[Free Paper] The Value of Online Theatre in Higher Education

Last week, Digital Theatre+ published The Value of Online Theatre in Higher Education, a new paper discussing the challenges facing university educators, and how digital resources can help.

In this paper, you will gain insights into the key questions that higher education faculty members are asking, such as how educators can adapt their teaching style to meet changing student needs, and how librarians can maximize the value of their resource selection.

Download The Value of Online Theatre in Higher Education for free - or read a short excerpt below...

Enhancing Comprehension through Visual Learning [Excerpt]

In 2022, a Digital Theatre+ survey aimed at High School educators found that 52% identified “issues with attention or sitting still for a long time when reading a text” when teaching dramatic texts.

This issue is not unique. It is generally noted that the amount of time people spend online impacts attention span, and the National Literacy Trust’s 2023 Annual Literacy Survey identified a 26% decrease in the number of children and young people reading in their free time since 2005.

How can I engage my students in dramatic texts?

When reading a play for the first time, many students may struggle to follow the basic narrative. Their concentration is tested, even more so with older pieces, where they may need to refer to numerous citations, footnotes, and translations of archaic language.

Educators have long spoken of the gratification that comes from helping students to understand why certain words or phrases have been used, or the significance of their use in relation to contemporary contexts. Instead, they are forced to waste precious lesson time simply outlining the story, beat by beat.

The value of performance is that it engages the student through multiple cues. If they do not know the meaning of a word, they can often glean a definition through how it is said, or accompanying expressions, gestures, and character responses. While reading, character names may blur together, whereas while watching a production, distinct costumes and voices help to tell the cast apart.

Introducing a text through production allows the student to grasp the overarching narrative much more quickly. Once they understand the story, they can then begin to form opinions on it, and these initial opinions can be leveraged to capture (and maintain) their attention.

Digital Theatre+ then further enhances the value of these productions with multimedia practitioner insights, helping consolidate students’ learning. These resources range from video interviews to more traditional written resources - such as the ‘Concise Introduction’ series, which was devised specifically for use by undergraduate students.

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Case Study: University of Pittsburgh

“Digital Theatre+ has been a lifesaver in the classroom. It gives me an effective way of breaking up more text-based discussions with an analysis of the performance choices that arise from those decisions. I will often structure a lesson around two or three versions of the same character interaction, for instance, and we will talk about how details in the language can inspire and provoke interpretive differences that nevertheless are grounded in an understanding of the text.

Being able to watch a stage performance, rather than a movie clip, introduces students to the world of live theatre, and also prepares them to evaluate in-person performances later on in class.

The biggest benefit that my students gain from Digital Theatre+ is an understanding that Shakespeare’s plays are a living performance tradition, rather than an inert text. This prepares them to more carefully assess potential interpretive cruxes in the text itself.

Students who might otherwise have difficulty recognizing potential sources of interest and friction in the language have said that they found the performances gave them more traction, and allowed them to see points where they could intervene with their own reading.”

This paper has been created to consult on upcoming and ongoing Higher Education research from Digital Theatre+, and will focus on undergraduate educators in the US. Find out more about how you can contribute to this research inside your free download.