Session Information
27 SES 04 A, CREATIONS: Engendering Creative Science Classrooms
Symposium
Contribution
This symposium will consider research taking place within the CREATIONS H2020-EU funded project (grant number 665917). CREATIONS is a large programme across 11 EU countries with the aim of developing arts-based creative approaches to engender more engaging science classrooms. Within the project, an extensive review of literature and practice has generated a set of eight creative pedagogical features which are used to design teaching and learning plans for 100 different science-arts activities. The 8 features are: Dialogue;Interdisciplinarity; Risk, Immersion and Play; Possibilities; Ethics and Trusteeship; Balance and Navigation; Individual, Collaborative and Communal activities for Change; Empowerment and Agency. The project has included a large quantitative pre- and post- test study to ascertain change in relation to student’s engagement, motivation and creativity across time in relation to the CREATIONS interventions (Schumm & Bogner, 2016). Each of the papers below draw on part of this data set to identify impact over time of the interventions described. In key identified sites in depth qualitative work has also taken place into the processes and journeys through which participants have developed via the 8 features. This symposium contains four papers investigating elements of this research.
Bogner and Sotiriou outline the aims of the CREATIONs project within the burgeoning field of STEAM education in Europe. The project empowers educationists to use creative resources to promote teaching science creatively. Relationships between formal and informal education and scientific research outreach settings (e.g. CERN) are central within this context. A case study presents an arts-enriched inquiry science approach to teach the evolution of birds. Pre and post-tests demonstrate substantial and sustained increase in knowledge.
Mierdel and Bogner intimate that modelling strategies provide benefits which offer multiple ways for understanding science and history. In out-of-school labs 9th graders, combined experimentation and creative model construction, examining DNA. Impacts for model constructing and individual creativity were observed. Cognitive achievement was significantly influenced by the model constructing approach for girls but not for boys. Consequently, model constructing might be a suitable approach for integrating arts in science education for girls.
Chappell et al offer the findings from an investigation of four CREATIONS case studies into the question: How are dialogue and material/embodied activity manifested within creative pedagogy? The paper develops from a relational (Biesta, 2004) and dialogic (Bakhtin, 1984) standpoint and focuses in on four of the eight features: Dialogue, Empowerment and Agency, Transdisciplinarity and Possibilities. It shares the research outcomes and considers implications in relation to inter- and trans-disciplinary science-arts teaching and learning.
Ben-Horin et al present on the impact of the Global Science Opera (GSO), a flagship initiative of the CREATIONs project which produces operas as a global community. GSO provides an arena for exploration of a creative approach to interdisciplinary art and science in schools. This paper addresses the central question of the impact of GSO on students’ sense of engagement in science education. Findings show increased interest in scientific and other concepts. Students gained scientific content knowledge, understanding of scientific concepts, collaboration and communication skills, and artistic content knowledge and skills.
This symposium highlights the impact on learning and engagement of a range of different arts/science interdisciplinary interventions within settings across Europe. Both quantitative, pre/post testing and in depth qualitative case study findings indicate the utility of such approaches. This suggests the importance of creative science teaching underpinned by strong theoretical understanding of creativity and arts-based approaches in STEAM education.
References
Bakhtin, M.M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. (C. Emerson, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1929) Biesta, G. (2004) Mind the Gap! Communication and the educational relation. In Bingham C. and Sidorkin, A. (eds.) No Education without Relation. New York: Peter Lang, 11-22. Schumm, M. F., & Bogner, F. X. (2016). Measuring adolescent science motivation. International Journal of Science Education, 38(3), 434–449.
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