On-Screen Puppets: a methodological strategy for creative expression and interdisciplinary learning

Abstract

This paper reports on the research Puppets, Humans and Machines, an Interdisciplinary Circuit for learning, cultural exchange, and creative expression. The main purpose of the research was the development of a Hybrid Technological Puppet Theatre (TTH). It allowed 4 and 9 years children to create puppets, stages and characters. A Research-Creation methodology was used, through a procedural route divided into three phases: Exploration Laboratory, Creation Laboratory, and Implementation Laboratory. In a cross-sectional way, working groups were developed. In these spaces, a group of researchers developed the Puppets on Screen Methodological Strategy; it started from the premises proposed by the STEAM pedagogical model. This strategy includes the following components: TTH, didactic sequence; website and design of an expository version of the TTH. The process developed at all phases allowed to examine the potential of the Puppets on Screen strategy as a space for digital interaction that provides a holistic learning connected with the realities of children, in an environment beyond the guidelines of specific disciplinary concepts. In turn, the strategy allows the child to act as a subject with capacities to produce, individually and collectively, creative thought, given that he (she) can stage his reflections in a sensitive language. The above provides spaces for interdisciplinary teaching in which, children address various problems from the complexity of the elements that define them, a holistic approach to understanding and solving contemporary and current problems.