This article explores the parallels between improvisational theater, commonly known as improv, and active teaching. Specifically, it focuses in the impact of improv techniques on instructor and teaching assistant professional development. The implementation of an active teaching seminar is analyzed, where improv techniques were used in developing…

Recent voices in creativity research emphasize the vital role that processes of active engagement and interaction play. These distributed, interactivity-based, and ecological accounts critique the reduction of creativity to mental mechanisms and eschew the methodological individualism that underlies this view. Instead, they elevate socio-material…

Notable theorists have argued that theatre and drama play positive roles in the moral education of children and adults, including cultivating their capacity for empathy. Yet other theorists have expressed concerns that plays and educational practices involving improvisation might not lead to positive changes in real life, and might even have…

In the field of early childhood education, play has become synonymous with curriculum but is sometimes viewed narrowly as a pedagogical tool to enhance child development. However, it is known from a range of multidisciplinary work that child-initiated and child-guided forms and contexts of playing can offer rich insight into diversity in…

This study explored the pedagogical implications of integrating creative dance into fifth-grade students' poetry reading and writing within the context of an educational design research project. Two teaching designs were developed and implemented by a researcher, a dance teaching artist, and two primary school teachers during two research cycles…

Effective teachers engage their students in multiple ways, and engagement reduces disruptive student behaviors. However, teachers consistently report struggling with classroom management, and their struggle has been linked to teacher turnover. Currently, there is a small but growing body of literature on the use of comedy techniques in the…

Understanding how children demonstrate creativity assists educators in designing learning experiences that foster this key competency. Frameworks such as the "A-E of Children's Creativity" assist in the analysis of children's creativity, presenting their creative thinking characteristics as five connected processes: agency, being…

Critical analyses of experimental music and free improvisation have uncovered multiple educational benefits embedded within this broad collection of genres. However, by rooting this work primarily within formal classrooms, scholars have yet to discover how musicians conceptualise teaching and learning within communities outside of schools. To…

Research suggests that exploratory experiences in the music classroom are a crucial developmental stage as students begin making the kinds of decisions required of them during composition and improvisation. The aims of this article are to (1) articulate a rationale for exploratory learning experiences in the music classroom and (2) outline…

The purpose of this article is to highlight the fact that the fertile learning circle of creative production/cultivation and technology in the organization and implementation of school projects by secondary schools for students aged 12-18, is aimed at the management of digital content, not just by using ready-made applications, but also by…

This dissertation study explores how a student creative artifact, (a book, developed by a Korean bilingual student, named Jinwoo) in an U.S. elementary school made a lasting contribution within and beyond the school community. Jinwoo's book offers creative insights into Korean emergent bilingual students' learning experiences in the U.S…

This paper investigates the impact of Dalcroze Eurhythmics on fostering creativity and autonomy in classical instrumental pedagogy. The research took the form of an arts practice investigation which included devising, rehearsing, performing and documenting two performance events, drawing on Dalcroze Eurhythmics techniques rather than conventional…

The rapid development of science, technology, and digital multimedia has made adjustments in all areas of design. Its ramifications and forms are deeply influenced by digital media, making new demands on teaching. A renewed society regulates new modes of teaching to produce applicants capable of adapting to the development of modern society and…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative study examining 'real-world' jazz performance contexts within an Australian tertiary music course. Course projects were designed to offer students opportunities to gain a better understanding of the intersections of working and performing with their teachers in an improvised music ensemble.…

While many education researchers have characterized the impromptu nature of classroom teaching as "improvisation," few studies of teacher education or professional development (PD) have examined the potential of improvisation workshops for equipping teachers to face unforeseen classroom moments productively. In this dissertation, I…