Bucks County Playhouse Institute's Online Educational Program Goes International

Bucks County Playhouse, like most education centers, went viral due to the coronavirus, and now their online educational programming is going international.

United States participants in the upcoming Playhouse Institute virtual workshop will be joined by colleagues from halfway around the world. The education conference that began as an in-person event at the Playhouse in 2018, has expanded its reach by moving the forum online. This has given an opportunity for seven teachers from Avenues The World School San Paolo Campus to join this year.

"Our reach is growing because we can offer our workshops virtually, and our students are able to join their international counterparts to engage in an online discussion," says Michaela Murphy, Director of Education. "This would not have happened if we didn't rethink how we could present the material in a pandemic environment."

Playhouse Institute, an educational arm of the non-profit Bucks County Playhouse, announces it will host its annual conference virtually May 13-14, 2021. Tuition for Sparking Inspiration in 2021: Learning Experiences that Engage and Motivate Learners is $300.The Playhouse Institute is designed to offer training for constituencies ranging from professional educators to members of the corporate community by utilizing theater and communication skills. Details on the programs are available at bcptheater.org or by calling Michaela Murphy at 215-862-2121. Limited space is still available.

As teachers move from in-person teaching to remote and hybrid models (and back and forth between all three), many are reconsidering what "works." This workshop, facilitated by Erica Chapman and David Dunbar of the DKDK Project, invites participants to consider the role student engagement and motivation play in deep learning. Over the course of four sessions, this workshop will reframe teaching in 2021 as an opportunity to design learning experiences that inspire students to take ownership over their own learning. Participants will collaborate with educators from a variety of schools to consider where engagement and motivation come from and how they are linked to deep, transformational student learning experiences.

Term Chair Support of the Playhouse Institute Theatre Educators' Conference generously provided by Michael and Alison Dalewitz.

ABOUT THE FACILITATORS

Erica Chapman is the founder and principal consultant at the DKDK Project, an organization committed to redefining the "grammar of schooling" through strategic partnerships and transformational teacher development. Erica is the former Dean of Faculty at The Masters School, where she spearheaded the implementation of a mission-aligned teacher development and evaluation system. Prior to becoming the Dean of Faculty, Erica was the Director of CITYterm at The Masters School, an experience-based semester program for juniors and seniors in high school. As the Director, Erica oversaw all aspects of the interdisciplinary, project-based educational program. For fifteen years, she was the co-facilitator, along with David Dunbar, of the Teaching for Experience workshop (a weeklong intensive that introduced teachers to the principles of experience-based, deep learning). Erica has experience in the public, private, charter and non-profit domains. She has held positions at Achievement First Charter Schools, New Leaders for New Schools and at the New York City Department of Education. In each role, Erica's aim has been to improve student-learning experiences by advancing the effectiveness of teachers. Erica holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania.

David Dunbar taught high school students for over four decades. Following over two decades of teaching at Deerfield Academy, Milton Academy and Albuquerque Academy, David Dunbar moved to New York, in 1996, to start CITYterm at The Masters School. David was the Academic Dean and a member of the interdisciplinary Urban Core teaching team at CITYterm for twenty-one years. While at The Masters School, David also served as the Coordinator for Teaching and Learning Initiatives and held the Joan Smith Hamill '34 Chair for Innovative Teaching. For fifteen summers, David and Erica led the Teaching for Experience Workshop, a weeklong gathering for teachers interested in exploring and sharing how they can use the principles of experience-based learning to transform their own practice and their schools. David has consulted with the public schools in New York, Atlanta and Chicago as well as with various independent and international schools around the world. He is the author, with Kenneth T. Jackson of Columbia University, of the award-winning Empire City: New York through the Centuries (Columbia University Press). David earned his B.A. from Amherst College, his M.A.R. from Yale University and has been the recipient of Woodrow Wilson, Klingenstein and Fulbright Fellowships.

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