INTEGRATING SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM AND VISIBLE THINKING IN VIRTUAL DRAMA CLASSROOM: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Abstract

The expansion of digital learning in the post-pandemic era has created new opportunities for innovative pedagogical approaches in higher education. However, maintaining student interaction and engagement in the virtual language learning environment remains a concern, particularly in drama education, where collaborative and experiential practices are crucial. This conceptual paper aims the complex challenges inherent in virtual drama classrooms by proposing and describing a conceptual framework. The framework combines Social Constructivist Theory (SCT), founded by Vygotsky in 1962, and Project Zero (PZ)’s Visible Thinking (VT) principles developed by Ritchhart that happen in 2006. Grounded in the works of Lev Vygotsky, a renowned socio-constructivist theorist, the proposed framework underpins the significant role of social interaction in the construction of knowledge through dialogue, collaboration and mediation. Aligning with SCT’s approach to learning, PZ’s VT routines, such as Think–Pair–Share and the Ladder of Feedback, are intended to help learners be conscious of their thought processes and, as such, facilitate structured language for discussions, scaffold peer-to-peer communication, and encourage students to think reflectively during drama-based tasks. The proposed framework demonstrates how drama pedagogy, integrated with the underlying social constructivist principles and VT routines, can stimulate collaboration, creative and reflective thinking and thus engagement amongst learners. It therefore seeks to contribute to the scholarly literature on drama education, interactive language learning and social constructivist teaching approaches, providing practitioners with new ways of understanding and designing more engaging drama-based learning activities in virtual contexts.