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.     

‘I don't have time to be this busy.’ Exploring the concerns of secondary school teachers towards inclusive education

The trend towards inclusion in mainstream Australian schools has seen the numbers of students with disabilities educated in regular schools grow significantly. This trend has been supported by legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act and the Education Standards. For inclusion to be successful, a number of factors are vital and teacher support for the programme is crucial. While there is research in the area of teachers’ concerns at the primary school level, little research has been conducted at the secondary school level. Research in this area is needed as the secondary school has differing factors from the primary sector that need to be explored.     

Mapping the Steps toward Basic Understanding of Scientific Inquiry

Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS 1993) lists for four gradelevels the steps by which students might achieve science literacy before leaving high school. These steps and the conceptual connections among them are now being mapped to suggest where anyone idea or skill comes from, what it is connected to, and where it leads. A set of 49 such strand maps appears in Atlas of Science Literacy (AAAS 2001). This paperdescribes strand maps in general and examinesthree draft maps titled Evidence and Reasoning, Scientific Investigations, and Scientific Theories, which together represent one section of Benchmarks Chapter 1, on scientific inquiry. The maps do not prescribe any particular curriculum, but can aid in planning a variety of curricula, analyzing instructional materials, assessing student understanding, and can be used in professional development for teachers.     

In-service teachers’ attitudes,concerns, efficacy and intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms: an international comparison of Australian and Italian teachers

The paper examined whether in-service teachers from Australia to Italy differ in terms of their attitudes, concerns, efficacy beliefs and intentions to include learners with disabilities in their classrooms. An attempt was also made to determine predictors of the participants’ intentions to include learners with disabilities in their classrooms. Participants for the study consisted of 153 Australian and 156 Italian in-service teachers. Results revealed that Italian teachers had significantly more positive attitudes, lower degree of concerns and higher level of intentions to implement inclusion in their classrooms. In both countries, attitudes and efficacy emerged as significant predictors of participants’ intentions to include learners with disabilities in regular classrooms. Reasons that could explain differences in the teachers’ beliefs from the two countries are explained using historical-cultural and legal frameworks prevalent in Australia and Italy. Implications of the findings for policy-makers, university teachers and researchers are presented that may have relevance in guiding the implementation of inclusive education in Australia, Italy and beyond.     

The Value of Fieldwork in Life and Environmental Sciences in the Context of Higher Education: A Case Study in Learning About Biodiversity

Fieldwork is assumed by most practitioners to be an important if not essential component of a degree level education in the environmental sciences. However, there is strong evidence that as a result of a wide range of pressures (academic, financial and societal) fieldwork is in decline in the UK and elsewhere. In this paper we discuss the value of fieldwork in a higher education context and present the results of a case study which illustrates its value to student learning and the wider student experience. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to compare the impact of two learning tasks upon the affective and cognitive domains of students. We designed two tasks. One task that included fieldwork, and required students to collect organisms from the field and make labelled drawings of them, and one task that omitted the fieldwork and simply required drawing of specimens that the students had not collected. We evaluated the students’ experience through structured and semi-structured questionnaires and written exercises. Students did not perceive the two tasks as being equivalent to one another. They reported that they enjoy fieldwork and value it (in the contexts of their learning at university, life-long learning, and in relation to their career aspirations) and felt that they learn more effectively in the field. Our students were better able to construct a taxonomic list of organisms that they had collected themselves, better able to recall the structural detail of these organisms and were better able to recall the detail of an ecological sampling methodology that they had personally carried out in the field rather than one that a tutor had described to them in a classroom setting. Our case study supports the growing body of evidence that fieldwork is an important way of enhancing undergraduate learning and highlights some key areas for future research.     

Can Wii Engage College-Level Learners? Use of Commercial Off-the-Shelf Gaming in an Introductory Statistics Course

Technological advancements and growing dependence on media outlets as sources of information compete for the attention of individuals born in a rapidly expanding digital age. As a result, educators using traditional, nondigital teaching methods struggle with keeping students engaged in the classroom. The present study assessed the extent to which a digitally enhanced learning environment can improve student involvement in learning. A traditional behavioral statistics lecture was supplemented with Nintendo Wii video gaming to increase student content knowledge comprehension and engagement with course material. A mixed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that those in the video gaming condition improved significantly more than those receiving traditional lecture only. This research suggests that students can learn difficult conceptual material (i.e., statistics) through more novel, interactive teaching methods.     

Re–valuing the role of images in reviewing picture books

This paper discusses the narrative role of images in three prize–winning children’s books: ‘The Rabbits’ by John Marsden and Shaun Tan; ‘Joseph had a Little Overcoat’ by Simms Taback; and ‘The House that Jack Built’ by Gavin Bishop. It is argued that the contribution of images to interpretive possibilities of the narrative are typically not sufficiently addressed in reviewing picture books. In dealing with this aspect of images in picture books, an approach to ‘reading images’ as described in the book of that title by Gunther Kress and Thao van Leeuwen is suggested as a productive resource for reviewers and teachers.     

Relationships Between First and Second Language Phonological Processing Skills and Reading in Chinese‐English Speakers living in English‐Speaking Contexts

The relationships between phoneme categorisation, phonological processing, and reading performance were examined in Chinese‐English speaking children in an English‐speaking environment. Second language (L2, i.e., English) phonological processing but not phoneme categorisation was related to L2 reading. First language (L1) oral language skills were related to Chinese reading with L1 phonological processing being related to the Chinese reading task with a strong phonological component (pseudocharacter reading). L1 phoneme categorisation skill was not strongly related to L1 reading. These findings suggest that phonological processing is related to reading tasks with heavy phonological demands, such as reading in an alphabetic orthography or pseudocharacter reading in a nonalphabetic orthography. Exposure to L1 reading might influence processes used by Chinese‐speaking children in an English‐speaking environment.