Peter Higgin, Artistic Director and joint CEO, Punchdrunk Enrichment
As the children move through the library they turn a corner and meet a guardian of The Lost Lending Library called Peabody, who tells them about the library and explains how it jumps from place to place driven by the imagination of children. Following a story, Peabody explains that a colleague has reported that a whole shelf of books have gone missing, and asks the children to help by writing stories to replace those that have been lost.
The stunned children leave clasping library cards. The experience compels them to talk, draw and write with purpose about the library. In the days that follow they write many new stories for the library before it mysteriously disappears – although not before making every child a lifelong member.
This is an example of immersive learning. The children are participants in a fictionalised world (the Lost Lending Library in this case), and as learners they are cast as characters in a story where their work is integral to the progression of the narrative.
Immersive learning has its roots in immersive theatre which invites the audience to move through a theatrical world as active participants. When transferred to learning, this is highly motivating and a powerful way to engage, and excite, children about learning.
Supporting teacher led practice
Using immersive theatre as a tool to educate is an emerging discipline, and may seem quite distant from typical school life. However, since 2019 we have been working with 16 primary schools in London to research and understand more about immersive learning and the role it can play in supporting children’s learning. The research started with us leading projects in schools to introduce immersive learning but increasingly, has been about supporting school leaders and individual teachers to use immersive learning themselves.
For example, Wyborne Primary School in Greenwich recently created an immersive learning experience about dinosaurs to cover the topic in Year 2. This started with the appearance of a t-rex in the playground which was seen fleetingly one lunchtime break. Following this, the children started to notice that twigs and leaves were collecting in a corner of the playground. They realised that the t-rex had actually laid an egg in a nest in their playground.
As well as covering the topic of dinosaurs, teachers noticed that the children made a marked improvement in how they formed questions. The children also continued to talk about the dinosaur and it remained a topic of discussion and inspiration for much longer than in previous years when the topic was covered.
Immersive learning and its impact
Our research will be completed next year and we’ll be keen to share it widely. However, our work with schools has already developed our understanding about how immersive learning impacts children’s learning and wider development.
- Social barriers between children are broken down. Teachers observe that children who never normally interact in a class will talk about their experiences and corroborate each other’s stories to a teacher.
- In nearly all cases, teachers see a far greater enthusiasm for learning. If the task set in the project is to write one story, children will write five. Linked to this enthusiasm, we have found that children who don’t speak in class are much more likely to participate.
- Immersive learning calls on children to help with a critical task which they need to do for there to be a successful outcome. Teachers have found that this changes how pupils see themselves and value their own expertise.
Eight of the schools are now developing their own immersive learning projects and these include transforming a room in a disused caretaker’s house into an immersive experience for children with additional needs, changing school cupboards into magical portals, and creating a time capsule to act as a means to reach other worlds. All the projects follow the simple sequence of ‘problem, work, reward’ but it's the fact that children know and feel they can make a real difference, which provides the rocket fuel for engagement with their learning.
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