Enabling student
teachers to facilitate
creative teaching and
learning
Dr Sally Elton-Chalcraft , Adrian Copping, Dennis Howlett
Kären Mills, Ian Todd
Context: Phases 1,2 and 3
•300+ PgCE students 3 campuses : M level “the Creative and Effective
curriculum” assessment: individual rationale + group annotated plan.
•Reflection on theory and practice - keynote lectures, interactive seminars and
directed activities, 1 week placement (2 -5 students in each class).
•Phases 1,2 and 3 –
•Evaluation of module in enabling student teachers to facilitate creative
teaching and learning
•Phase 1 -TEAN storehouse (Elton-Chalcraft, Hansen, McCreery and Morris
2010)
•Phase 2 - Education 3-13 (Elton-Chalcraft and Mills)
•Phase 3 – TEAN, ECER (Elton-Chalcraft, Copping, Howlett, Mills and Todd)
Research Methods and Sample
Phase 1 and 2
Phase 3
An evaluation of the impact of the
Creative and Effective Curriculum module
on the learning of: student teachers;
children and teachers.
4 schools, 4 tutors- Lancaster campus
120 Children, 50 student teachers,
9 teachers : questionnaires
12 Lessons observed by 4 tutors
Interviews and essays : 6 students
Does the module enable student
teachers to facilitate creative teaching
and learning?
Themes emerged through a grounded
theory approach of data reduction
(Strauss and Corbin 1998)
5 schools 5 tutors- Lancaster campus
10 teachers interviewed
5 focus groups of children
48 Student questionnaires
Interviews and essays: 5 student teachers
Findings phase 2
6 Factors perceived as necessary for creative and effective
teaching and learning :
•
•
•
•
Children felt ‘liberated’, ownership of learning
Learning was ‘fun’ and challenging
Achievement was through intrinsic motivation
Teacher took on role of facilitator, rapport between teacher and children
was crucial (trust, humour)
• Engagement in practical activities and imaginative/problem solving
scenarios both in a group and individually
• Providing a safe environment to take risks and learn through mistakes
Findings phase 3
Focus groups:
•Did teachers and children think the week was effective in
promoting creative teaching and learning? Why/ why not?
Questionnaire:
•Did student teachers consider creative teaching and learning
occurred?
•Did the module facilitate this?
•Do they think this is an effective approach?
Emerging theme 1: Fun/Challenge
•‘the
creative teachers actually built loads of stuff in our
classroom for us like caves’
•Learning is not motivational when it is ‘normal’ = worksheets,
instructions
•‘The measuring was well easy.’ (Y1)
•Some of the activities were great fun but the differentiation just
wasn’t there. Like that measuring activity in Year 1 where they
were using fingerprints as non-standard measures. The really
bright boy in there was bored with that.
Emerging theme 2: Motivation
•Easy work is not motivating
•I did notice the students came up with theme-based extrinsic
rewards that they had clearly spent a lot of time and money
making, laminating and preparing. Perhaps the students believed
these theme-based rewards would be a motivator but there was
no evidence from my interviews to suggest that staff or children
thought this. (University Tutor)
•There again loads of the activities were exciting and really visual
and when they were engaged with those their behaviour wasn’t a
problem.
•I wanted to join in when they said what we’re gonna do over the
week and they said that we’re make the cars and when they said
that I really wanted to do it. (Y3)
Emerging theme 3: Relationships
Students and students
•some fell out – group work can be challenging (quest data)
Students and children
•I think having a change from their normal teacher helped some
of them as well.
•They were really kind to us and smiled. (YR)
•They were sensitive and fun. (Y1)
•Overall it has been more informal, but for a few children this may
have been a problem. (behaviour sometimes seen as a problem
when students are more informal). I’m almost expecting them to
call them by their first name
Emerging theme 3: Relationships
Children and children
•In Year 6 where lots of our boys don’t get on there was no
bother at all.
•I’m not sure about strengthening the relationships between the
children. I mean obviously we’ve been doing exploratory stuff
and that’s all good for social aspects of learning, I guess, but I
don’t know much evidence I have to say it strengthened
relationships.
•It’s been different because I’ve been in a group with some
people that I don’t usually play with. I don’t usually play with
them cos they’ve got other friends but I found it really good. (Y4)
Emerging theme 3: Relationships
Students and teachers
•I like the supply teachers in because normally Miss … doesn’t
really know how to handle us but with like five teachers in the
room they’re all really good at handling us because we’re a bit of
a crazy gang. (Y4)
•(this comment came from children in a class where the class
teacher had been singularly unhelpful and occasionally
oppositional to the week and absented herself from the class for
most of it)
Emerging theme 4: Engagement in Practical Scenarios
•Where they did the treasure hunt around school, the children
were really excited about it.
•In Year 2 we made little boats. We took them home and it was
arts and crafts and I really like arts and crafts. They were paper
boats and we had to see if they would…float. (Y2)
•I mean the trip to Asda as well in itself, absolutely fabulous.
They all had their own money; they went and chose what they
wanted; they went to the self-service; they paid themselves; they
got the receipt, everything. They were just brilliant.
Emerging theme 5: Risk taking
•It was clear that the teachers and school generally were keen for
there to be products to show the parents. A number of students
felt constrained by time to create these products and I think this
mitigated against too much risk taking and having time to learn
through mistakes. During the car making in year 4, the student
provided a template for the body work instead of allowing for
experimentation with aerodynamics. His response when asked
was ‘not enough time’
•My students have been fantastic and I think the good thing
about creative week is that it encourages teachers to take risks.
That’s really important. When I trained as a teacher I remember
being told: take a risk because you learn so much from it if it
doesn’t work
Emerging theme 6: Enthusiasm to cope with change
•We are a very vulnerable school, with our results…So for us, to
take a week off is just too much. [I think the viewpoint that a
creative week is a “week off” perhaps shows that the interviewee
hasn’t embraced the importance or value of a creative approach].
•I got the impression that the students had planned exciting,
interesting activities but that’s where they had started from.
Rather than looking at the LO first or any creative technique I
think they had thought, “What would be an enjoyable thing for
the children?” and then went with that rather than the other way
round.
•The children liked doing something new and different and gained
a lot of new learning.
The impact of school-embedded learning work
•The SE days helped mostly indirectly, as it meant we had some
idea of the children and so could plan more specifically for them.
The visit days were crucial for checking ideas with the teacher and
checking resources etc., as well as refreshing our relationship with
the children.
•We had some knowledge of the children but were in the school
in a different capacity earlier on.
•School-embedded was negative in some instances as teachers in
the school remember us from the 1st week in September where
we had little experience forgetting that by the end of March we
had developed a lot.
Next Steps
•Picking up on themes from questionnaire data with focus groups
of students in June
Workshop Discussion
•Q and A about the project
Sharing practice•How do you enable student teachers to facilitate creative and
effective teaching and learning?
•What are the constraints and opportunities which impact on our
teacher education?
Acknowledgements
• We would like to thanks all the students teachers, tutors,
children, teachers and co researchers for participating
• See the full report of phase 1 on the TEAN website
http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/TEAN/TeanHome.aspx
https://stream.cumbria.ac.uk/ap/tean/index.html
• Phase 2 – Elton-Chalcraft, S. and Mills, K. (forthcoming)
Measuring challenge fun and sterility on a ‘phunometre scale:
evaluating creative teaching and learning with children and
their student teachers in the primary school Education 3-13 (in
press)