Arts as a Tool for Learning Across the Curriculum: A pilot project

Sharmistha Das, Yvonne Dewhurst, Donald Gray

School of Education University of Aberdeen

British Educational Research Association (BERA) 2009

STNE

increasing creativity learning in partnership

interconnected learning

inclusive approach

ATLAC

New Professional Culture New Framework for Continuous Learning

Teacher for a New EraNew Learning Environment

STNE and ATLAC

Policy Context • Global• European• UK

– All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education. (1999)– Creativity in Education (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2001)– National Priorities (Scottish Executive, 2001)– Determined to Succeed (Scottish Executive, 2002)– Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Executive, 2004)– Final Report of the Cultural Commission (Scottish Executive, 2005)– Emerging Good Practice in Promoting Creativity. (HMIE, 2006)– How Good is our School? The Journey to Excellence (HMIE, 2006)– Skills for Scotland :A Lifelong Skills Strategy (Scottish Government

2007)– Improving Enterprise in Education (HMIE, 2008)

Curriculum for Excellence

Successful Learnerswith:enthusiasm and motivation for learningdetermination to reach high standards of achievementopenness to new thinking and ideas and able to:use literacy, communication and numeracy skillsuse technology for learningthink creatively and independentlylearn independently and as part of a groupmake reasoned evaluationslink and apply different kinds of learning in new situations.

Confident Individualswith:self-respecta sense of physical, mental and emotional well-beingsecure values and beliefsambition and able to:relate to others and manage themselvespursue a healthy and active lifestylebe self-awaredevelop and communicate their own beliefs and view of the worldlive as independently as they canassess risk and make informed decisions.

Responsible Citizenswith:respect for otherscommitment to participate responsibly in political, economic, social and cultural life and able to:develop knowledge and understanding of the world and Scotland's place in itunderstand different beliefs and culturesmake informed choices and decisionsevaluate environmental, scientific and technological issuesdevelop informed, ethical views of complex issues.

Effective Contributorswith:an enterprising attituderesilienceself-reliance and able to:communicate in different ways and in different settingswork in partnership and in teamstake the initiative and leadapply critical thinking in new contextscreate and developsolve problems.

Philosophy

• Interdisciplinarity (e.g. Petrie, 1992; Ivanitskaya et al, 2002; Klein, 2004)

• Creativity (e.g. Creativity in Education, 2001)

• ‘Holistic education’

Pedagogy, cognition and creativity

• The creative learner- divergent and convergent thinking

• The role of interdisciplinary learning • Understanding learning in three domains:

- cognitive- social

- affective• Creativity -thinking and feeling

Multiple Intelligence (Gardner, 1993) Emotional Intelligence (Goleman, 1994)

Intervention and methods

• ATLAC input in the BEd and PGDE programmes

• ATLAC and action research (Carr & Kemmis, 1986)

• Data gathered- 34 interviews with the students, tutors and artists

- 37 semi-structured (classroom) observations

- pupil questionnaire

Selective emerging findings

• Curriculum, pedagogy and creativity

- reinforcement of subject knowledge

- developing generic life-long learning skills

- pupils’ level of engagement (link)

Selective emerging findings

• Inclusive practice

“…it got everyone involved, because you were incorporating different areas of activities, like more thinking, …different children’s learning…styles, and children want to get more involved because it’s more practical, it’s more fun, it’s not just sitting at their desk doing all written work.” (BEd3 interview)

“…everybody said to me ‘Oh! The boys won’t want to dance’… the boys were fantastic because it’s physical and they don’t have any kind of inhibition... In P4, …as well the boys really surprised me how artistic they were in their movements. They weren’t just running about and were really playing with the space and pattern and dynamic, it’s good.” (PGDE interview)

Selective emerging findings

• ATLAC and Curriculum for Excellence (CfE)

The interdisciplinary learning approach created wider scope for skills development in the cognitive, affective as well as social domains.

“… If the student teachers are happy to allow children freedom to be creative, they are not imposing barriers that may help build confidence in the children, building self-esteem, and therefore enabling them to be much more creative, which I think would link on to them... that creativity helping them become much more successful learners. Responsible citizens… effective contributors, well if you are creative and willing to problem solve you are more likely to be helping out and helping each other so lots of team work going on. Sharing ideas and learning from each other, ehm, back to the responsible citizens…” (BED3 Tutor interview)

Emerging Themes

Beginning teachers nurturing creativity:- Planning- ‘Fun’ and ‘learning’- Holistic learning- Interdisciplinary learning- Catering for differing learning styles and needs

Some thoughts…

…a really good outcome is something that reflects a good process…which…I believe in the art world, if your process is good then your outcome will be good.” (Artist interview, 7th June 2008)

* A ‘process-driven’ pedagogy or a ‘product-driven’ pedagogy?

* ‘creative teaching’ and ‘teaching for creativity’