363 research outputs found
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Mana kupu, the power of words: Exploring creative writing in the primary classroom
No full textTeaching writing is complex, and a number of ideas circulating among schools and teachers often belie the difficulty of how to teach the techniques and processes of writing. I’ve come to believe that authorship is not a passive undertaking and does not originate in the struggle to put something onto the page. Rather it emerges by living with a sense of awareness. It is, in a sense, life work, a consciousness of the significance of our experiences and the impression that they make upon us. These impressions then seek expression and, in turn, we are moved to write. I believe that being moved to write should be the driving force behind our work with young writers in schools. From experience I have seen that inquiry-driven, arts-rich invitations to write, with an emphasis on how the writing will function with respect to an intended audience and purpose, foster a sense of connection, and a respect for diverse opinions and points of view. These undertakings are part of the meaning-making process and pivotally cultivate an ability to think critically and creatively—the essence of learning to be literate. When we see that children are innately curious, we see that our role, as educators, is to foster this sense of wonder. When we begin with inquiry and a shared quest for significance, the journey from the head to the page becomes a process of growing meaning. In this article, I will be sharing a number of stories of practice, where students in a range of contexts were enabled via a range of activities to make such a journey
Enhancing student agency in the primary music classroom through culturally responsive practice
No full textIn Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia work is ongoing to upskill teachers in culturally responsive practice as a way of addressing inequalities for Māori and Aboriginal students (Macfarlane, 2004; Morrison et al., 2019). Through supplementary materials to the New Zealand Curriculum, such as Tātaiako and The Hikairo Schema (New Zealand Ministry of Education & New Zealand Teachers Council, 2011; Rātima et al., 2020), cultural competencies and culturally responsive teaching and learning practices have been schematised. Internationally, student agency has been theorised in the context of addressing inequities in learning outcomes (Toshalis & Nakkula, 2012). Many of the teaching practices embedded in active music-making approaches, such as Orff and Kodály, are characteristically agentic. However, for a number of reasons, specialist teachers in primary schools may be isolated from current educational philosophical trends and imperatives. Drawing on the literatures of culturally responsive practice and student agency, this article identifies themes that resonate with and potentially enhance active music-making in the classroom. Based on years of practice as a classroom teacher and my current role as an Orff-trained primary music specialist, I offer examples of ways music teachers can enhance student agency informed by cultural competencies. These include approaches to group and individual tasks, cross-curricular creative projects, sourcing and curating content and integrating digital learning
“It makes you feel a little bit freer”: Committing to creativity: A hermeneutic phenomenological study of a primary teacher’s use of drama with additional language learners
No full textCreative pedagogies contribute significantly to children’s cognitive, social and linguistic development. This article discusses the drama-based creative literacy practice of an early primary teacher in a high diversity school in Sydney, Australia. Literacy pedagogy blended with drama and role play was shown to aid oracy whilst also adding valuable semiotic support for language learners. Video recordings of this teacher’s lessons formed the basis of a hermeneutic phenomenological study into the affordances of drama in additional language contexts. Findings revealed positive contributions to learner comprehension and engagement. They also indicated that the pressure of an over-crowded curriculum necessitates personal commitment to creative arts pedagogy on the part of the teacher. Despite policy rhetoric promoting creativity as a key capability, creativity itself is seen to be stymied in an educational context heavily prioritising standardisation and assessment. Without systemic support, it is left to motivated, individual teachers to prioritise creative learning experiences in schools
A constructivist approach to music education with DAWs
No full textIncreased interest in music technology education in recent years has prompted music teachers, technology educators and theorists to reconsider both the human and technical processes rendered by creative work in digital sound media. Music technology learning environments range from more structured classroom learning to informal, autodidactic practices, where student identity and creative agency are paramount. However, there is a need to develop more specific teaching and learning strategies that move beyond basic instructional or blended learning environments for digitally literate students (Darlis & Sari, 2021). This chapter discusses common learning practices of Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) users, and the dangers of superimposing conventional music teaching strategies to music technology when the learning style, participatory culture and multimodal affordances are inherently different. This article draws on a recent study involving a constructivist approach with secondary school students in Aoteaora New Zealand via creatively navigating “blocks” in students’ autodidactic processes. Some findings are reported before some initial ideas of how teachers can incorporate aspects of individual identity (e.g., cultural, social, and political contexts) into DAW learning are offered
An introduction to the second Special Issue: The Arts will find a way: Breaking through and moving forward
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Aesthetic inquiry for bicultural arts education in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textThis paper uses an arts-based learning encounter at a marae-based wānanga as a starting point for exploring the potential of aesthetic inquiry to support dynamic and always evolving relationality between people and place. The work of two researchers, Māori writer and scholar Cassandra Barnett and Irish inter-cultural researcher Sharon Todd, is discussed as examples of critical aesthetic inquiries that open new possibilities for relationality between people and place through encounters with artworks. Maxine Greene’s definition of aesthetic inquiry, as distinct from an “arts as connoisseurship” approach, is utilised to encourage a greater awareness among arts educators of the limitations and potential risks of liberal multicultural approaches in arts education. With increasing pressures to fast track the decolonising and indigenising of curriculum in New Zealand education, I discuss the importance of mitigating the risks of uncritically transferring indigenous Māori concepts and material into mainstream classrooms. New insights are offered into how aesthetic inquiry in arts based pedagogy and curriculum can support learners to sit with the complexities that come with a settler-indigenous history
Using drama-rich pedagogies with the episodic pre-text model to improve literacy
No full textSchool Drama Classic is a co-mentoring teacher professional learning programme developed through a partnership between Sydney Theatre Company and the University of Sydney’s School of Education and Social Work. Developed in 2009, this teacher professional learning programme aims to enable primary teachers to develop the expertise and confidence to use drama-rich pedagogy with quality children’s literature to enhance learners’ English and literacy skills. By 2021 it had reached more than 35,000 teachers and students across Australia and more recently in New Zealand. While a growing body of research has explored aspects of the School Drama programme, relatively little focus had centred on student outcomes. This article focuses on one of my doctoral research case studies (Saunders, 2019), a Year 5 class at Gungahlin Public School (pseudonym), a co-educational public school in Sydney’s inner west. A range of data collection methods was employed within this qualitative study, including teacher interview (before, during and after the intervention), student focus groups (during and after the intervention), benchmarking of student literacy (before and after the intervention) and a pre- and post-programme survey for students. Richardson’s (1997) concept of crystallisation was used to analyse the data. The findings suggested positive shifts in student English and literacy outcomes in the selected focus area (inferential comprehension) using drama-rich pedagogy with an episodic pre-text model