Improv(e) your study start!

Fostering students' life skills development with improvisational theater

Welcome to the website of the teaching innovation project "Improv(e) your study start! Fostering students' life skills development with improvisational theater"

This project took place at the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University during the academic years 2022/23 and 2023/24. This website and all included materials were made possible in part with funding from the National Education Research Organisation (project number: 405.21865.536). For information on the current status quo, see the UPDATE below.

What was the project "Improv(e) your study start!" about?

The project aimed to integrate improvisational theater exercises into the mentoring program of our first year students. The goal was to improve their experiences in the first months at university and to foster their resilience and ability to connect. In our complex, fast-paced and globalized world, such life skills have become ever more important. We believe that, as a university, we should not only teach students how to study right, but to also develop the life skills that are necessary to successfully master difficulties within their study program and the challenges in society at large.

The implementation of improvisational theater into the mentoring program was realized in two ways:

Students play improv games in class, that is, in regular group meetings with a designated, trained mentor. For an overview of the exercises, see the latest instructions for mentors HERE.
Students are encouraged to engage with a newly developed app which contains fun and inspiring improv games (so called "improv dailies"), reflections, and five short surveys which allow them to track their personal development. For a sneak preview of the app, click HERE.

The combination of group meetings and the app was meant to help students to become more flexible, creative, empathic, and resilient, eventually improving their well-being, social integration, and academic achievement.

What is improvisational (improv) theater?

Improvisational theater, often called improv, is a form of live performance where people create scenes, dialogue, and characters spontaneously without a script. It relies on quick thinking, active listening, creativity, and collaboration among performers. If enacted in front of others it is often used to entertain and engage the audience.

For this project, we wanted to keep things easy-peasy and make improv accessible also for people who are not familiar with it or not particularly fond of playing theater. The small and fun exercises and games that we used in the group meetings and in the app are therefore based on the principles of improv, but typically do not involve playing a full scene (in front of an audience). The "improv dailies" in the app were mainly designed to be played either alone or with a partner whenever and wherever one likes. A few games can also be played in a group, however.

Why/How did and do we use improv at the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience?

Improvisational theater is increasingly being used in educational contexts due to its numerous benefits for students of all ages. At the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience (FPN), improv is considered as a form of experiential learning in order to enhance essential life skills (e.g., communication skills, collaboration, resilience and adaptability).

It encourages active participation and can be used to learn a wide range of subjects by incorporating improvisation into lessons and activities. In the course of the Comenius project (i.e., in the academic years 2022/23 and 2023/24), first year psychology students were introduced to different improv exercises as part of their mentoring program in order to increase resilience and foster connection among peers. The various exercises were conducted on site in the mentor group meetings running from September until December and offered in form of "improv dailies" in a newly developed app.

See this presentation for how we introduced the project to our first year students.

UPDATE

After the project ended, the faculty was eager to keep the improv group meetings as an integral part of their onboarding activities. Now, the improv group meetings are part of the so called "Professional and Life Skills" line in the Bachelor Psychology and are brought to first year students by trained and more experienced peers. This strengthens sustainable implementation as the improv meetings are no longer dependent on staff/mentors but are structurally embedded within the program.

Importantly, in 2024/25 the whole Bachelor program in Psychology was subject of a major revision. This included moving from traditional assessment to programmatic assessment. In programmatic assessment insight into students' development is created by continuous and meaningful feedback via a mix of "data points" (such as scores on tests, reflection reports, peer evaluations, professional tasks, etc.), without any grades. The core idea of this revision (students are given the time and space to make mistakes and learn from feedback) aligns perfectly well with the principles of improvisational theatre. An overview of the current curriculum can be found here.

Project Resources

Who is the team behind this project?

The team behind this teaching innovation project consist of Dr. Annika Nübold, Dr. Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna, Dr. Alicia Walkowiak, Dr. Herco Fonteijn (all Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience), and Fabian Brüggemann.

Dr. Annika Nübold

Annika leads this project. She has gained valuable expertise in the educational use of improv when coordinating a prior course for Bachelor students and is an expert in personality psychology and positive psychological interventions.

Fabian Brüggemann

Fabian (co&create — formerly Improve yourself training) has extensive experience as a professional improv trainer, supporting businesses and educational institutions in team building and soft skills development. Fabian has provided valuable input in all design stages of the project and has trained the mentors in guiding the improv games in class.

Dr. Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna

Eliza is a passionate lecturer and teacher with ample experience with education in the Bachelor and Master programs, is an expert in neuropsychopharmacology, and coordinated the mentoring program at our faculty.

Dr. Alicia Walkowiak

Alicia is a devoted lecturer, an expert in dynamic performance and skills training, and has gained valuable experiences in Annika's prior improv course. Together with Eliza, she coordinated the mentoring program at our faculty.

Dr. Herco Fonteijn

Herco is program director of the Bachelor Psychology with over 20 years of experience in designing courses following the principles of Problem Based Learning (PBL) with emphasis on internationalization and capacity building.

What is the science behind improvisational theater?

In the past two decades, across a wide range of disciplines (e.g., management, education, medicine, and psychology) educational approaches have changed from traditional knowledge-transfer to a more interactive, experiential approach (Boggs et al., 2007; Kolb & Kolb, 2006), thereby shedding new light onto improvisational theatre and drama education as an experiential teaching and learning method. Experiential learning has been widely evidenced to promote students' metacognitive abilities, self-directed learning, and their capacity to apply newly learned skills and knowledge to real-life problems (Kolb & Kolb, 2006).

Both universities, such as MIT Sloan or Stanford University, as well as businesses like Google have recognized that flexibility, creativity and resilience are important virtues that are possible to train with methods of improvisational theatre (e.g., Giardella, 2015; Gibb, 2004; Rimbey, 2017; Vera & Crossan, 2004). In addition, initial research shows that improv theater can reduce students' stress levels and uncertainty tolerance and improve their affective well-being (Felsman et al., 2020; Seppänen et al., 2020). Furthermore, beneficial effects on students' creativity, communication, and deep learning have been evidenced (Berk & Trieber, 2009; Felsman et al., 2020; Lavik, 2020; Toivanen et al., 2011; Watson, 2011). Improv theatre has also been used in organizations, showing that it may foster creativity and innovation in teams (Gibb, 2004; Kirsten & Du Preez, 2010; Vera & Crossan, 2005).

The improv app

The Nordic digital tech agency Kruso has developed the improv app for this project, based on the project team's input and with technical support from UM's Bernd Kappeler (Digital Innovation), Charlie Bonnemayer, and Noël Klinkers (both Instrumentation & Engineering).

Kruso can draw on ample experience with building innovative software solutions for apps worldwide and has been an excellent professional, passionate, and people-oriented collaborator in this project. Thank you so much Kruso! For a description of our fruitful collaboration, click HERE. Educational professionals interested in the source code of the app may contact the project lead (a.nubold@maastrichtuniversity.nl) to be granted access to the GitLab repository.

Improv dailies

The improv dailies are short, easy and fun little games that are based on the principles of improvisational theater and are designed to stimulate students' flexibility, creativity, empathy, perspective taking, and learning. Students can choose between individual and partner+ improv games that belong to six different categories (be creative, get energy, let go, feel connected, have fun, be positive), depending on what they are up to in that very moment!

The improv dailies were developed by the project team and a group of first-year psychology students in 2023. We list them in alphabetical order here: Maia Golăeş, Lars Iglauer, Fiona Kovac, Ella Rumohr, Ema Vilimaitė, and Nika Vujnović.

The videos were recorded with the help of Thom Frijns from FPN's Marketing and Communication department. The actors in the video are members of theater group Alles Is Drama, a student theater association in Maastricht: Katarzyna Godziejewski, Mylia Hennig, Frida Roper, Ella Rumohr, and Conni Maria Spanier. Although Alles is Drama is an amateur theater association, they only work with professional directors. Besides productions, there are always courses on offer, a great way to improve your acting skills!

Example Videos

Reflections

The five reflections were meant to offer students a moment to step back and think about their recent experiences and themselves as a person. They allow them to view things from a different perspective and challenge them to do things differently in the future. The reflections focus on the two life skills resilience and ability to connect and on three important life outcomes (well-being, social integration, and academic achievement).

The reflection exercises were inspired by or stem from a number of online resources from websites, such as Greater Good in Action, Positive Psychology, and Psychology Today.

View the reflection exercises (PDF)

Surveys

The five short surveys were about students' personal attitudes and experiences at university (to illustrate, see our baseline survey including scale references here). By regularly filling them in, they were able to track their personal growth in the two life skills and three life outcomes mentioned before. Students were able to check out the home screen of the app to view their stats! Students' responses were valuable to us, the project team, for improving our mentoring program.

Valorization and outreach Activities

The project team engaged in a number of outreach activities to spread the word about the project and the educational value of improvisational theater. These activities include, for example:

Presentation at the Department of Clinical Psychological Science (30-01-2023): Improv(e) your study start! Fostering students' life skills development with improvisational theatre (Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna)
Workshop and presentation at the UM Education Days (08-06-2023): hosted by EDLAB: Mentoring at FPN: Fostering students' life skills development through experiential teaching (Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna & Alicia Walkowiak)
Workshop and presentation at the Fourth UM Global Citizenship Education Symposium event (22-06-2023): Building character strengths through Improv (Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna, Alicia Walkowiak, & Annika Nübold) — for illustration, you can find the presentation here.
Presentation at the Department of Work and Social Psychology (16-10-2023): Using improvisational theater in teaching and training (Annika Nübold)
Workshop for PREMIUM mentors/coaches (26-03-2024): Improvisation theatre techniques for feedback (Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna & Alicia Walkowiak)

References

Berk, R., & Trieber, R. H. (2009). Whose classroom is it, anyway? Improvisation as a teaching tool. Journal on excellence in college teaching, 20(3), 29-60.
Boggs, J. G., Mickel, A. E., & Holtom, B. C. (2007). Experiential learning through interactive drama: An alternative to student role plays. Journal of Management Education, 31(6), 832-858. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562906294952
Felsman, P., Gunawardena, S., & Seifert, C. M. (2020). Improv experience promotes divergent thinking, uncertainty tolerance, and affective well-being. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 35, 100632. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100632
Giardella, D. (2015). From failure to success: Using improvisation to develop leadership. MIT Sloan Experts
Gibb, S. (2004). Arts-based training in management development: The use of improvisational theatre. Journal of Management Development, 23(8), 741-750. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621710410549594
Kirsten, B., & Du Preez, R. (2010). Improvisational theatre as team development intervention for climate for work group innovation. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology, 36(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.10520/EJC89199
Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2006). Learning styles and learning spaces: A review of interdisciplinary application of experiential learning in higher education. In R. Sims & S. Sims (Eds.), Learning styles and learning: A key to meeting the accountability demands in education. Nova.
Lavik, E. (2020). Thermo in the time of COVID-19: Using improvisation to foster discussion and translating the experience to online learning. Biomedical Engineering Education, online first publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-020-00022-z
Rimbey, B. (2017). Act like the leader you want to be. Stanford Graduate School of Business
Seppänen, S., Toivanen, T., Makkonen, T., Jääskeläinen, I. P., Anttonen, M., & Tiippana, K. (2020). Effects of improvisation training on student teachers' behavioral, neuroendocrine, and psychophysiological responses during the Trier Social Stress Test. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 6(3), 356-380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-020-00145-1
Toivanen, T., Komulainen, K., & Ruismäki, H. (2011). Drama education and improvisation as a resource of teacher student's creativity. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 12, 60-69.
Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2004). Theatrical improvisation: Lessons for organizations. Organization Studies, 25(5), 727-749. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840604042412
Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2005). Improvisation and innovative performance in teams. Organization Science, 16(3), 203-224. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0126
Watson, K. (2011). Serious play: Teaching medical skills with improvisational theater techniques. Academic Medicine, 86(10), 1260-1265. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0b013e31822cf858