to provide such circumstances to people.How did that feel,the moderator asked a group assembled after an improvised word association game.The session was on creative business communication.The audience was diverse,with age groups ranging from twenty to forty-somethings.The game was a simple,warm-up exercise borrowed from improvised theatre,which helps actors get their creative juices flowing during rehearsals and before performances.Participants in the game are given words in quick succession,and they respond with the first word or phrase that comes to mind.In the corporate context,it helps one open up,enforces spontaneity,loosens up rigid ways of thinking,and helps make connections between seemingly unrelated subjects. According to improv legends Charna Halpern and Del Close,true improvisation is getting onstage and performing without any preparation and planning.This definition makes us all expert improvisers,because we go through life everyday without a script.The core principles of applied improv as elaborated by Kat Kopett involve trust,spontaneity,listening,awareness and performing with a presence of mind.These principles align well with most of the essential skills for emotional intelligence,made famous by Daniel Goleman: selfawareness,self-regulation,motivation,empathy and social skill.Improv theatre groups have proliferated in the United States,and continue to do so across the world,including India.The education system in the US is beginning to recognise the utility of improv - most universities across the country have now set up improv clubs and groups. For a long time now,instructional design and delivery have been the be all and end all of the learning process.The educator comes in with pre-packaged content and puts up a powerpoint presentation.The participants take notes,ask questions and eventually get assessed on the topic.While the instructional method is extremely useful and has its own advantages,it falls miserably short when it comes to working on areas like creativity,building self-confidence,teamwork,making connections,and generating and building upon ideas.Improv proves to be a useful tool here,because it shifts the spotlight from the educator to the participants.They are in command,while the educator is merely responsible for facilitating the games.Because of its nature,improv is flexible enough to allow one to modify the structure of the games,depending on the desired outcome and participant profiles. - The author is associate partner,Memcorp Learning and Performance Solutions
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 05:12:14 +0000
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