Towards a schools-led research agenda in creative learning: action research into personal, structural and community change
Slides and handout presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005
Research Team
University of Northumbria
Richard Dodgson, Donna Powton and Helen Chimirri-Russell
University of Liverpool
Steve Miles
Interim Research Findings on Personal Change (Handout)
During Stage 1 of the research programme, interviews with pupils have focused upon the issues of attitudes towards working with each other, experience of learning as individuals and transferability. In analysing information/evidence, the lead researcher has been able to construct in-depth individual pupil case studies and charts that highlight the views/experiences of pupils across each school. These case studies have been selected to show the diversity of young people’s opinions and experiences of creative learning across the schools that make the Personal Change Thematic Group.
Attitudes towards working with each other
Charts 1 and 2 show that pupils have mixed views towards working together as part of a group or team. Year 10 pupils at School 1 were unanimous in their support for this type of work. In contrast, pupils in primary schools are more divided on this subject. Indeed, the less confident Year 2 pupils at School 6 were clear that group work did not provide such a high quality learning experience as other activities in school. Working as a class is one way in which these less confident Year 2 children get a sense of being part of something successful, and it was clear at follow up that no-one minded being split into groups to work on creative learning activities. One child, who was identified as lacking in confidence, stated that, “we’ve never done things like this in school before. We made things up.”
Year 5 pupils at School 5 could see advantages and disadvantages of group working; they could see advantages in terms of the finished product and the learning experience, but many talked about being bossed around, arguing and having their ideas diluted when they worked in groups, regardless of levels of confidence. Year 7 pupils at School 3 Comprehensive School could also see advantages and disadvantages and were particularly likely to say it depended on the dynamics of learning specific to the subject. A Year 5 pupil from school 4 had had specific help to improve his ability to work in groups:
“Sometimes you don’t get a chance in a group - but I learnt at [a local centre] how to speak and listen when I need to - we write it all down and if someone has something else you write that.”
Year 3 pupils from the same school mostly saw group working as a fun activity and were unaware of the benefits or problems of group working in terms of learning. Year 7 pupils in School 3 could also see advantages and disadvantages and were particularly likely to say it depended on the dynamics of learning specific to the subject.
The vast majority of Year 8 pupils at School 2 preferred working in groups, and despite different levels of ability most found it more practical and more involving:
“I don’t like just sitting there – I like discussing what you’re going to do. The quiet ones increase in confidence” (Year 8 girl with aspirations requiring high, academic achievement).
Experience of learning as individuals
Pupils identified teachers, friends, parents and other family members as people that helped and encouraged to them to work hard whilst at school (Chart 3). Many Year 2 pupils in School 6 have an abstract concept of building learning upon learning and view this as a pleasurable and worthwhile experience. Young people in Schools 1, 2 and 3 displayed engagement in learning through their aspirations (Chart 4 and 5). Meanwhile pupils in School 5 are very aware how they appear to other children, and this can also be experienced as a barrier to learning, as one pupil expressed:
“You want to show people that you can do it - but you can't - if you don't know the answers you feel embarrassed to ask the answer off the teachers”.
Year 10 pupils in School 1 wanted to do well in their GCSEs and go on to college but were more worried about passing exams than coursework, which they enjoyed doing and felt enabled to do. However a few Year 10 pupils said that they found school itself extremely uninspiring and boring, and these pupils stated that they wanted to be doing things rather than learning through reading and writing.
Where parental/ family support is mentioned as a factor helping children to try their best at school it tends to overlap with the concept of being self-motivated. People whose main source of motivation was themselves and their families ranged from completely instrumental pupils (working hard to get a good job at the end but finding school generally boring) to pupils who felt intrinsically motivated to learn (to the extent that engagement in learning came to them “naturally” and in ways that they “can’t stop”). Similarly the fact that some people were helped or hindered by the attitudes of other pupils in the class can’t be separated from the issue of inter-personal relationships, for example the pupils who had the biggest problem with other children distracting them tended to be the ones who felt themselves most affected by other children putting them down or generally creating an anti-“trying your best atmosphere.”
Transferability
Only one Year 2 pupil could give an example of something that they “learnt in one lesson and used in another” during their baseline interviews (Chart 6) but around half the group identified transferable skills that they had learned from their Creative Partnerships experience. In contrast many pupils from Year 5 upwards were able to give some quite generalised examples of how learning and knowledge can be transferred from one context to another. Year 10 pupils, for example, talked about learning design principles in Art that they use in all of their coursework and the fact that you can use Drama in any subject. Year 5 pupils mostly talked about transferring English skills into other subjects but they also mentioned transferring ideas from stories into other exercises, using descriptions of the weather cycle in English SATS, using times tables/ number-lines to work out sums, learning to draw faces and art and using it in history/ RE, ICT and going on the internet and learning about rivers in a quiz at home and using it in Geography at school.
A year 8 pupil in School 2 made the interesting comment that you might need Maths “in English and other lessons – you need to add up, you need the intelligence” and another commented that “subjects that we don’t like help us in others”. There was also a clear link in School 2 between what the pupils wanted to do when they left school and the types of transferable skills that they identified. Indeed, pupils in School 2 seemed to have a good general clarity of focus in terms of what they wanted to do when they left school (this may have been due to the Careers in Action Days which many of the pupils spoke very highly of).
Chart 1
Chart 2
Chart 3
Chart 4
Chart 5
Chart 6
Interim Research Findings on Structural Change
Understanding of creativity
Robinson (2001) defines creativity as consisting of three components, namely the power of imagination translated into action, originality (to the person, to the community or historically) and value. The most important conclusion of Stage 1 of the structural change research is that school children of all ages understand the imagination component but lack understanding of the originality and value components. Whereas, most children understand the originality component at the “to the person” level in that they regard themselves as “being creative” when they decide to do something that they have never done before, but many feel that they are at their most creative when they are pleasing themselves and deliberately not worrying about the value judgements of others.
The best indicator of whether a child understands that a creative action should have value is whether they consider themselves to be at their most creative inside of school or outside of school. The children who consider themselves to be at their most creative outside of school very rarely refer to the type of structured extracurricular activities that create value, instead they spend much of their out of school time as consumers of entertainment/ computer games and may view everyday family activity such as fixing a garage door, as a high point in their lives in terms of creativity. Meanwhile the children who feel most strongly that they are more creative inside of school are the most likely to be engaged in structured activities outside of school. It is even possible that there is a self replicating cycle in operation whereby the very fact that the children are experiencing less creativity inside of school makes them less likely to be “turned on” to creative activities outside of school.
Where are you most creative?
At one primary school, the pupil-interviewees were unanimous that they were more creative outside of school, and clearly had a preference for out of school learning. One girl commented that her dad would say: “how do you want this, which tools do you want to use?” whereas (as she put it): “At school you get told”. Other pupils in the same school commented that they learn more through out of school activities (e.g. private French lessons in the next village) and felt under-stimulated by the activities on offer at school.
However at the other primary school where interviews have been completed, the exact opposite was true. These children had a clear sense that the freedom to play and think that they experience outside of school goes hand in hand with the structured learning inside of school, for example: “when I have a rest I play football. But my favourite thing is Art, it makes your brain work harder (Year 1 pupil)” “I have good ideas [outside of school] but they never work … if we’re stuck [the teacher] explains in more detail and we usually get it (Year 6 pupil).”
In two of the secondary schools (schools 11 and 12), pupils were specifically asked where and when they were at the most creative, and the responses were divided by gender. It was the case in both the schools that the boys tended to say outside of school (or during out of hours activities), citing the fact that the school gave priority to certain topics and subjects and paid too little attention to pupils individual interests. There was also a feeling among some boys that some teachers make you do too much writing, waste too much of the lesson in talking and don’t facilitate enough hands on activity or do enough demonstration. The girls in both schools tended to say “inside of school”, expressing the idea that school surrounds you with stimulus and structure, which helps you be creative and in turn gives you the motivation to learn (see below).
All of the children in school 10 (a special needs school) felt that were creative both inside and outside of school.
What helps you to be creative at school?
The girls at one of the two secondary schools where interviews had been completed were very clear that it was the right combination of freedom and constraint that enabled creativity:
“They give us ideas and help us brainstorm…pictures and stuff that’s around us, posters and books. Friends making bracelets [also help us be creative] …if you’re thinking of all these ideas, then you think: ‘I can do it’. And it’s fun.”
However secondary school pupils of both genders agreed that more choice of topics and materials would enable them to make the most of their natural interests and schools.
Primary school children wanted more freedom and variety with regards to creative activity and also more time to concentrate on particular tasks with the teacher’s support. They generally felt that their best experiences of creative learning had come from one off tasks where they had been given a small amount of stimulus and then asked to complete the task in their own way: “RE when she asked us how god made the world and she asked us to make our own world” (Year 4 pupil) “Making balalaikas, we got to use different things” (Year 5 pupil). However a few of the older children also described being involved in projects where they had learned difficult to master, specialist skills over a long period: “When we did Indian dancing we were creative with the body movements. We did a festival and we’re going to do more. Miss P taught us the steps … at first it was tiring but now it’s like walking” (year 6 pupil).
Primary school aged children at one of the special needs schools named very general types of stimulus (such as artefacts and “going out places”) and also deep emotional encouragement from teachers and parents, when they were asked what helped them to be creative. Secondary school aged children at the same school said that they liked to be given time and space to develop specific skills and ideas, and hands on teaching to supply them with practical knowledge that is useful in the outside world. All of the children in school 10 felt that were creative both inside and outside of school.
Some primary school aged children liked the idea of doing creative activities in groups but most felt that creativity itself was an individual process that went on in the mind but needed other people to bring it out:“I’ve got creative things flowing round my mind. I can’t get my mind off art” (Year 2 pupil). “I design games in my head when I’m at my caravan … I have good ideas but they never work” (Year 6 pupil). “If we’re stuck [the teacher] explains in more detail and we usually get it” (Year 5 pupil).
Views of teachers, governors and parents
Primary school and special needs teachers generally wanted more resources and skills to keep lessons new and stimulating and more opportunities to go into particular topics/ issues in-depth. All of teachers were able to name several projects that had had a lasting impact on the children. For example where the whole curriculum had been geared around learning about different countries at School 15 the children had started to make comparisons between countries/ languages on their own initiative. Meanwhile the bird feeder at School 14 was providing continuing social stimulus and craft works had provided the starting point for pupils new into the secondary at School 10 to become chatty and engaged.
Parents and governors associated creative learning with a well rounded education, and a generally positive whole school attitude to the step by step progression of children’s learning: “[Creative learning] happens all the time – everything that the school does” (governor) “As a parent, the creative partnership stuff was an attraction. I’ve noticed that [my daughter] looks at things differently, it’s all interwoven. You get the questions”. (Governor/ Parent of 6 year old). “He used to say: ‘it’s rubbish!’ and throw it straight in the bin. At his old school they didn’t look at his positive side – just at what he couldn’t do. [His teacher] got him bringing her work and showing her it – now he’ll let them put it on the wall” (Parent of 12 year old with special needs).
References
Robinson, K (2001) Out of Our Mind: Learning to be Creative,Chichester: Capstone