Camp Yes And: Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Play

Our camp offers professional learning for educators and other helping professionals in combination with an improv theater summer camp for neurodiverse high school students. Each camp session runs Monday through Friday. Professionals meet from 9 AM to12 PM for professional learning, and they are joined by a group of neurodivergent high school students from 1-4:30 PM each day. Professionals finish the day with a short debrief from 4:30-5 PM each day.

Each morning, professionals have the opportunity to learn and practice:

• Improv-based games and facilitation techniques that can be integrated into a variety of educational and therapeutic contexts
• How to use improv to support academic learning and social communication
• How improv aligns with instructional scaffolding, the Universal Design for Learning framework, and other evidence-based practices that support the creation of optimal learning conditions for all students
• How improv connects to attachment theory, nervous system regulation, self-empowerment, and self-expression frameworks

Each afternoon, students join professionals for an improv summer camp, which gives professionals an opportunity to see improv in action, practice new skills, and receive feedback and coaching as they work with students. The students have a blast while learning improv skills and strengthening both academic and social communication skills. It's a win-win!

Camp Yes And is led and facilitated by our Directors (see below). Professionals are not expected to facilitate or lead; they are at camp to learn and grow! We offer 35 hours of PGPs and other professional licensing CEUs to educators who complete a camp session.

Camp offers professional learning for K-12 educators and other helping professionals, including speech-language pathologists, social workers, occupationals therapists, community-based arts educators, higher education faculty, and anyone else who works in a teaching or helping capacity with youth. Professionals don't need to have prior experience with improv or working with neurodiverse youth.  Professionals attend camp Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM (with a lunch break) for one week.

Neurodiverse high school students are invited to sign up for an afternoon improv theater camp that takes place Monday through Friday from 1-4:30 PM for one week. No prior experience with improv is necessary.

If you have questions about whether Camp Yes And is a good fit for you, get in touch with us! Additional information also can be found in the FAQs below!

Jim Ansaldo, PhD

Jim Ansaldo, PhD, is a Research Scholar at the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, Indiana University Bloomington. For over 20 years, he has conducted research, supported school change efforts, and facilitated teacher professional learning around applied improvisation, coaching and consultation, culturally sustaining pedagogies, curriculum design, and online learning. Jim is a founder and co-director of Camp Yes And. For this work, Jim was honored with a 2017 Certificate of Commendation Award by the Indiana Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Jim trained at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and leads improv-based workshops that support IU scientists, scholars, and health professionals to communicate about their research in clear, vivid, and engaging ways. Jim has worked with faculty at the IU School of Medicine to integrate improv with cognitive behavioral therapy to support youth with anxiety disorders, and he has collaborated with the Alzheimer's Resource Service of IU Health Bloomington Community Health to offer improv workshops for individuals living with dementia, their families, and professional caregivers.

Lacy Alana, LCSW

Lacy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.  She is also an improviser, aerialist, trainer, and educator.  Professionally, Lacy eclectically combines her clinical expertise with her passion for improv theatre and the aerial arts.  Accordingly, she has created several innovative therapeutic and arts programs for at-risk youth, autistic youth and adults, and youth and adults who present with co-morbid mental health challenges.  Additionally, Lacy blends tenets of improvisational theatre with therapeutic pedagogy to provide education for other helping professionals, trainings in corporate settings, and experiential therapy groups that address a wide range of challenges, including eating disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and trauma symptomology. Learn more at yesandbrain.com!

Improvisational theater, or improv, is theater that is made up on the spot! Most or all of a performance is unplanned and unscripted, and the performers create the characters, plot, and setting spontaneously and collaboratively during the moment of performance -- often using at least one suggestion from the audience to get things started.

Though people generally associate improv with comedy, improv is performed in a variety of styles. Improv also is used in film and television to develop characters and brainstorm script and sketch ideas. The field of applied improvisation supports professionals to use improv methods in various non-theatrical fields, including consulting, training, and teaching.

Watch an example improv game here!

Improv is a great way to practice a lot of really useful skills in a super fun way!

For educators, improv helps to create the conditions for optimal learning by developing a climate of safety and risk-taking in the classroom, along with activities that draw heavily on students' prior knowledge and experience. Improv is a flexible and low cost strategy for strengthening academic and social communication skills. For students, improv provides opportunities to have fun, make social connections, and strengthen academic and social communication skills in a fun, affirming, and experiential way.

Watch a video featuring professional and student testimonials here!

Many of our campers come back for years - and several of our campers who have "aged out" of our program return to camp in adult mentorship roles for the campers.