General Introduction
This blog is part of my Differentiation and Adaptive Teaching Knowledge Base.
I use the terms differentiation and adaptive teaching synonymously. To me, they are the same, as genuine differentiation has always involved adapting your planning and your teaching to meet the needs of the learners in front of you.
For me, differentiation is all the practical strategies, activities and techniques teachers use to personalise learning.
For ease, we can break that down into my five categories of differentiation: Activities, Questioning, Words and Writing, Things the Teacher Can Do and Things You Can Ask Learners to Do or Use.
This blog falls into the category of activities.
Using Hot-Seating to Differentiate Through Drama
Hot-seating is a fun, dramatic activity that drives engagement.
The ‘hot-seat’ is a chair at the front of the class in which learners take it in turns to sit.
While they are there, the rest of the class get to ask them questions about the topic.
The learner in the ‘hot-seat’ must try and answer the questions, calling on their own knowledge of the topic to do so.
When using this activity, you need to decide how many learners will have a turn in the hot-seat.
One option is to focus on more-able learners, so they can act as peer models for the rest of the class.
Another option is to select learners at random.
And a third option is to have learners work in teams to come up with questions they want to ask, and for each team to then nominate one member who will take up the hot-seat on their behalf.
This activity is best used when you are well into a topic, or near the end.
Learners need to know a decent amount about the topic for the activity to work effectively.
Two variations are as follows.
First, ask the learner who is in the hot-seat to play a role.
For example, if the topic is the life of Henry VIII, any learner who sits in the hot-seat must take on the role of Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, or Henry himself.
Learners must then answer questions from their peers while remaining in role.
This adds an extra layer of challenge.
In my experience, many learners also relish the opportunity to play the role they have been given, increasing the dramatic element of the task (and often bringing a degree of humour into the activity).
Second, invite a team of learners (between two and four) to take up the hot-seat.
These learners can then work together to answer the questions posed by the rest of the class.
This is a good way of scaffolding the activity.
Being part of a team, rather than having to answer on your own, is easier.
It also means learners who are shy or lack confidence have a way to be more involved than might otherwise be the case.
How does Hot-Seating differentiate?
The task is dramatic.
It is driven by a tension between the learners in the hot-seat and the rest of the class.
This stems from the fact that the class are asking questions of their peers that they may or may not be able to answer – the tension comes from the inherent uncertainty this creates (a mild form of jeopardy).
In turn, this makes the task engaging.
All learners can access the task.
Everyone can ask questions of the learners in the hot-seat.
The only criteria that must be met are that the questions relate to the topic.
Hence why it is better to use this activity towards the middle or end of a unit of work.
If necessary, you can scaffold question development by giving learners example questions as a model.
Alternatively, you can share a set of relevant categories and ask learners to use these as the starting point for their questions.
Or learners can look back through their books and use these as a tool to help them develop questions.
Five Further Drama Strategies
Hot-seating has a dramatic element to it, one that engages the class and, through doing, helps you to differentiate.
Here are five further drama activities you can use in a wide range of lessons, all of which add variety to your planning, offer different routes into the learning, and are engaging.
Create a role-play
Give learners some material that they must use as the basis of a role-play.
The aim is for learners to demonstrate their understanding of the information by turning it into a short drama piece.
For example, in a science lesson about gravity, the teacher might introduce learners to the apocryphal story of Isaac Newton and the apple, alongside more detailed information about the nature of gravity.
They would then ask their learners to work in groups to create a role-play around this, caveated by success criteria that give learners clarity over what their role-plays should include.
Role-play a text
For example, in an English lesson the class might be divided into pairs, with each pair being given an extract from Macbeth.
Learners must read out and dramatize the extract in their pairs, using their knowledge of the play to create a meaningful performance.
While this is happening, the teacher can circulate through the room, supporting any learners who are struggling.
Towards the end of the task, the teacher can identify two or three pairs who have produced particularly good role-plays.
They can then ask these pairs to perform for the rest of class, who peer-assess the work.
Freeze-frame
Learners are put into groups.
The teacher either shares a topic, concept or statement with the whole class, or they give each group something different.
Learners must create a freeze-frame in their groups, depicting or related to that which they have been asked to consider.
A freeze-frame is a point at which the action has been stopped.
There is a before and an after, but this remains unknown to the audience (it is for them to infer, based on what they see in front of them).
Learners create their freeze-frames and then take it in turns to show these to the rest of the class.
Discussion ensues.
Mime the Keyword
Divide the class into two teams.
Each team takes it in turns to send a volunteer up to the front.
The teacher has a set of slips, each containing a different keyword from the topic of study.
Here there are two options.
First, teams take it in turns.
Each volunteer picks a keyword at random and then has thirty seconds to mime this for their team, who must guess what it is.
Alternatively, teams take it in turns but each volunteer has two minutes to get through as many keywords as they can.
This version requires more keywords as you will need to have sufficient in stock for both teams to get a fair crack of the whip.
The set-up is deliberately competitive. This fuels engagement and focuses minds on correctly interpreting the mimes that learners present.
Physical modelling
Ask learners to use their bodies to create a physical model of a concept, keyword or idea.
For example, a Year 6 teacher might display a set of keywords on the board, connected to a topic they have been doing with their class.
They then ask learners to work in pairs.
Pairs must pick a keyword, keep it to themselves, and work out how they are going to physically model it.
When sufficient time has passed, the teacher asks half the class to perform their models.
The other half walk around the room, observing their peers and trying to work out what keywords they are modelling.
The roles then flip.
Finally, the teacher asks different pairs to share what they saw and what keywords they believed their peers were modelling.
How can you differentiate by using drama activities?
Drama requires a different approach and different ways of thinking from many other modes of learning.
Drama activities give learners the opportunity to engage with the work in a way that is different from the norm.
Tasks based on drama are often fun and create the opportunity for learners to move beyond the traditional formalities of classroom learning (such as being seated and working at desks).
As a result, they tend to engage learners.
In all the activities outlined above, learners are expected to synthesise information.
This is so they can recreate it in dramatic form.
Synthesis tasks are challenging – particularly if they are to be done well (synthesis is one of the top two levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy).
Drama tasks like these therefore offer a high level of challenge, yet one that is accessible to all learners.
