Devising as Constructivist Teaching Practice

Bethany Nelson is an Assistant Professor, Area Head of Undergraduate Theatre Education, and Graduate Program Director of Theatre Education at Emerson College.  She teaches in the areas of theatre education, playmaking, and multicultural education at the graduate and undergraduate levels.  She created and runs the Institute for Urban Teaching, an intensive which brings together the academic study of culturally relevant teaching with practical strategies for using drama/theatre for emerging best practice.  She has taught drama and theatre K-12 in urban, suburban, and rural settings, and conducts workshops throughout New England on diversity, equity and multicultural education.  Her research interests are focused on using Applied Drama and Theatre for meeting best practice in multicultural education with at-risk urban youth.  Research on the effects of in-role drama, process drama, and playmaking are published in Youth Theatre Journal, Drama Australia Journal, Drama Research: international journal of drama-in-education, Research in Drama Education Journal: the journal of applied theatre and, most recently, in Applied Theatre Research Journal. She regularly presents workshops and papers at national and international conferences and is a contributor to international textbooks on the state of the field.  

She is the winner of the 2012 ATHE/KCACTF Prize for Innovative Teaching, the 2014 Helaine and Stanley Miller Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2014 Leonidas Nickole Theatre Educator of the Year Award for the New England Theatre Conference, the Emerson College Distinguished Alumni award for 2015 and the 2018 Ann Flagg Multicultural Award.