Learning That Matters

This book presents research and practice which revitalises Heathcotes Rolling Role, an innovative trans-disciplinary model which connects the work of multiple classes to engage in collaborative imaginative work. The original model was developed by legendary teacher Dorothy Heathcote, an educational innovator who gained international fame for her transformational work centred on dramatic framing to activate meaningful and important learning. She developed models that encouraged teachers to curate powerful learning experiences through careful planning, framing, enactment and reflection. Teacher-in-Role and Mantle of the Expert are the most well known of her strategies, approaches where the teacher exercises high selectivity in a range of meditational tools and means, so as to empower students as agents with the power to act. While the Rolling Role model is less well known, Heathcote herself believed that it had great potential to be realised through using websites and digital technologies. In the wake of her passing and ongoing examinations of her legacy, a practical exploration was initiated to reconceptualise the Rolling Role model through the use of digital platforms. The resulting project, The Water Reckoning, was an international project which engaged students in exploring ideas related to climate change, water-based catastrophe and human resilience. Further analysis and archival research have informed a deeper understanding of key principles for implementing Rolling Role and its potential for global collaboration and learning. This work has included close analysis of a set of 16 videotapes Heathcote created as a set of consultations for teachers. The book therefore collects together for the first time accounts regarding the historical development of the Rolling Role system, examples of its use and reflections on its application through the use of digital technologies. Rolling Role has the potential to be applied in a wide range of educational contexts with its focus on engaged learning, and learning that matters.

Preface.- Acknowledgements.- Rolling Role as an Educational Innovation.- Introduction.- Innovations in Education.- Contemporary Relevance and Reworking.- Conclusions.- Theoretical Framing: Heathcote, Vygotsky, and Cultural-Historical Theory.- Introduction.- Heathcote and Vygotsky.- Vygotskian Concepts Related to Learning and Development.- Vygotsky on Creativity, Imagination and Drama.- CHAT as a Frame for Systemic Analysis.- Conclusions.- Heathcote and History: Genesis of the Rolling Role Model.- Dorothy Heathcote Subject Formation and Discovery of Her Object.- Progression of Ideas and Work.- The Spread of Her Work and Influence on the Field.- Transformative Pedagogy Drama for Learning and Development.- Drama and the Process of Engagement; Conclusions.- Rolling Role History: The Development of a System for Meaningful Learning.- Introduction.- Heathcotes Definition of Rolling Role.- The Initiating Project.- Elaborations and Development.- The History of Trevelyan Chapel Joan Kerley Masters Project.- Collaborations with Claire Armstrong Mills.- Teacher Professional Development.- Summary of the Key Elements of Rolling Role.- Conclusions.- The Rolling Role Videotapes: Analysis and Synthesis of the Model.- Introduction.- The Rolling Role Video Series.- Rolling Role as an Activity System and Process.- Conclusions.- Rolling Role in Practice: Planning and Practice from the Classroom.- Rolling Role Planning for Video Series.- Rolling Role in the Classroom 1994 Madame Lingard project.- Rolling Role and the Dynamics of Engagement.- Conclusions.- The Water Reckoning: A Case Study of an International Digitally Mediated Project.- The Water Reckoning Project as an Activity System.- Engagement and Learning in Context.- Contradictions, Expansion and Learning.- Conclusions.- Rolling Role as a System for Creative Learning: A Model for Local and Global Contexts.- Features of Learning through Rolling Role.- Rolling Role as a New Order of Learning.- Appendix A: Rolling Role and the National Curriculum: Videotape Series Overview.- Appendix B: Rolling Role Planning.- Appendix C: Sample Rolling Role Planning: The Leyford Drama; References.- About the Author.- Index.