Transforming Pedagogies: Encouraging Pre-Service Teachers to Engage the Power of the Arts in Their Approach to Teaching and Learning

Y

16

Preservice Teachers; Case Studies; Transformative Learning; Art Education; Undergraduate Students; Units of Study; Art Activities; Theater Arts; Student Journals; Self Concept; Resistance (Psychology); Reflection; Teacher Educators; Teacher Response; Student Experience; Poetry; Preservice Teacher Education; Foreign Countries

0313-5373

This paper describes and analyses, through the use of case studies, two experiences of transformative learning in an undergraduate arts education unit. Pre-service teachers designed and engaged with arts-based curriculum activities, created their own artwork, participated in a modified production of The Tempest and kept a reflective journal. These activities constituted the data which was analysed using creative frameworks such as case writing, script writing, narrative analysis and found poetry as ways of developing richer understanding of pre-service teachers' self-perceptions and self-awareness as teachers and as potential artists. The stories explored here uncover two different ways of encountering the challenges of learning--resistance and struggle--and highlight the significance of the educator's response to individual student needs, and the value of reflective skills in shifting pre-service teachers' cultural, political and institutional understandings.

As Provided

61

2016

EJ1102039