Developing Equitable On-line Actor Training for Neurodivergent Students.

I’m five weeks into my on-line delivery of actor training and a clear divide is opening up in the student experience. On one side are the students who are coping well; these students are often those in supportive home environments with good IT access and room to move and make unselfconscious noise. On the other side are the students who are struggling; these students often come from low-income backgrounds and may be living in disruptive home environments with poor IT access and limited room to move and make noise. Alongside the second group, and often intersecting with them, are a third group of students who have shown signs of falling behind, my neurodivergent students.

Having spent several years researching and developing practice the does not discriminate against neurodivergent students this is a troubling, if not unexpected, development. It does not surprise me that our well-intentioned, yet hastily constructed, on-line learning provision is failing these students. My previous research demonstrated how traditional actor training methods can unintentionally discriminate against neurodivergent students [link]. Adapting these methods to on-line delivery can, in many cases, make matters worse. Traditional training approaches can create hurdles for dyslexic and/or dyspraxic students, which cause them to get “stuck in their head”, working extra-hard to follow and interpret instructions, before being able to immerse and connect to their somatic experiences. These students are more likely to be self-critical and believe that their practice is wrong or that they are failing, a hangover from their past educational experience; the exploratory and open-ended nature of training can often compound this. I recently wrote a second article about successful teaching strategies that enable equitable access to neurodivergent acting students [link] and I am now beginning to map these onto our on-line training.

There are so many neurodivergent acting students because there are so many creative benefits to “thinking differently”. Being neurodivergent is not about a deficit of ability, rather, it is about a difference in processing and actor trainers need to provide on-line learning that does not discriminate against that difference. Being asked to manage multiple tasks and timetables can present extra difficulties for neurodivergent students, and stress can exacerbate their processing differences. The move to on-line learning and working in isolation is stressful for everyone, but the impact of this on neurodivergent students needs particular attention when planning remote or hybrid delivery.

The big ask of many schools moving on-line has been to decide between synchronous and asynchronous learning. On the BA Acting Collaborative and Devised Theatre course at Central [link] we have opted for a mix of both. We are providing some face to face group work to keep a sense of community and collaboration. Alongside this, we are providing filmed teaching sessions that enable people across different time zones, and those with caring responsibilities or shared housing and IT, to access the teaching flexibly at times that suit them. On many levels, this is a useful model of inclusive practice; however, the mix of filmed classes, self-directed work, and timetabled teaching sessions requires different modes of engagement, planning skills, and a good understanding of time management. As a result, neurodivergent students are the ones that have most often missed classes and deadlines.

At the same time, our students have told us that, in the main, they are finding the level of work manageable and that the mixed approach is working in terms of their wide-ranging home situations. So, rather than change the structure, we are giving additional support to the neurodivergent students. Neurodivergent students have difficulty with planning and knowing what order to do things in. We have provided additional one to one support to help students create a personal schedule that works in their own unique setting. Thankfully, Central has a great support team for neurodivergent students [link] who can assist us with some of this, but much of the extra support has still had to come from us, the academic staff.

Coherent planning and a structured approach to all aspects of the learning is essential for the neurodivergent student. Students will be more able to focus on the particular content that is to be addressed at any given moment if they are provided with an overview of the proposed training for that term or semester. Overviews help the student to locate their learning in the bigger picture and relieve anxiety about where everything is going. Structured learning is not solely about having a clear linear progression, it includes all aspects of orientation to the training; within the year, the term/semester, the class, and each individual activity.

An additional challenge of asynchronous learning is how to enable students to access the material equitably. If each tutor opts for their own preferred platform for sharing films etc., you can soon end up with multiple points of access and this creates an additional hurdle for the neurodivergent student. We have placed all of our materials into a single area of our virtual learning environment and have given students guidance and training for accessing this. To help students to plan, each teaching film comes with a brief description of the length and content of the film, an overview of the tasks set in the film, and an indication of how long the student should plan to focus on those tasks. This is another step in orientating the student to their learning environment. We also send an email to the students to say the film has been uploaded and copy the description of the film and tasks into that email. Our students tell us that this is helpful for their planning, which makes this time-intense labour worth the effort.

In my voice and Shakespeare teaching, I have used my films to focus on some of the more technical aspects of verse speaking and notation, keeping my face to face classes for more active and interactive approaches to the text. Asynchronous learning does have some advantages for neurodivergent learners in that they can go at their own speed and feel free to make mistakes away from the watchful eye of their tutor or fellow students. Our neurodivergent students have also told us that they like the teaching films as they can re-view aspects that they have missed or didn’t quite understand the first time.

There is a significant finding from my research that becomes even more important in an on-line context: students commonly stated that, when working by themselves, they need be able to answer the question, “How do I know if I’m doing it right?”. They also explained that when they hear the statement, “there is no right or wrong”, they will commonly assume that what they are doing is wrong. In a distance learning setting, this negative self-critique and assumption of failure is all the more likely and can ultimately stop students engaging. If students are helped to know what “doing it right” might look, feel, or sound like they are less likely to make a negative assessment. To achieve this it is helpful to demonstrate exercises, rather than simply describe them, and to break the those exercises into tangible principles that can be measured by the student for themselves. If we take a “spine roll” exercise as an example, some tangible principles might include; keeping the weight evenly over the feet, letting the vertebrae of the spine release to gravity one by one, and keeping the belly released. It’s tempting to describe all the principles in one go, but this only serves to keep students stuck in their heads trying to remember both what to do and the sequence in which to do so. The key is to introduce the new exercise one principle at a time — known in neurodiverse support as chunking. Students should be encouraged to embody the first principle before pausing, and then intentionally forgetting about the first principle so that they can focus effectively on the next.

There are so many distractions in students’ home environments and helping them to stay focussed on their embodied experience in on-line actor training is critical. At the best of times, neurodivergent students can struggle to translate verbal instructions into their bodies and “one thing at a time” is a helpful mantra to hold onto in all teaching. In rehearsals, it is common for directors to discuss a scene at length and suggest a number of things to consider. In this situation, the student who aims to please the director and tries to process and remember all of their instructions will likely get stuck in their head and, ultimately, stuck in their performance. An effective strategy is to choose one new thing and to try to focus solely on that. I will often tell my students to listen to everything a director has to say and then to choose one thing to focus on. It is more effective for the student and the director generally doesn’t notice the difference. Obviously, it’s better if we can move to a more affirmative model of learning difference where the student can articulate their process to the director. Even better, though, is for the director to take an accessible approach from the start and give the actor one thing to focus on at a time.

My colleagues Colin Farquharson and Tanya Zybutz have shown how dyspraxic students struggle to translate a verbal instruction into a physical experience or action [link]. To help these students in an on-line session there are several things you can do: when introducing new physical activities, try to make it as anatomical as possible and get your students to place their hands on the body or use a wall, floor or chair to give them a physical sensation to anchor into. Always start with tangible anatomical instructions that the student can measure for themselves. For example, in the spine roll mentioned above they could check the release of their belly with their own hands and for the release of the vertebrae one by one they could practice rolling against a wall or on the floor. Once they have the exercise anchored in their body it is possible to begin to use imagery to deepen the experience, such as imagining that they are a string puppet as they drop through their spine. If a new physical exercise is taught using only imagery and description there is too much narrative information for the student to translate into their body. Further, if you are demonstrating movement that has a specific left/right content do not mirror left and right in the way that you might in class. On your student’s screen you will end up going the opposite way to the students and this is confusing. Better still, turn your back to the students and let them see your left and right in the same perspective as their own, again, it’s one less thing to translate. It is also worth considering if working with a distinction of left and right is even necessary.

There are additional complications that conferencing platforms like Zoom compound. I have a student with Attention Defect Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) who described how jumping between different speakers on the screen is really distracting for him. He now takes time away from the screen and listens in, only coming back to the screen if he has something to add to the conversation. Allowing students to experiment with video and audio settings that suit them is another helpful step towards more equitable use of digital platforms.

I find that I frequently need to spotlight myself or share my screen, so am unable to pick up visual clues from my students. Neurodivergent students will often hide in a classroom environment and digital platforms provide a perfect opportunity for them to go unnoticed. On the one hand, I have had to encourage all of my students to be rowdier than they might normally be, to shout up and ask questions more, and I’ve needed to allow for added disruption in this way. The more this happens the more the neurodivergent students are also encouraged to speak up. The other tactic is to use short paired, or small group, break-out rooms for discussions and get them to decide a few points to feedback or questions to ask. Translating this helpful classroom tactic to an on-line context enables neurodivergent students time to practice their feedback and articulate their thoughts away from the “critical” gaze of the tutor and the wider group.

Its best to keep our on-line teaching sessions short as its tiring for all of us but particularly so for the neurodivergent student. It’s tempting to rush and cram things in, but that only makes it harder for students to follow. I’ve had to come to terms with teaching less and am focusing more on sustaining existing skills until I can get back in the studio and go deeper. Students will often want to capture everything as they know time is limited. This can mean that they will be trying to make notes at the same time as engaging with any new practice. Again, this can lead them to being in their head rather than their bodies. Recording key elements of classes, such as when demonstrating a new exercise or setting a task, helps students to review later and stay engaged with their embodied experience during the class— I also record and share elements of face to face classes for the same reason.

And finally, assessment. We need to be so clear what we are assessing. The school building, to some extent, helps to level the playing field for assessment, but reasonable adjustment is still necessary to help neurodivergent students engage equitably. When we add the additional home-based challenges that many are facing into the mix, the ability to assess equitably becomes much harder. It is easy for a neurodivergent student in a difficult home environment to apply themselves fully to an assessment task and end up with a lower grade than a non-neurodivergent student in privileged home environment who has done minimal work. To help us when assessing work we have surveyed all of our students to understand anything that may impact their assessment submissions and will be taking all of their circumstances into account when grading. Again, it is important to recognise the increased labour that this requires.

In my original research process, I described an experience of “losing sight of land” and struggling to find my way as I began to understand how my teaching discriminated against my neurodivergent students. Our current situation has set all acting teachers adrift and demands that we scrutinise our pedagogy from a fresh, if discomforting and undesired, perspective. Clearly, none of us would wish to be teaching in this way and we are finding our feet day by day. One of my students with ADHD described his current process as, “learning to manage again”, and I think that phrase is just as applicable for teachers. If we can be brave enough to acknowledge what we do not know and can be open to listening to our students in that re-learning process, then there is much for us all to gain.