Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Learning By Playing: A Curriculum Utilizing Improvisational Theater To Develop Prosocial Behavior Skills And Self-Efficacy In Young Adolescents, Lynn Lovett Barr

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Prosocial behavior requires competency in social-emotional skills including interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, and emotional regulation. During the developmental stage of early adolescence, youth are learning these skills and are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior if they feel efficacious in them. However, most social-emotional learning programs focus on conceptual knowledge in these areas without providing sufficient opportunities for practice, which does not allow students to develop sufficient procedural knowledge and self-efficacy. Improvisational theater offers a solution to this problem; used in concert with social-emotional lessons, it provides practice scenarios and procedural learning opportunities. This project consists of a curriculum …