Preparing university educators for hot moments: theater for educational development about difference, power, and privilege

Abstract

A ‘hot moment’ is an emotion-laden moment of conflict or tension that threatens to derail teaching and learning. In this study, an educational development workshop used interactive theater depicting a hot moment to prepare university instructors for diverse classrooms. Participants in three workshops wrote short reflections, both before and after the theater-based experience, about whether instructors should consider differences among students. After the workshop, many participants took new dimensions of difference into consideration. Surprisingly, after the interactive theater experience, almost all participants reflected exclusively on instrumental issues in teaching (e.g. classroom management strategies), but not structural issues of difference, power, and privilege that underlie hot moments. The empirical findings and the author’s reflections on a personal hot moment are theorized in terms of concepts from and critiques of critical and feminist pedagogy.