Artful Dodgers: an arts education research project in early education settings

Artful Dodgers is an arts education project developed by two artists and delivered in two early years settings located in two areas of urban disadvantage. It is a music and visual arts programme designed and implemented with early years teachers of children aged 3–5 years. It explored whether the provision of high-quality arts experiences could enhance children’s emerging literacy and numeracy. A novel ‘artist in(formed) residency’ model was developed within a unique arts education research design. Piloting a tripartite relationship between researchers, artists and early years teachers, this study was situated within a qualitative action research paradigm, with both artists located in both services weekly over a 12-week period. The evaluation of the programme indicates changes in pedagogical planning and style in the early years teachers over the period of the artists’ residency. Their language became more reflective and their practice incorporated a wider and richer range of materials; there was greater evidence of more child-led activities and unstructured play opportunities over the duration of the study. The data suggest that children’s social, cooperative and communication skills were enhanced. Recommendations have implications for the professional development of artists and teachers working in early years settings.     

5x5x5=Creativity: Art as a Transformative Practice

The purpose of this article is to share ideas from 5x5x5=creativity, a research initiative established in Bath (UK) in 2000, with the aim of developing and embedding a creative and reflective pedagogy in schools and early years settings. 5x5x5=creativity research, in partnership with schools, educators, artists, creative professionals, mentors and cultural centres, aims to raise the aspirations and improve the life chances of children and young people as creative learners. In our research we want to develop creative reflective practice and influence systemic educational change. This research defends the special role of the arts in developing a more flexible concept of education through curiosity and creativity, together with the capacity for the arts for allows ‘possibility thinking’ through a creative and critical pedagogy. In this article we analyse the impact of the artists’ involvement on the development of a creative, reflective pedagogy in schools. As both artists and educators we believe it is necessary to challenge current orthodoxies and establish creative and critical thinking at the heart of learning for both children and adults.     

Creating contexts for talk: the influence of school-based creative arts projects on children's language

This article draws on data from two recent research studies of children's language and literacy development in the context of their work in school‐based creative arts projects. Using observations of children (ages 3 to 11) and teachers at work, the article examines the ways in which the activities in such projects open up opportunities for children to talk with each other and with adults by generating a ‘workshop’ atmosphere. Children's authentic and wide‐ranging talk in creative arts projects encompasses personal, social, imaginary and real‐world themes which, we argue, is rare in other curriculum contexts. As schools are encouraged to develop ‘creative partnerships’ with artists and arts organisations, the article highlights the role of the teacher in observing and promoting these experiences as occasions for children's language development.     

5×5×5 = Creativity in the Early Years

5×5×5 ? Creativity in the Early Years has involved five early years' settings, five artists and five cultural centres working in partnership to support young children (3–6 years) in their exploration, communication and expression of creative ideas. This year‐long research project has been inspired by the approach to education and the creative arts in early years' settings in Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. The three aims have been evaluated; they were: to demonstrate ways in which creativity and innovation can be fostered in and with young children; to influence early years' educational practice by establishing creativity as an essential foundation of early learning; and to share findings as widely as possible, creating a legacy for the future. This article examines the collaborative processes between artists, educators and cultural centres as they worked with young children using a creative and reflective cycle. The underpinning principles and the role of professional development have been essential to the success of the project. Findings show that careful observations and documentation of children's words will provide insight into their ideas and understandings. As adults it is our role to facilitate and support children's depth of learning. By respecting children and taking time to make observations and connections with the children's thinking, we can refine our own efforts in supporting their learning more effectively.     

The collaborative apprenticeship model: Situated professional development within school settings

Professional learning is a social enterprise where peers rely on the expertise and support of one another to adopt innovative practices. Reciprocal interactions in a community of practice, where teachers take responsibility for each other's learning and development, may provide an effective means of supporting situated professional learning. We propose a collaborative apprenticeship model featuring reciprocal interactions as an approach to promote professional development, encouraging peer-teachers to serve as modelers and coaches of strategies and ideas aimed at improving instruction. collaborative apprenticeship is designed to help teachers learn and implement new teaching skills and strategies through four development phases, beginning with implementation of best practices from a mentor to the development of their own. Teachers, in turn, contribute new ideas to their teaching environment and become future mentors in order to sustain skills and strategies across a community of teachers. In addition to the model, we discuss various influences related to affect, beliefs, environment, culture, cognition, and personality that characterize the nature of reciprocal interactions in order to stimulate collaborative apprenticeship.     

Apprenticing for creativity in the improvisation lesson: a qualitative enquiry

Effective teacher-student learning relationships can propel students to advanced ways of knowing and acting. In much arts based higher education learning, dynamic and fluid interplay of cognitive, meta-cognitive and aspirational aims and goals are prevalent and passed to students in a learning relationship that can be described as a cognitive apprenticeship. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to explore four conservatoire teachers and their musical improvisation students. Investigating in the lesson experiences reveal pedagogical applications of modeling, scaffolding, coaching, reflection and developing mastery and expertise in students. A cognitive apprenticeship model can provide a framework for teachers to understand how to develop increased student control, ownership of learning, and contextually situated instructional strategies that brings cognitive and creative thinking, action and reflection to the forefront of learning and teaching. The study reveals how educators can develop trajectories of learning and problem-solving concepts that draw students into a culture of expert practice.     

Demonstrating a situated learning approach for in-service teacher education in rural India: The Quality Education Programme in Rajasthan

Recent educational policy in India has repositioned elementary school teachers as active, reflective practitioners, not just ‘deliverers’ of syllabus material. This article examines innovations in teacher support in Rajasthan's government schools through the ‘Quality Education Program.’ Drawing on qualitative research of collaborative learning processes, the paper discusses two support strategies used by the program: professional dialogic interactions and modeling of pedagogic strategies, which paralleled introductory or developmental phases within a ‘collaborative apprenticeship model’ of teacher professional development. In doing so, the paper outlines the potential of situated, collaborative approaches for Indian in-service teacher education and education development reform, more broadly.     

Integrating on-line technology into teaching activities to enhance student and teacher learning in a New Zealand primary school

Continuing emphasis given to computer technology resourcing in schools presents potential for web-based initiatives which focus on quality arts teaching and learning, as ways to improve arts outcomes for all students. An arts e-learning collaborative research project between specialist on-line teacher/researchers and generalist primary teachers was designed to investigate student learning, quality teaching, and implementation factors. Constructionist-based teaching activities using on-line technology were designed to engage students in a learner-centred e-learning environment where students and teachers collaborated to produce a media and learning artefact. A case study highlights the outcomes for four students who transferred learnt drama skills to other classroom contexts. This model has potential to provide drama learning for students and professional development for primary generalist teachers, contingent on the availability of rigorously planned and well-resourced programmes.     

Arts education and creativity enhancement in young children in Hong Kong

The present study aimed at assessing Hong Kong young children’s gains in creativity and their teachers’ application of arts education after a one-year artists-teachers collaborative arts education project that involves various art forms (i.e. drama, visual arts and integrated). Participants included 790 young children, 217 parents and 65 teachers in seven kindergartens and nurseries. Measures included the Test for Creative Thinking–Drawing Production, Story-Telling Test (STT), the subscales of parent-rated creativity, communication and motivational characteristics, and the adapted Scale of Application of Arts in the Classroom. Among the three art forms, children in the visual arts group demonstrated highest gains in verbal creativity as evaluated by the STT. Based on parents’ report, there were significant differences in children’s communication characteristics across the three art forms. Significant differences across art forms were also found in teachers’ confidence in teaching arts to 3–4?years old and their perception of arts for arts sake. Both teachers and students take advantage of the professional and artistic input and guidance of practising artists in arts appreciation and production. Implications and limitations were discussed.     

联结学习设计与学习分析:教师技术创新教学的突破口——访西班牙巴利亚多利德大学雅尼斯·迪米特里亚迪斯教授

雅尼斯·迪米特里亚迪斯(Yannis Dimitriadis)教授任职西班牙巴利亚多利德大学远程信息技术工程系,兼任信息通讯技术与教学研究中心GSIC/EMIC研究团队负责人,主持和参与了五十多项国际国内科研项目,在教育技术顶级期刊发表了八十多篇学术论文,组织了多次学习科学高端国际学术专题研讨会和工作坊。研究方向包括学习设计、计算机支持协作学习、学习分析等。本次访谈着重于介绍学习设计的核心思想,即无论外部学习技术如何变化,“教学法为王”的原则在教育教学情境中的主导地位不能变。因此,人工智能时代的学习技术仍需为创新教学服务。从教师角度看,联结学习设计与学习分析为教师技术创新教学提供了突破口。一方面,学习设计为学习分析提供理论引导,便于教师精准知晓学习者在不同学习活动中的学习情况,另一方面,学习分析为优化学习设计提供基于数据驱动的方法指导,便于教师靶向式更新学习活动设计。践行学习设计与学习分析双向互动的发展路径,需要建立研究者与教师合作设计机制,引导教师参与学习设计;推进隐性设计知识在学习设计中的应用;关注教师探究学习者学习过程。本次访谈对新时代背景下信息技术与教学应用的深度融合提供了新的理念和方法指导。     

Encounters of the Traditional Kind: Reflections on the In‐Service Teacher Training of Traditional Filipino Arts

This article presents the second segment of a qualitative study on the integration of traditional arts in tertiary level art and design education in the Philippines. It is focused on the experience of artist‐teachers as participants in an in‐service teacher training programme that aimed to prepare the teachers for the trial integration of traditional Filipino arts in art and design courses. Taking the view of the participants, journals written by the artist‐teachers were sourced for their reflections about their encounter with traditional Filipino artists during field visits. This phase of the study takes the form of action research as it involves the participants in gathering data that could inform the methods and content of the learning of traditional Filipino arts in the schools of art and design. The findings reveal that artist‐teachers acknowledge the traditional artist as a valuable source of traditional knowledge and expertise. They also recognise their own essential role in the transmission of learning between the traditional artists and the students. The prerequisites of the course take the artist‐teachers beyond teaching in the classroom and extend their tasks to research.     

Creativity in Artistic Education: Introducing Artists into Primary Schools

Despite a more prominent role of arts education in the school curriculum, artistic creativity does not occur to a great extent in primary school practice. More opportunities for teachers to strengthen their know‐how in the field of artistic creativity can therefore be considered important. Arts education projects focus on pupils' development of creativity by means of introducing artists with their divergent working methods into primary schools. Beside fostering pupils' creative openness and skills, arts education organisations aim to transfer artistic enthusiasm to teachers in each project. Collaboration with artists can encourage teachers' artistic creative work. New working methods, techniques or ways of experimenting are more likely to be adopted in daily teaching practice when the project duration consists of several years. However, most projects are short‐lived and the means for a long‐term project policy are limited. Consequently, results in the area of sustainable outcomes concerning artistic creative work with teachers are limited. To create a long‐term view, the availability of financial resources is an important condition in order to realise a mentality change towards artistic creativity in education. Finally, continuing debate with several participants about making artistic creative work sustainable remains necessary.     

Ethos of Ambiguity: Artist Teachers and the Transparency Exclusion Paradox

Addressing changes in conditions for practitioners that can be related to education policy in England and Wales since 2010, this article presents issues faced by teachers of art and design and their responses in practice. The current insistence on transparency in education emerges through policy that audits performativity, in a limiting skills bank. Practitioners in art and design are particularly affected by what I term ‘the transparency‐exclusion paradox’, as they battle to maintain the subject area and are ‘othered’ by the English Baccalaureate and Progress 8. I will discuss an emergent ‘ethos of ambiguity’ among artist‐teachers and contemporary artists, with a theoretical basis informed by Beauvoir and Foucault. Empirical data from research participants will be evidenced, to explore strategies of response in inclusive social practice. This article adds to literature that considers the effects of policy in implementation and it contributes to research on creative expressions of ambiguity in the arts.     

The influence of the Creative Learning Assessment (CLA) on children's learning and teachers' teaching

This paper describes the development and use of the Creative Learning Assessment (CLA) as a means of evidencing, supporting and promoting children's creative learning in arts‐based contexts. The research team at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) worked with a group of teachers in inner‐city Lambeth primary schools to develop an assessment system to record the impact of a creative curriculum on children's achievement and to enable schools to justify a broad‐based provision. The Assessing Learning and Communication in Creative Learning Contexts project, funded by CfBT Education Trust (CfBT), aimed to offer teachers a view of creative learning development and a framework for teacher assessment. It set out to provide a close focus on the learner and a valuable source of information for curriculum planning. This article discusses the effect of working with the CLA on children's learning and on teachers' practice through a case study of one project school, and the implications for schools and classrooms from the perspectives of the researcher and the teacher.     

Conversational Pedagogy: Exploring Interactions Between a Teaching Artist and Young Learners During Visual Arts Experiences

In many early childhood classrooms, visual arts experiences occur around a communal arts table. A shared workspace allows for spontaneous conversation and exploration of the art-making process of peers and teachers. In this setting, conversation can play an important role in visual arts experiences as children explore new media, skills, and ideas. The investigation of informal conversations during visual arts experiences will serve to improve understandings of the cognitive, imaginative, social, and affective components of young children’s creative endeavors. In particular, the exploration of conversational discourse contributes to understandings of conversation as an integral component of pedagogy in early childhood arts. As an exploration of the nature of conversation as pedagogy in early arts experiences, I present a ‘telling case’ (Mitchell 1984) featuring the collaborative work between a teaching artist and two young students as they explore and create together. The findings from this research have important implications for early childhood and art education teacher educators striving to develop supportive educational practices that will assist early childhood teachers in promoting supportive visual arts practices.     

Peered and tiered learning: action research as creative cultural pedagogy

This article presents and problematizes a peered and tiered model of creative and educational knowledge transfer piloted in Culture Shack, a community-based arts education program in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on Eisner and Sefton-Green and Soep, I argue the value of this approach as a potential new pedagogical strategy in both secondary learning and teacher education courses, refocused on collaborative and process learning rather than outcome-focused pedagogy and assessment. Because education is a key factor for successful integration of those from refugee-background and emerging communities, self-reliance and creative problem-solving can be enhanced through arts programs such as Culture Shack that increase participation in continuing, collaborative educational pathways. In this paper I argue that this peered and tiered collaborative learning model offers possibilities for working cross-sectorally, interdisciplinarily, and interculturally for effective pedagogical outcomes and for the value of arts-based action research-as-pedagogy.     

Apprenticeship for teaching: professional development issues surrounding the collaborative relationship between teachers and paraeducators

A sociocultural approach to teacher education supports an apprenticeship model in which social relationships mediate learning through collaborative meaningful activity. This model can be found in the collaborative relationship between paraeducators and teachers. Within this model, the roles of learners and more competent others can potentially be interchangeable as paraeducators, often members of the communities, assist teachers in developing culturally responsive instruction. This paper reports on the relationship between Latino paraeducators and the teachers with whom they worked. Findings suggest that collaboration is impacted by power differences, limited opportunity for interaction, and teacher constraints.     

Sparking the imagination: creative experts working collaboratively with children,teachers and parents to enhance educational opportunities

This article suggests that child poverty and unequal educational opportunity are inextricably linked. It is argued that even from an early age children from poorer backgrounds are disadvantaged in terms of their preparedness to thrive in the formal school environment. Educational achievement is strongly influenced by attitudes and much research suggests that children from less advantaged backgrounds feel less in control at school and lack confidence in performing traditional school tasks. The ‘Sparking the Imagination’ project set out to try on a small scale to co‐ordinate efforts in raising educational opportunity for children from disadvantaged backgrounds by focusing on the context in which teaching and learning takes place. It was also deemed necessary to introduce measures to raise the motivation and aspirations of all involved and this was achieved through the engagement of children, teachers, parents and creative experts in collaborative learning within the classroom.     

The‘Real Books’Approach: Is Apprenticeship a Weak Analogy?

If, when considering reading, we treat apprenticeship as a suggestive, rather than exact, analogy, there are useful insights to be drawn from traditional apprenticeship. Two features particularly hold messages for how we help children learn to read. First, the movement in traditional apprenticeship from observation, through coaching, to practice can act as a model for reading instruction. It highlights, for instance, that a‘real books’approach is not laissez-faire, that coaching is required and that, in a cognitive area, part of this coaching involves making explicit to the learner processes which are usually internalised in skilled performance. The implications for teachers are radical. A number of traditional practices, such as hearing children read as a kind of ritual, almost a magical laying on of hands, require major revision. Second, a close look at traditional apprenticeship provides evidence for the importance of the social context in which learning takes place. Again teachers of beginning readers can use the model of traditional apprenticeship to reflect on their own school/classroom practices, to see whether they help create a culture of expert practice for instance, and offer the opportunity for learners to realise the value of their increasing skills. Practices such as peer-tutor schemes and the increasing involvement of parents in reading teaching illustrate that many schools are already working out the implications of this understanding. If teachers are more aware of those areas of relative weakness and strength in the apprenticeship analogy they will have a more principled basis for using the approach in their teaching and a more stout defence against those who might argue that if the analogy is weak, a‘real books’approach is to be avoided.     

Moving Fiercely Linear Preservice Teachers into the Joys of Integrating Art in the Classroom: An Artist Residency in a University Early Childhood and Special Education Program

How can artist residencies for preservice teachers plant seeds for future classrooms? Teacher educators and a teaching artist describe a two-tiered residency in an early childhood and special education program that transformed preservice teachers' attitudes toward visual art and arts integration. Findings are based on teaching artist and instructor reflections as well as a qualitative analysis of student journal entries. Preservice teachers who had no prior art training and were resistant toward abstract painting began to enjoy it and appreciate the value of art for children's learning. They came to recognize visual art as a tool to support social development and children with special needs, understood the importance of process in children's art experiences, and considered ways to integrate art throughout the curriculum. We urge teacher educators and teaching artists to incorporate artist residencies into teacher education programs to prepare future teachers to integrate the arts into the classrooms of tomorrow.