‘Mud, muddy, muddier still: Pedagogic research in the arts university’ with Lindsay Jordan, James Corazzo and Catherine Smith
What are your feet touching? What’s touching your feet?
This was a fun way to start the session, and as we moved into a small group my thoughts were: does this mean literally or non-literally? As it turned out myself and the other’s in the group started to chatting about were we taught (as I was at work) and then suddenly time had ran out, so we did not discuss the questions fully. No matter we in fact did talk literally and that made it a worthy exchange.
My own teaching practice
An activity like this is very close to what I have done over the years with my students, and so it was also fun to see this from the other side as it were!
Research methods
Having used a few different research methods during my MA Ed, it is illuminating to look at research methods within the arts university. Listening to James Corazzo’s section reminded me how ethnography can have a broad creative approach. As Catherine Smith moved into her slides it looked even more illuminating as the possibilities to explore research methods within arts higher education can develop into something that can taps into a student’s creative reality.
A creative approach to research is certainly an area of interest for me. In particular when teaching English as an academic language to international students who often tend to arrive to study arts in higher education with different expectations. Many have previously studied in what is a more didactic teaching and learning environment rather than a heuristic one. I am reminded of Pat Francis from her book ‘Inspiring Writing in Art and Design’, where she introduces the idea that ‘the writing process parallels the stages of working in many arts’ (2009, p 15) This in turn connects with many of the themes of today’s session, in that considering ‘creative difference and rejection of normative research practices’ to design a research approach can add to enquiry.