Mantle of the Expert and Drama

Mantle of the Expert 'involves a reversal of the conventional teacher-student role relationship in which the students draw on the knowledge and expertise of the teacher, (Heathcote, 1985) Mantle of the Expert is also closely linked with drama, as the students are pretending to be somebody else.

Christine Baker has managed to successfully summarize what exactly Mantle of the Expert involves and how useful it is. Using Mantle of the Expert in schools is extremely useful and has proven to engage children in learning without them knowing about it. One such example is when I was in Comprehensive School, for my Year 8 Maths class, we were giving the project of designing a brand new theme park and I can remember looking up all the materials I would need while calculating how much using X amount would cost and how we needed X amount of square feet with ease and I have- not been able to replicate that since.

Another good example of Mantle of the Expert was and assignment in University. We were giving the assignment of working for Swansea Council to create a model of a new bridge, we had to work out the costs and build a 3D Model out of lollipop sticks, the finished result ended up as:

This is a good idea for any age of children to do in school as it allows the children to take responsibility for something that they would be proud of, as they had done everything for themselves and if they failed then it was their own fault as they did not take any responsibility.

Reference List

Creardesign (2008) 'Dore to Learning - Mantle of the Expert Introduction'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfFf88oUyLg [Accessed: 27/04/2016]

Heathcote, D. & Herbert, P. (1985) 'A Drama of Learning: Mantle of the Expert.'

Prendiville, F. & Toye, N. (2000) 'Drama and Traditional Story for the Early Years'. Oxon: Routledge.