The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary students' creating processes and perspectives through composition. Two fourth-grade classes took part in this action research, which consisted of creating four compositions--two with acoustic instruments and two with computer software. For each of the two sound sources, the first composition…

Drawing on the construct of "ways of knowing" from the feminist tradition the Bots for Tots project explores the affordances of activity framings and structures that tap into alternate mental dispositions to broaden participation and interest in maker activities. In this paper I present data from a workshop with 9-10 year olds explicitly…

The flow experience can be an important precursor to high levels of creativity and innovation. Prior work has identified and conceptualized the key elements of the flow experience in cocreative activities as individual flow corridor, individual flow feeling, and group flow. Surprisingly, the flow experience is underrepresented in theory and…

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's multiple techniques for assessing its Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities program seek to address both bigpicture concerns (e.g., are students learning?) and more pragmatic questions (e.g., are there barriers to participation?). The benefits and challenges of the quantitative and qualitative…

The main aim of this review article is to understand and discuss the concept of improvisation as a professional skill for teacher educators. The literature review suggests that five academic traditions are especially relevant to examine: Rhetoric, music, theatre/drama, organizational theory and education. The dialogic, open-scripted, interactive…

Process of communication can be challenging. At first participants must standardize their concepts of things to hold them close enough to others' concepts, then it's crucial to use appropriate expressions to verbalize those concepts to ensure the mutual understanding. Therefore, it can be problematic when cognitive constructs are hard to…

Previous research into gender and creativity has provided little evidence for consistent differences between men and women in creative performance. This research revisits this topic by proposing a person × situation approach, arguing that gender differences in creative performance only occur in certain contexts, but not others. Based on the…

The purpose of this study is to develop an attitude scale for pre-service teachers towards drama lesson. Survey model was used in study. The sample of study consisted of 258 pre-service teachers. "Attitude scale towards drama lesson for pre-service teachers" was developed and used as data collection tool. Exploratory and confirmatory…

The music industry in the 21 century uses digital technology in a wide range of applications including in performance, in composition and in recording and publishing. In this article, I consider how the impact of digital technologies may be affecting pedagogical processes adopted by secondary music teachers, particularly in the area of…

The gap between student teachers and their ability to adapt to the school situation remains a challenge. The literature further indicates that there is an under-utilisation of students' abilities in an ever-changing curriculum that should be responsive to the challenges with which communities are faced. This paper aims to report on the students'…

Leading whole-class discussion requires teachers to balance careful preparation with improvisation based on students' contributions. How do teachers learn to engage in the difficult work of orchestrating a rich and, by nature, improvised classroom discussion? How might training in improvisational theatre affect teachers' facilitation of…

The aim of the present article is to focus on the operational aspects referring to the actions--strategies and on the defined modalities of establishing educational objectives/competences. In the achievement of our work a special attention has been paid to the operational aspects of the learning process of the optical phenomena. There were carried…

During the 1930s and 1940s art increasingly came to be used as a therapeutic tool with children who were perceived as damaged by their experiences of war or displacement. This article explores two related exhibitions--"Children's Art from All Countries" (1941) and "The War as Seen by Children" (1943)--which provided a platform…

This paper presents the findings of visual analyses conducted on 369 sketch ideas generated in three 6-3-5 visual brainstorming sessions by a total of 25 participants, following the same design brief. The motivation for the study was an interest in the thematic content of the ideas generated as groups, and the individual representation styles used…

This scoping paper explores the experiences of overseas students from Nigeria studying in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom. It considers the context for these students and some of the particular pressures and challenges they experience in making the transition from education in Nigeria to achieving academic success and…