MAKE IT HAPPEN!
A DYNAMIC Learning Experience THAT EQUIPS Aspirant Actors/Makers for their Next career StepS.
I am passionate about supporting the career aspirations of early-career actors and makers, particularly those from backgrounds that are currently under-represented within the industry. Make It Happen! is an innovative and dynamic blended-learning workshop process that I’ve created and regularly facilitate that helps aspirant artists from the NE gain ownership of their creative futures.
Training, funding and professional development opportunities are scattered across the web, but where to start? And how to make sense of it all from a regional perspective? Driven by their creative career goals, and using free co-curation apps, Make It Happen! participants collaborate in teams to build a unique and personalised online resource jam-packed with creative career support opportunities that they can continue to build long after they complete the workshops. Equipped with self-generated action plans, and inspired by career-pathway guidance from industry role-models, participants emerge from the workshops with clarity, with purpose, and in possession of a ‘can-do’ spirit.
The Make It Happen! learning model was developed with under-graduate actors and makers at East 15 Acting School and has most recently been adapted for a series of workshops with both FE and HE level learners at New College Durham. The workshop process images and video content featured below are taken from these workshops.
“Make It Happen! was an outstanding, highly effective and unique student-centred workshop process. The sessions were packed with a range of innovative resources and activities to engage, interest, and challenge the students, equipping them for their next steps. The students were fully engaged throughout the sessions.
The use of technology - a range of online programmes such as Kahoot, Ideas Jam and Padlet - was exceptional. This encouraged students to engage with the programmes with a view to the continuing to use them in the future. The videos of interviews with industry professionals from the North East was an outstanding feature that inspired the students and provided them with an understanding of how to ‘make it happen’ when they complete the course, but also how they can prepare for their future whilst studying next year.
The emphasis on developing independence and ownership of their future was excellent – thank you!”
Gemma Whelam, Performing Arts Lecturer, New College Durham.
THE INGREDIENTS OF THE ‘MAKE IT HAPPEN!’ WORKSHOPS:
Participants engage in a pre-workshop online survey… This data is used to create bespoke workshop content that meets the career pathways and learning level of participants.
2. Participants play a fun, starter, industry knowledge e-quiz…
3. Digital resources are shared with participants that bring a range of current training and career opportunities to life …
4. In teams, participants are supported in curating a unique AND PERSONALISED online resource of training, FUNDING and CAREER support opportunities THAT THEY CAN TAP INTO…
5. In teams, participants are supported in generating ideas for how they might turn theSE e-resources into practical CAREER action-PLANNING…
6. THEN, INDUSTRY ROLE MODELS SHARE THEIR UNIQUE CAREER PATHWAYS WITH PARTICIPANTS VIA ZOOM…
7. PARTICIPANTS DISCUSS AND REFLECT UPON THE IMPACT OF THE WORKSHOPS AND PARTICIPATE IN A POST-WORKSHOP SURVEY…
