Shifting Pedagogy: Integrating Critical Thinking and Artistic Practice in the Voice and Speech Classroom

Shifting Pedagogy:

Integrating Critical Thinking and Artistic Practice in the Voice and Speech Classroom

Introduction

Pedagogy is a constantly shifting animal, always adjusting to fresh ideas, new students, and changing goals. While any performance class must, to some degree, teach performance skills, the goals of each course and the context of that course within the curriculum vary greatly. As my department underwent a major shift in mission, my goals for individual performance courses shifted as well, diminishing the focus on acquisition of performance skills in favor of concentrating on critical thinking skills. I expected to find an irreconcilable disconnect between these two concepts; in other words, as critical thinking was emphasized, performance skills would suffer. To my surprise, however, bringing the liberal education idea of critical thinking into my performance classroom actually enhanced my students' acquisition of performance skills. I used writing assignments to help students to develop critical thinking skills, to encourage them to integrate scholarship with artistic practice, and to guide them toward self-reflection. What follows is a detailed account of the creation, implementation, and assessment of this shift in pedagogy in one voice and speech classroom.

The Problem

"Julia . . . all that stuff you used to teach in four semesters of voice and speech . . . now you've got one semester. . . ."

A few years after I began my job as a visiting assistant professor in the theatre department at Miami University, the faculty decided to eliminate the Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in performance and design / technology and to complete a major revision of the existing Bachelor of Arts degree. I found myself facing several challenges, one of which was to adapt the voice and speech program, which had consisted of a four-semester sequence of courses, into a one-semester course on the fundamentals of voice and speech, with upper-level electives in special topics offered on an infrequent basis. This very practical challenge soon led me into a re-examination of my pedagogical approach to teaching voice.

I knew what I was not doing; I was no longer specifically training actors to enter the profession. But with what was I replacing that training? Voice and speech, like all performance subjects, are traditionally skill-based content courses. Although my colleagues in professional training programs certainly encourage their students to learn the craft of acting in the context of the larger culture, the focus is on preparing actors for work in the professional world. That had been my goal as well. Now, it seemed my philosophy, my pedagogy, and my course content were going to have to shift. But in what direction?

To address this problem, I began examining the liberal education notion of "critical thinking." This was not as simple a task as I might have hoped. I discovered that I was operating with an intuitive rather than a theoretical grasp of critical thinking. Indeed, like many who hold professional degrees in theatre, I am not trained in pedagogical theory. Much of what I know, I know because it worked for me in my own education, or by trial and error. However, in order to situate my course as part of the new Bachelor of Arts degree, I needed to understand the conversation around this idea of critical thinking so that I could create appropriate goals, effective assignments, and clear assessments for my students.

So, what exactly is critical thinking? Ask ten academics to define critical thinking and one is likely to get ten different answers. My university lists critical thinking as one of the four goals of the Miami Plan for Liberal Education:

Students achieve perspective by combining imagination, intuition, reasoning, and evaluation. Critical thinking develops the ability to construct and discern relationships, analyze arguments, and solve complex problems.

(Miami University General Bulletin)

While this description outlines the benefits of critical thinking to the student (developing skills such as problem-solving and analysis, and creating individual, informed perspectives) and the process of using it (combining imagination...