ABSTRACT
This chapter fleshes the concept out and then illustrates it in detail in a sample one-class pedagogical design. Etymologically and originally, a scenario was a brief synopsis of an event or a series of scenes or events posted backstage in a theatrical production to guide the performers and stagehands. The practice originated in the commedia dell’arte form that developed in Italian carnivals in the seventeenth century, where the action was mostly by professional actors playing stock figures. Pedagogically, then, scenarios are far more than general discussion topics or theoretical problems. They are patterns or designs for specific, structured, interactive engagement. In this sense, they are indeed possibilities, to return to Vocabulary.com’s definition, but specifically possibilities that embody a process. In Clark’s programmed learning scenarios, students’ initial choices have consequences that make their own demands for further information gathering and choices.
