Reviews

“This is a comprehensive, accessible and joyful guide to using Mantle of the Expert in your classroom. In this book, Tim examines key approaches to using Mantle in your classroom, he asks fascinating questions about the nature of pedagogy, and he makes a compelling case for embedding drama in your lessons.” Sue Cowley

“Imagine… all pupils in your class are absorbed in the inquiries you create for them across the curriculum, and your teaching becomes as exciting for you as it is for them. As they rise to your next challenge and collaboratively come to a decision, you are struck by the depth of learning and transformation which is taking place… In this inspirational book Tim Taylor hands you the mantle and invites you to join the adventure. His clear explanations and the many examples from his own practice show how Mantle of the Expert can be made into a reality in any classroom.” Hanneke Jones

“This is a marvellous book: a clear, accessible introduction to a teaching approach that can seem daunting in its complexity. Tim Taylor has written a guide to Mantle of the Expert that teachers, students and scholars will read, relish and return to time and again. Tim draws on years of experience as a practitioner and teacher educator to offer helpful clarifications, astute classifications and sage advice – all presented in consistently readable and straightforward language. The book is laced with stories from Tim’s own teaching (including his mistakes and misadventures – a great reassurance to the reader!) This guide will be indispensable not only for beginners but anyone using Mantle who seeks to understand and refine their practice.” Viv Aitken

“This is the book I wish I had had when I was starting out as a teacher. And even now, 21 years on, I know it’s one I’ll return to again and again. Tim doesn’t just tell us – in simple, clear and glorious detail – the what and how of Mantle of the Expert. But he delves beautifully and sensitively into the why. He shows us the importance of perspective in building children’s capacities for acting with grace, responsibility and thoughtfulness. He examines the careful balance between freedom and rigour that the pedagogy offers. He gives clear and engaging examples from his own practice and ultimately, he reminds us that to be a teacher is to be a guide into a future in which children are equipped with the power to build a better world.” Debra Kidd

“If you are a teacher who wants to learn with children, who can play with possibilities, and who is ready to experiment with novel approaches, then this inspirational text is for you. If you want children to develop expertise rather than pass tests, to engage in deep rather than superficial learning, and to inquire into the complexity of topics then pick up this book by a master teacher and return to it as a guide over a year. In this brilliant publication Tim Taylor highlights the simplicity of the Mantle of the Expert approach while also making its challenges navigable.” Brian Edmiston

“Lee Shulman, professor emeritus at Stanford Graduate School of Education, defined teaching as creating effective learning environments, characterised by three properties: they create engagement; they are responsive and they create disciplinary habits of mind. In this thoughtful, carefully researched book, Tim Taylor describes how Mantle of the Expert might create engagement as it draws children in to learning: ‘they make a commitment, not because they have to, but because they want to.’ His description of the design and planning shows how Mantle of the Expert might be responsive. And at its heart is the possibility of providing children with opportunities to create disciplinary habits of mind. He is clear that this a way of teaching aspects of, rather than the whole curriculum and he doesn’t make exaggerated claims for what it can achieve. He is as honest about the potential pitfalls as he is about the benefits of working in this way. And the most cogent reason for taking this book seriously: ‘talk to a student in one of these classrooms and they’ll tell you what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what they’ll be doing next.’” Mary Myatt

TES Review July 12th 2016 – Mike Fairclough
“Originally conceived by Dorothy Heathcote in the 1970s, Mantle of the Expert is a teaching strategy which uses drama and imagination as a means of engaging students with the curriculum.
In his new book, A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert, Tim Taylor explores the concepts and techniques underpinning this approach, which uses the conventions of theatre to ignite curriculum subject matter and further students’ learning.
The idea of Mantle of the Expert is that students imagine that they are “experts” within a particular field, such as journalism, history or palaeontology. The technique encourages enquiry and empowers the team of student-experts to feel a sense of authority over the subject matter. Meanwhile, the teacher takes on the role of the “client”, who commissions the experts to investigate a particular area of study in an imaginative way, using role play.” [Continue reading...]

A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert
Tim Taylor
Paperback
Due for release: July 15th 2016

Price: £21.50
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About Mantle of the Expert

Mantle of the Expert is an education approach that uses imaginary contexts to generate purposeful and engaging activities for learning. Within the fiction the students are cast as a team of experts working for a client on a commission. The commission is designed by the teacher to generate tasks and activities that fulfil the requirements of the client as well as create opportunities for students to study wide areas of the curriculum. For example, a class of students are cast (within the fiction) as a team of archaeologists excavating an Egyptian tomb for the Cairo Museum. To complete the commission they research ancient Egyptian history – learning about tombs, artefacts, and rituals – and in the process study history, geography, art, design and other subjects, as well as develop their skills in reading, writing, problem solving, and inquiry. Mantle of the Expert is not designed to teach the entire curriculum, all the time, but is rather an approach to be used selectively by the teacher along with a range of other methods.

Mantle of the Expert was developed by Dorothy Heathcote at Newcastle University in the 1970’s and 80’s. An internationally renowned authority on drama for learning, Heathcote’s aim was to provide non-drama specialists with an approach that would support them in using drama across the curriculum. Heathcote believed drama was an underused approach outside drama studios and could be used as a powerful medium for learning across the curriculum.

Mantle of the Expert works by the teacher planning a fictional context where the students take on the responsibilities of an expert team. As the team, they are commissioned by a client (within the fiction) to work on a commission, which has been planned by the teacher to generate tasks and activities that involve them in studying and developing wide areas of the curriculum.

From the beginning the students are aware that they are involved in a fiction. Mantle of the Expert is not a simulation invented by the teacher to trick them into thinking they are involved in something real.

Consciously going in and coming out of the fiction is an important dimension of the Mantle of the Expert approach. Like imaginative play. the participants are always aware that the fiction is something that can stop and start as a when they or the teacher decides. In this way, an activity inside the fiction can create a purpose for curriculum learning outside the fiction. The teacher can introduce the task to the students ‘as if’ they are the expert team, such as writing a report to the museum, and then stop the story and come out of the fiction to teach them directly the knowledge and skills they need to complete the task. Once the task is complete, the teacher can restart the story and the students can see how their work has an effect inside the fiction. It is this process of going in and coming out of the fictional context that defines Mantle of the Expert as a teaching and learning approach.

The ‘mantle’ in Mantle of the Expert is a metaphor. It does not mean the students are endowed with expertise in the real world. Heathcote was clear about this. They are only experts inside the fiction, in the sense that they are taking on the powers and responsibilities of the team; they are not experts outside the fiction. Both the teacher and the students work collaboratively inside the fiction as people working for the same team. This means the teacher deliberately changes her power relationship with the students to one of equal power and authority. In this way decisions are made through discussion and distributed leadership. Outside the fiction, the teacher’s authority remains unaffected.

The creation of a fictional context where the students experiment with making decisions, taking on responsibilities, and meeting challenging situations, is a kind of ‘safe zone’ within the classroom. Unlike the real world where children would rarely, if ever, have these experiences, in an imaginary world they can explore, discuss, and evaluate them[18]. For Heathcote this is what she meant when she described her ideal classroom as a laboratory – “when you enter such a lab you bring in your knowledge and training with you and take on the mantle of responsibility that goes with the character of the setting. Above all, you know that the result of what you do there matter to someone other than yourself. Such settings are cells effecting change in society.”

Links & bibliography

For more information on Mantle of the Expert visit mantleoftheexpert.com
For blogging, planning, and resources on Mantle of the Expert visit imaginative-inquiry.co.uk

Viv Aitken, Dorothy Heathcote’s Mantle of the Expert Approach to Teaching and Learning: a Brief Introduction. Ch.3 in Fraser, D. Aitken, V. and Whyte, B. (2013) Connecting Curriculum, Linking Learning. nzcer Press.
Bolton, G. (2003) Dorothy Heathcote’s Story: the biography of a remarkable drama teacher. London: Trentham Books.
Bolton, G. (1999) Acting in Classroom Drama. Birmingham: Trentham Books.
Edmiston, B. (2014) Transforming Teaching and Learning with Active and Dramatic Approaches: Engaging Students Across the Curriculum, Routledge.
Heathcote, D. and Bolton, G. (1995) Drama for Learning: Dorothy Heathcote’s mantle of the expert Approach to education. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Heathcote D. (2002) [http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/about-moe/articles/ Contexts for Active Learning].
Hesten, S. (1986) [http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/about-moe/archives/dh-archive/ The Heathcote Archive. PhD thesis].
Johnson, L. and O’Neill, C. (ed.) (1984) Dorothy Heathcote: Collected Writings on Education and Drama. London: Hutchinson.
Morgan, N. and Saxton, J. (1987) Teaching Drama: a mind of many wonders. Porstmouth: Heinemann.
O’Neill, C. (2015) Dorothy Heathcote on Education and Drama: Essential Writing. Routledge.
Taylor, T. (2016) A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert. Singular. (Due for publication July 2016)
Wagner, B.J. (1976) Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium. London: Trentham Books.
Note: This blog is a copy of the Wikipedia page I wrote for Mantle of the Expert on 28th April 2016

A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert
Tim Taylor
Paperback
Due for release: July 15th 2016

Price: £21.50
Pre-order using the “Add to Cart” button.

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Training

If you are interested in developing Mantle of the Expert then at some point you will want to access training.

Tim Taylor, Luke Abbott, and other members of the Mantle of the Expert team have over twenty years experience in teaching, coaching, and training teachers in the use of the approach. We believe if you want to talk with integrity about teaching and learning you have to work regularly with children, so all our courses offer the option of demonstrating the approach in the classroom, with students and staff.

We offer a range of training courses including:

• Introductory days for schools and clusters
• Immersive residential weekends for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users
• Conference events with workshops
• Long and short courses with demonstration lessons and workshops

Our team of trainers has extensive experience at organising and running courses. As practising teachers we are fully aware of the ever-changing requirements of Ofsted and the political pressures from the DfE, not to mention the challenges of working with real students in the classroom. For these reasons, our courses are practical and realistic, offering teaching strategies and planning formats that really work at engaging children and challenging them to achieve more.

Courses

Beginners: These courses include one-day insets, residential weekends and short courses, involving practical workshops, seminars and demonstration lessons.

Beginners courses introduce participants to the key strategies of inquiry, drama for learning and mantle of the expert, and include:

• Developing student and teacher questioning
• Creating a community of inquiry
• Using drama as medium for learning
• Planning

Core: These courses are for experienced users of Mantle of the Expert who have completed a beginners course and have some experience of using the approach in the classroom. We run core courses as in-school and inter-school networks and as residential weekends.

On a core course participants extend their understanding and use of the key strategies of inquiry, drama for learning, and Mantle of the Expert, and are introduced to further more advanced strategies.

Advanced: These courses are for experienced users of Mantle of the Expert who have completed their earlier courses and have extensive experience of using the approach in the classroom. We run advanced courses as in-school and inter-school networks and as residential weekends.

On an advanced course participants further extend their understanding and use of the key strategies of inquiry, drama for learning and Mantle of the Expert, and are introduced to further advanced strategies.

For more information on training and to make a booking please CONTACT US.

A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert
Tim Taylor
Paperback
Due for release: July 15th 2016

Price: £21.50
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Planning Units

A Beginner’s Guide to Mantle of the Expert
Tim Taylor
Paperback
Due for release: July 15th 2016

Price: £21.50
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