Verita Insights Magazine VIS magazine final | Page 17

MOE
MANTLE OF
THE EXPERT
COMMUNITY
OF
LEARNING
POSITIONING
WITHIN LEARNING
WILL AND
MOTIVATION TO
LEARN
Figure 2 Diagram of how a Mantle of the Expert learning
community is supported by two main factors, Ryan (2019)
INQUIRY
DRAMA
FOR
LEARNING
MANTLE
OF THE
EXPERT
Figure 1 The Three Dimensions to Imaginative Inquiry,
Abbott (2013)
Within the dimension of Mantle of the Expert there
are the sub dimensions of client, commission and
team of responsible experts. These sub dimensions
are key to building collaborative classrooms.
In Mantle of the Expert structure, the children need
to work collaboratively together as a team of
responsible experts, along with the teachers to co-
construct their story and complete the commission
set by the client which requires them to meet a set
of standards, tasks and activities that fit together
piece by piece toward an end product or project
(Taylor, 2016:22). When in the drama each child and
the teacher bring their own social and cultural
dimension to the fiction, as well as their own skills,
which enriches the experience for all.
How does it build strong and collaborative
learning communities?
There are two factors that can contribute to the
creation of a strong and collaborative Mantle of
the Expert learning community. 1) The will and
the motivation to learn and 2) the positioning
within learning. When these two factors are
brought together, they create an opportunity
where learners thrive in a supportive and
collaborative setting. The diagram shows how the
two factors support the creation of a strong and
collaborative Mantle of the Expert learning
community when they come together.
Mantle of the Expert supports the children to take
ownership of their learning and be active agents in
their own education. They are positioned as
responsible beings who are capable of leading their
own education journey, with the help and support
of their learning community. They are no longer
passive imbibers in their education, they are active
learners who are working equally as hard as their
teachers to explore the world they live in while
meeting curriculum standards. This process of co-
construction with a skilled teacher enables great
challenge and therefore deeper learning to occur.
A Mantle of the Expert learning community is a
powerful student agency tool and supports the will
and motivation to learn, as students have voice and
choice in how they learn. This causes the students
to become more intrinsically motivated to work and
learn, as they have ownership over their learning. As
Mantle of the Expert allows children to experience
real-life moments in the make-believe, it allows
children to develop a good work ethic, as the
commission is authentic and true to real-life.
Mantle is not about standing around the
classroom, pretending to be a tree. It is a
framework in which students and teachers can
build fictional contexts, in which they can
explore the world safely using their
imaginations and build learning communities
together.
It moves learning from being a passive action, into
powerful form of active learning where knowledge is
a powerful tool, but where both learning, and
imagination are limitless. When the students are
given the freedom to explore their learning through
their imagination, it takes away the fear of making
mistakes in the classroom. In the make-believe they
can be braver, stronger, smarter and bolder – as they
are protected by the make-believe. This allows the
students to make bolder decisions and delve deeper
into their learning, as the teacher is in the learning
taking the risks right alongside them.
Article by Louise Ryan
Teacher 4B
VERITA INSIGHTS  |  17