Dance in Teacher Education: Bodily Aesthetic Experience as described by Physical- and Music Education Student Teachers and their Teachers

Author(s):

Kristine Høeg Karlsen(presenting / submitting)Birgitte Husebye Nina Torhaug

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 10 A, Non-traditional Approaches to Teacher Education: Dance, Narrative and Disruptive Pedagogical Approaches

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-25

15:30-17:00

Room:

NM-G107

Chair:

Sandra Girbés-Peco

Contribution

Creation involves doing, making or bringing something into being (Juell and Norskog, 2006, p.107). Being part of creative processes influences one’s own development, self-understanding and ability to control one’s own life. According to Juell and Norskog (2006, p.107), this ability is precisely what makes the human being unique and admirable. Creative processes also give awareness of who you are in a complex world, bringing enlightenment. This study focuses on ‘creative dance’ in teacher-education, interpreted as an aesthetic activity in which those involved are given relatively great freedom to shape their own expressive movement, as indicated by Jenssen (1987). Aesthetic learning-processes integrate sensual, emotional and bodily experiences with cognitive learning and self-realisation processes (Sæbø, 2009). Engelsrud (2006) asserts that this may create a feeling of being present in our own bodies – an important factor in understanding ourselves and our surroundings (p.123). An interdisciplinary workshop gives student teachers of music and physical education, and teacher-educators, the opportunity to explore their own and others’ bodily expression based on three poems written and recited by Erling Kittelsen, one of Norway’s most respected poets, dealing with the unknown and being different. The overarching goal of this study is to enhance competence in the multicultural aspects of teacher education, by using the body and non-verbal expressions as a starting point for dialogue, awareness and understanding of one another and of the differences that exist. The study is based on the fundamental idea that non-verbal communication can be a door-opener for people’s emotional, aesthetic and physical encounters. The study is a sub-project under Flerspråklig oppvekst og utdanning (Multilingual childhood and education), a partnership programme for institutions in the Oslofjord Alliance (OFA).

The new 2010 framework plan for primary and lower secondary teacher education stipulates that all student teachers shall be able to “make provision for aesthetic development, experience and awarenessˮ (Ministry of Education, 2010), while at the same time practical-aesthetic subjects are no longer compulsory in teacher-education. This means that students who do not choose to specialise in practical-aesthetic subjects must acquire relevant knowledge and skills through other subjects as well as pedagogics, which is compulsory. Based on an analysis of the pedagogics course description at ten university colleges in Norway, artistic and aesthetic learning processes generally receive little or no attention, which concurs with our own experiences as educators in primary and lower secondary education. In recent years, several researchers have expressed concern that so many student teachers acquire few or no skills in creative teaching methods through their training for the primary and lower secondary level (Bamford, 2012). Moen (2011) also criticises the lack of attention to bodily experiences and self-reflection, pointing out that the relatively conservative views on their subject held by physical education student teachers are little changed (Moen, 2011). We aim to investigate the perceptions and experiences of student teachers and teacher-educators when participating in a workshop in which they are to create their own expressive movements based on the poems recited. The study is also designed to give participants a pedagogical tool for facilitating interdisciplinary and aesthetic knowledge processes in learning arenas. The following research question have been chosen: What perceptions and experiences do students and educators acquire when they participate in aesthetic knowledge processes, what are their attitudes to these processes generally and to dance in particular, and what transfer value to primary and lower secondary education do they see?

Method

The study employs a qualitative approach and is based on a social constructivist view whereby meaning depends on context, and knowledge is a social construction (Creswell, 2013). This view is grounded on the assumption that each and every one of us attempts to understand and create meaning in and about the world we live in, based on our own experiences. Different situations result in different experiences, and therefore, according to Hoel (1998), also different frameworks for thinking, learning and acting (p. 117). The point of departure for this study is a specific situation in which student teachers and teacher-educators gain experience of knowledge processes related to bodily aesthetics at the intersection of dance, movement and literature. The study has selected a design based on hermeneutic phenomenology. The sample consists of two groups of informants connected to a teacher education at a university college in the eastern part of southern Norway. The first group consists of fourth-year students in Teacher Education for Grades 1-7 and 5-10 in two specialisations – Music and Physical Education. The second group consists of their teachers in the Teacher Education. In order to acquire access to the informants’ lifeworld and their immediate and mediated experiences, open focus group interviews were conducted after the workshop. In the course of the study we kept individual logs where we noted thoughts and reflections on the issues raised by the study and the results. We based our analysis of the data on Creswell’s overarching framework for qualitative analysis. The constant comparative method of grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2015) was employed in our efforts to code the data. The method, as used by Postholm (2010, p. 87) gave us good tools for understanding the informants’ experiences with the expression of bodily aesthetics, which are then interpreted in the light of Dewey’s (1934) understanding of the aesthetic experience and Merleau-Ponty’s (1994) phenomenological notion of the body.

Expected Outcomes

Preliminary analysis seems to strengthen our assumption that both students and teachers lack what Dewey (1934) terms aesthetic competence. Attention is generally addressed to the cognitive processes and to the interpretation of the poems, while participants struggle with the aesthetic bodily process to construct their own expressive movement. They rarely draw on bodily experiences that affect them subjectively (see Merleau-Ponty, 1994). Our analysis demonstrates that the informants are unfamiliar with using bodily expression, nor do they believe that they have the knowledge or skills needed to create movement and dance, which may explain why they struggle to engage with the creative process. The study finds that over half the teacher educators enjoyed the physical work. Like most of the student teachers, the other half found that the work was difficult and challenging, but nevertheless all the informants shared the feeling of a positive fellowship. By observing the dances others had created, the informants discovered that there was no right or wrong way of expressing movement. They became a little more open and the experience acquired what Dewey (1934) describes as an aesthetic quality. If we compare teachers’ and students’ attitudes to using bodily-aesthetic knowledge processes in primary and lower secondary education, a relatively large difference between the groups is identified. The teachers agree that such processes are both valuable in themselves and important in light of the purpose of the training, the analysis shows a somewhat more nuanced picture when it comes to the students. The music students are inquisitive and open to using these kinds of creative processes in school. The physical education students have a more reserved attitude to the inclusion of dance, confirming Moen’s (2011) findings.

References

Bamford, A. (2012). Kunst-og kulturopplæring i Norge 2010/2011: sammendrag på norsk av kartleggingen "Arts and cultural education in Norway". Bodø: Nasjonalt senter for kunst og kultur i opplæringen. Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2015). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage publications. Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. The Journal of Philosophy, 31(10), 275-276. Engelsrud, G. (2006). Hva er kropp: Universitetsforlaget. Hoel, T. L. (1998). Læring og sosial praksis i klasserommet. In K. Klette (Ed.), Klasseromsforskning-på norsk. Oslo: Ad Notam, Gyldendal. Jenssen, R. (1987). Dans som fag i skolen. Kroppsøving, 8, 2-6. Juell, E., & Norskog, T.-J. (2006). Å løpe mot stjernene: om estetisk dannelse, kreativitet og skapende prosesser: Fagbokforlaget. Kunnskapsdepartementet. (2010). Forskrift om rammeplan for grunnskolelærerutdanningene for 1.–7. trinn og 5.–10. trinn. Oslo: Kunnskapsdepartementet. Merleau – Ponty, M. (1994). Kroppens fenomenologi. Pax forlag, Oslo Moen, K. M. (2011). "Shaking or stirring?": a case-study of physical education teacher education in Norway. (PhD), Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo. Postholm, M. B. (2010). Kvalitativ metode: en innføring med fokus på fenomenologi, etnografi og kasusstudier. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Sæbø, A. B. (2009). Drama og elevaktiv læring: En studie av hvordan drama svarer på undervisnings-og læringsprosessens didaktiske utfordringer. (PhD), Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet (NTNU), Trondheim.

Author Information

Kristine Høeg Karlsen (presenting / submitting)

Østfold University College

Faculty of Education

Halden

Birgitte Husebye

Østfold University College, Norway

Nina Torhaug