IMPROV FOR THE CLASSROOM
Creative strategies for experiential learning
Educators are disciplined improvisers, navigating the interplay between academic content and unexpected moments of authentic learning. Collaborative activities can be applied in the classroom in order to bolster confidence, participation, enthusiasm, and creativity while rendering a more welcoming, joyful and inclusive learning community. Workshops and training programs for educators, administrators, and students can be customized to meet the needs of your organization.
Improv Activities for Educators and Helping Professionals
Learn games, exercises, and best practices to facilitate connection, collaboration, and creativity. Through improvising together young people can develop confidence, self-awareness, empathy, listening and leadership tools. Improv skills are life skills! Workshops can be customized around the grade level, subject area, abilities, and goals of your community.
Collaboration, Creativity and Growth Mindset
Improvisors abide by one rule, Yes And: accept and build on each other’s ideas. By applying this concept in the classroom we can unlock creative potential, carve out a safe space for divergent thought, harness growth mindset and develop a strong sense of self-efficacy. This training will challenge participants to think on their feet, explore fresh perspectives, and access new corners of their creativity.
Leadership Skills
An improvisational ethos can help to unlock key elements of great leadership. By nourishing emotional intelligence, embracing transparency, harnessing adaptability, and prioritizing the inclusion and elevation of diverse voices, young people can become better leaders in their community. This workshop is geared for individuals involved in student government, mentorship, clubs, athletics and other positions of leadership.
Organizational Development and Transformational Change
Implementing institutional transformation requires deep collaboration. Applied improv can be used as a tool to foster trust, promote shared responsibility, and stimulate the creativity and open mindedness necessary to navigate radical change. Investing designated time to develop group cohesion and concrete strategies to avoid knee-jerk negativity can help administrators, deans, and department chairs carve new pathways for success.
Equity and Inclusion
Improv can be utilized as a means to analyze and disrupt traditional notions of hierarchy and introduce an environment predicated on safety and inclusion. Exercises that empower participants to take on different status roles, draw clear boundaries, and practice accountability, can illuminate aspects of behavior, interpersonal dynamics, and inspire a deeper conversation about what it means to be part of a thriving educational community.
Mutually Assured Wellbeing: Improv for Mental Health
Collaborating with others in a safe and supportive environment can alleviate anxiety, improve our mood and provide a vital escape from reality. By stepping outside our comfort zone and tapping into creative expression, we can relieve tension and boost positive brain activity. Improv generates laughter, joy, a sense of belonging through the reciprocal act of employing Yes And.
Improvisational Pedagogy: Inhabiting Theory through Playful Practice
Harnessing the core principles of improv can help educators facilitate connection, spontaneous discovery, and a sense of belonging amongst students. This training will draw vital connections between engaged pedagogy and the improvisers mindset through active, on your feet learning.
Public Speaking and presentation skills
Authenticity, presence, and ability to connect with an audience are vital elements of public speaking. Learning how to project confidence and stay grounded, though active, fun, and experiential training, can help reduce anxiety and help speakers stay in the moment.
Instructional Coaching and Mentorship
Work one-one-one one to develop techniques and engagement strategies to bolster creativity, collaboration, and connection in the classroom. I can help you set goals, design dynamic lessons, give feedback and support your work as a facilitator. If you are new to implementing improv in the classroom, I will be your loudest cheerleader.
Elana does such a great job of not only providing content material, but also modeling how to do [improv] in an online space. I’ve sat in on other workshops and professional development, and nothing comes close to what she’s offering.
— Lauren Esposito, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, English & Foreign Languages Department, Marywood University)
Elana embraces the individuality of her students and has the unique skill set of being able to differentiate instruction while still maintaining rigor and integrity to the art form. Her work in classrooms has had long lasting impact on students; in fact, several have gone on to start improv teams. Area teachers commented that they felt their own classroom instruction was enhanced by watching the masterful Fishbein instruct.
— Amber Dernbach (Teacher, Memorial High School, Eau Claire Wisconsin)
Elana runs a fun, process-driven improvisational class that is all about the students and their experience. She builds trust among the kids and treats them as colleagues, allowing for them to explore their creativity and build confidence.
— Darcy Hicks (Parent, Westport CT)
Elana inspired me to see things in new ways, act spontaneously in novel situations, take risks, explore the interplay between the serious and the silly and best of all to let my hair down and have fun.
— Andrea Kelly (Assistant Head of School, Packer Collegiate Institute)
Elana’s session came up over and over in evaluations, talking about how it helped boost confidence both in terms of public speaking and ability to work with and co-lead peer teams.
— Tiffany Aurora (Director, Youth Engagement & Workforce Development, NOYS)
This class was just straight up FUN, and that has honestly been in short supply lately. I don’t think there’s ever been a PD that had me laughing this much while still getting genuinely useful and exciting pedagogical ideas.
— Teaching Fellow (Academy For Teachers)