Discussions generated through drawing.
On sharing essential elements of creative practice:
The preliminary activity was to draw a symbol, a metaphor for an individual’s creative practice - to make creative processes visible, to tend to them, in order to become better at this process [making practice more explicit and develop as a creative practitioner]. Several practitioners approaching the exercise did think about role of teachers alongside their creative practice.

· Whenever I teach students it changes the way I think about my subject - so it’s an interaction which changes my practice - my drawing [within the workshop] changed in relation to other people’s drawings - others work influenced mine.

· Part of my practice is about being a human being - first place for creativity is in ‘life’ - agency - [engagement with others work in the workshop] symbolising own creative practice.

· I found myself doing what I do with students work - looking at other people’s stuff and thinking what is the sub-text - wanting to add something - students aren’t aware or interested. The drawing experience [in the workshop] is similar to teaching experience rather than just the creative process. I feel my creative process is something internal that you want to let out - and not sure initially how to give from to that.

· I create and produce but not am not so good at vocalising or articulating it - ‘I’ll tell you about it later but just have to do it now’ - so the metaphor of drawing it like the way I practice - letting it come from within, producing - but articulating it years later.

· I was trying to mimic how I normally work - thinking, visualising, an emotional spiral from what can’t be seen to physical outcome - anxiety over notion of being seen doing something which is normally private - notion of hypocrisy, makes me think of teaching practice too, as I am always asking students to ‘just draw it’ and the pressure it puts on them, which I can now sympathise with - but is there is a way of working with the drawing process - is there a visual way of working, which relieve the first pressure?

· A lot of practice is pre-verbal, about feelings that you are normally asked to articulate - very internal - confusion, not direct - creative practice is not one solid block, lots of different things evolving - lots of wavy things - so you are not solidly sure about your position because you are always learning, moving and hopefully this is the some position in education. But, in education you have this objective view because it is time limited and you are able to tell someone ‘this is what you should do’ and yet when you are in your own private practice, isolated; it’s a mass of confusion. I don’t know how you create out of that confusion.

The concentric circles as a symbol for creative practice:

· The practitioner [bottom circle] starts of notionally as the expert, but as they interact the role suddenly changes and their significance reduces and the significance of students and their work increases. But, as a practitioner you are not perfectly balanced, it is not a concentric process- there is interference and the process is reflexive. There will be other practitioners and learners doing the same things at the different times, which ought to be over a broad area but often doesn’t join up.

· Creative practice is internal [central circle], which emanates out of making contact with other people.

· [Circle] as symbol for society and as a practitioner sometimes I feel I am part of society and at other time looking in it - it’s a duality thing - like the teaching relationship with students - sometimes there is a relationship, sometimes there isn’t.

Visible Thinking: How creative practice informs and enhance teaching.
Key themes emerged from the group discussing how the processes of their creative practice were mirrored in how they experienced working with others within the drawing activities; making connections, communication, appropriation, visual quoting; exploration, uncertainty and anxiety; responding to the context and the ‘blank space’ as creative individuals, in their own way. Some practitioners worked from a rational, literal response, which widened more conceptually, others found it more difficult to describe their processes as they worked more instinctively within the space. Drawing was described as a spring-board to a discussion, mark making and the visual becoming a larger thing to help us think.
Further details of the creative processes of the individual practitioners are reflected in the Pause Gallery drawings, and the texts below where participants talk about their drawings.

Context, freedom and structure:

Broader discussions related to creativity within a context or structure, and the responsibility for facilitating it in others, through creating a framework and making some processes more transparent. In exploring their creative processes, practitioners are less clear on how these are evident, or inform their teaching in the different context, despite a clarity about the responsibility to facilitate creativity. This reveals ambivalence about the role of teacher-practitioner and potentially a desire to be more ‘practitioner evident’ to students.

· Link between freedom and structure - want to perform and produce [within the workshop] and sometimes not sure what, feeling uncertain, being in a continuous process, but this is a positive thing, rather than being at a finite point.

· Thought processes, analytical versus intuitive processes - structure, but creativity comes out where you don’t have control - nothingness as a starting point is a good thing [the open brief or creating an open framework].

· The way I do my creative practice is not the way I teach others to do it.

· We all see ourselves as practitioners first rather than teachers, and students see us a teachers. How do we foreground our practice so students can perceive this more strongly? In teaching we have to take account the structures rather than just our creativity.

· Creativity and new possibilities are at the core of our practice and education but we found that in truth they are pushed aside by industry demands, curriculum demands.. and pressure of time.

· The box is a metaphor for working within parameters - either your own, institutional or whatever - lines represent fluidity - ‘Nine hairs’ - [body spilt in proportions]. I started thinking practically initially then tried to get out of that.

· Constraint (structures, policies, process and learning and teaching).
Release (lid open - organic)
Freedom (open box - but left with a framework
Creativity (cloud)
Droplets
River (life long learning)

· Intuitive versus structure. Freedom versus control.

· Practice can be a point of freedom and it can be difficult to find a space for radical creativity within the institution - this is how we feel but really there isn’t anything that is going to stop us - so how does one negotiate our own ‘radical creativity’ within the institution?

Locations.

· Always a start in singularity. Explosion.Do it.

· Outside-in-creativity. Anarchic. Ask the audience.

· The open potentiality of space - the demands of industry - the creative individual is the common idea but ideas don’t necessarily come from the institution they come from ‘out there’ - creative responses are produced by students without any help, or realising they are even doing this, so the creative practice is no longer always ‘within’ the institution - the challenge as creative practitioners within an institution is how to make the relationship work and enhance teaching when the creative kernel may be out there. [the series that this commentary refers to is not visually represented here as it was difficult to photograph well].

Connections. Stories.

· ‘Modalities’ is based loosely on the idea of dot pictures. As a child we join the dots, the results a prescribed picture. Of course as an adult, living itself becomes an act of interpretation, a process of making meaning. Each ‘dot’ or node represents a memory, a story, an experience for our collective and individual biographies. How close to - these become a map of our experience. And of course maps don’t just describe what ‘is - they become a way of navigation, new places and the future. For me that is what creative practice is about - whichever modality of form of experience is engaged with.

· My practice as a teacher is about facilitating others to get in touch with their own stories and form relationships through communication with others, irrespective of the modality that they are working in, always need for the creative act - the interpretation.

· William Blake. Universe full of stars. Main sun representing font and triangle of knowledge glowing in the dark?

· Outside in from inside out.

Processes.

· Distilling multiple influences - none conscious, none not; observations; research; knowledge… to create an end artefact, an interpretation with a resonance of the various influences. Trying to avoid the obvious.

· Non discipline specific design thinking:

· Tangential thinking
Synthesing
Strategic thinking
Creative thinking
Challenging established norms
Contributing to wider cultural discussions.

· Physical exploration of practice, rather than intellectual process. Borrowing and taking cues from others ‘visual quoting’, re-interpreting and re-visiting others work to advance own practice. Extending boundaries/blurring boundaries, taking cues from the work of others to inform and develop my own when I’m unable to define clearly where my practice (or lack of) is leading me. Warming up is important - reinterpreting the work of others through my choice of medium. Physical boundaries - physical reach, going beyond limits allowing physical action to determine composition. Spilling over into other’s work.

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Review of the workshop including processes, outputs and outcomes:

Drawing appears to be an effective tool, which enables playfulness, exploration of ideas and critical reasoning. Drawing on large expanses of shared paper gets away from the notion that an individual is creating a piece of work and enables a sense of shared process. There is the need to overcome an initial trepidation as an individual has to face a vast [public] white space, but this doesn’t take long. Because this workshop was specifically aimed at the process of creative practice, the opportunity for participants to experience themselves as freely creative and responsive was valued. As with other workshops in the 10by10 series, a key outcome is the individual’s reflection [in a shared context of working as both practitioner and teacher] on their creative processes, and creativity within the educational context and teaching role.

Facilitator:

Pause was mainly focused on exploring the elements of creative practice that inform our teaching. Participants were invited to express and communicate their own practice/processes as a creative practitioner through using a range of drawing techniques, paying attention to processes that impact on teaching. Although there was an initial uncertainty from a couple of participants (whose own practice was not drawing) the group quickly immersed themselves in the reflective drawing activities. Although some of the drawings themselves had an aesthetic quality, the main purpose of the activities was to use drawing as a visual thinking tool, to explore ideas and meaning. Sometimes the drawings produced needed a verbal discourse alongside them to fully appreciate the meaning. The element of choice was important: choice of stimulus, choice of media, choice of scale, choice of floor or wall drawings.

Any improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

A little more focused exploration of the processes within an individual’s creative practice, at the beginning of the workshop following the first activity [an exercise to draw a symbol for individual creative practice], may have helped draw out aspects of learning which tie creative practice and teaching together, in more depth. It may be that small group discussion might have drawn out these aspects more quickly. Time however is always short and it takes time to explore theses issues in depth. The discussion at the end whereby each person said something about their final piece was very revealing and yet there wasn’t quite enough time to build on this as a group.

Facilitator:

More time was needed to explore the issues in greater depth: a whole day would have been good! Although using drawing as a generic process was effective, it would have been great to have the opportunity to develop the participants’ ideas in their own art form too. As a facilitator, I felt that I had a responsibility to provide a ‘holding form’, a clear structure without prescription and to be able to reflect back the issues for the participants through dialogue. Although documentation played a key part in making the group learning visible, in hindsight, I would have set up an opportunity to document each individual’s reflections.

Comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

This workshop was particularly effective at engaging practitioners with reflecting on their own creativity. Some participants had already said they were attending the workshop in the hope of thinking about teaching more creatively and some said that the techniques used within the workshop would also be useful for their own teaching practice with their students; so the link between creative processes and how this can translate into teaching was explicit during the development of the workshop.

However, the participants did have a tendency to consider their practice from the perspective of how they can teach more creatively, or how their teaching could appropriate their creative practice - in other words the teacher identity, role and responsibilities remained dominant throughout the creative activities. It was clear that practitioners felt they wanted to be more ‘visible’ or evident as practitioners within their role as teachers, and could draw on their practice more deliberately to achieve this.

Facilitator:

Reflecting on the process of learning through practice, participants were encouraged to explore how this could be strengthened to support the impact on, and of, their teaching practice. The dynamics of the group was excellent from the outset, I think because we had created a positive space where individuals were consulted about the process and felt comfortable with exploring ideas together. Using the initial stimulus of participant drawings was an effective way of generating discussion around the wide range of associated issues. The use of space and time with attention to creative processes focused thinking more on the role of creative practitioners and how we can use these processes directly or indirectly in our teaching.

Participant Feedback:

Further comments:

“the freedom given throughout the workshop gave everyone the chance to relax. Although structured it was not dictating a rigid structure”

“any opportunity to remind on of one’s own creativity is highly valid - also allowing oneself to explore the medium of drawing in another environment is very helpful and liberating”

“the workshop was professional enjoyable and thought provoking”

“using drawing as a exploratory tool was excellent. So much better and more freeing than the usual techniques. I was so much more myself here than in similar workshop structures”

“I am amazed how much could be brought up and learned in such a sort time”

“Excellent. A touch more time in the plenary needed”.

Pause Workshop Evaluation: Project Leader: Antonia Clews and Facilitator: Penny Hay

10/2009

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The Embody workshop participants produced a number of performative pieces which explored a range of issues. Questions offered to the participants were - what’s the relationship between how you make and how you teach? What comes out in your teaching from your practice? Some of the ideas presented through performance in pairs and explored in further discussion include:

• the more you do the more you collect - encompassing and appropriating things for your practice, (both in and from small spaces and collective spaces) making use of what is there [through teaching

• teaching is a developmental role - a drawing out to expand other's ideas, but frustrating for the practitioner as students often want to get to the end-point, rather than follow the process through.
• "being on an edge"; vulnerability of the self; the artist, compared to the role of 'the teacher' with its expectations of all knowing [division of professional and personal self] - plus working with vulnerable people [pressure and responsibility] in a discipline where students feel a great deal of stress around their work - feeling exposed [as does the teacher-practitioner about their own work and as a teacher] - and this doesn’t get recognised much within F/HE.
• teaching and practice may come together rather than being separate in the same space, teacher-practitioners might feel safer if they were the same practice. An aspiration may be to be able to ‘wear all your hats at once’ as whole person rather than one at a time, dependent on role and context - this would be the braver thing to do.
• difficulty in managing both fields and experiences - have to ‘get back on the horse’, find time to maintain practice - it’s not a sabbatical.
• the connection of how individuals were trained as an artist, and their teaching practice is not necessarily made.

Group Performance:

Small groups explored the relationship between teaching and practice:

Sitting on the Bench indicates a depth of thinking [keeping learning and investigation going as a teacher], and finding the essence of the thing - suggesting that teaching offers a different perspectives and can influence art making.

Eyes Open and Closed is about looking at things - escaping one’s own world of creativity and engaging with the outside world - teaching and other influences. Interrupts ‘your sleep’ and gives you an experience of the outside world.
Art and teaching both start from where you are - personal, individual - challenge in teaching and practice is to constantly stay open.

Cushioning the Dark Space, an installation, is interpreted as when teaching and practice support one another, when it works well, there is a ‘prize’  - when it doesn’t, things fall through the gap, into a dark, unknown space - the ‘in-betweeness’ - where there are difficult questions like ‘who are you?’ but it is mysterious and interesting. We need both [teacher-practitioners]; to work alone but also to work with other people. Teaching is not wholly positive and it can be a disturbing relationship - and when you fall through ‘the gap’ there is a struggle.

Gift; the process of exchange which can be energising. Freedom of making without articulation, and tuning into the moment as central to creativity - engagement in a task is the best part of life and being given the space/permission to do this.
Trying to set up conditions for creative problem solving underneath teaching, practice and the whole of life.

Several of these performance pieces can be viewed in the Galleries.

Participant Notes:

Written reflections on the relationship between teaching and learning: [what's the area between teaching and practice like? What does it feel like? Has my practice changed as a result of my teaching.

"Maybe I entered teaching originally, simply for the income. But also for the status it may bring. The isolation I felt at that time in part aided my decision. In the beginning it was very much something that was done to me, over time I have become empowered, the teaching has taught me to be a teacher... To grow and improve as a teacher I need to address my failings with clarity and effect changes. In the same way I fail in my practice to achieve to my standard, I fail in teaching, also from lack of positive reflection".

The Teacher:

• Identity for long-term and short-term teachers is different. Does your interface with students dilute your own sense of individuality? Fragile belief in practitioner identity [unless you do it [practice], you don’t know what it is]. It’s easier to teach for a short time intensely in residence on the other side of the world. It’s easier to admit you don’t know something when you feel confident that you know a lot - so it’s easier to teach the older you get -in that respect.
• Working with students is a kind of collaboration. Interestingly you start acknowledging your students as peers. Together [with students] we can look at ways of responding to a given stimulus and how this connects to the conceptual, the real, and lived experience. Sharing own work to students so they can have an insight into who you are as artist. Teaching challenges my knowledge and I’m inspired by colleagues at work. Seminal discussions inspire my practice. Dialogue with creative people in a learning environment.
• Teaching is a practice - inclusive pedagogic research. University offers opportunities for free training and money. Need teaching admin time. Clarity on teaching needs thinking time. It’s difficult when I feel obliged to come up with general rules rather than discussing specific instances.

The Teacher-Practitioner:

• Using the same skills to teach and to make own work. Total listening, looking and being in the moment is crucial to both areas. Teaching and artistic practice feed each other. My practice influences my teaching when I’m allowed to teach what I practice. A service that feeds on, and creates new stimulus - forth and back communication. Personal vision feeds being an artist and teaching.
• Creativity needs continuous time to swell/mull, draw things in, to make connections and allow possibilities. Teaching framework and other responsibilities disrupt that for us [practitioners] and we have to make difficult and quick switches between the two.
• It is at times hell to be both - to be caught in the conflict between these two worlds - with a need to be separately submerged in one or the other, to fully inhabit their territory and do justice to that which they represent, and each fighting for my attention.
• Teaching feels as it has starved [practice]. It has made me more sensible. It has allowed me to use deliberate irrational strategies and set frameworks for myself. Where my teaching practice has helped is in the breaking down of priorities and relevant action to form the basis of the true direction. Teaching has influenced my practice as I now need to ‘practice what I preach’ and offer a good model to students. My teaching influences my practice - when I realise I’m not following the excellent advice I give to my students in my own work and when I am inspired by their industry and endeavour. Not so self-absorbed, self-contained.
• Teaching gives me a framework/context to up-date my practice. Teaching has provided clarity of thought, sense of facilitation, confidence, depth of interest through research. Openness, stimulating, keeping-up to date… becomes embedded in practice and can be energising. It can stimulate new centres of inspiration between you. Cognitive de-construction of processes can make you more articulate verbally
• Sense of flux - of information dealt with. Providing a bridge between the profession and the students [accessibility of information, experience of professional world].
• Has our practice changed with teaching or developed through life experience, who can tell? Not sure of impact on own work

The Practitioner:

• Being in the moment, the way in which this involves being with another or oneself and the real joy of undefined possibility. Tensions inhibit creativity but also allow a different dynamic. At the basis of all life endeavours is setting up the conditions for creative problem solving. All experiences [from outside influences] make sense, within you, given time to reflect.
• Exposure/vulnerability when showing/making you work. Seen not as a peer but as a teacher

Antonia Clews, 10by10 Project Leader : Report on Workshop No5: Embody 6/09

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‘Talking Hats’ is an aspiration to be able to ‘wear all your hats at once’, as whole person. ‘Eyes Open and Closed’ is about looking at things - escaping one’s own world of creativity and engaging with the outside world; teaching, and other influences. ‘Sitting on the Bench’ indicates a depth of thinking [keeping learning and investigation going as a teacher], and finding the essence of the thing - suggesting that teaching offers a different perspective and can influence art making.

Filming by Richard Layzell, editing by Richard Wood and Antonia Clews, Bath Spa University.

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The techniques of working through the body followed with one to one dialogue, created a good sense of trust and cohesion within the group, enabling individuals to explore issues and experiences as teacher-practitioners at a deeper level than may normally have been expressed in a short time. The space created through the workshop meant that participants could express their thoughts and feelings in a responsive and creative format [such as performance pieces] where the meaning could be further interpreted and explored by the other partcipants.

Facilitator:

In general workshop participants focussed on the key issue of the relationship between teaching and practice. There were a high proportion of skilled, motivated and experienced people attending who all had a position on the subject and a lot to contribute. We could have spent the whole day. As I always employ intuition and some improvisation in facilitating, which brings the situation to life, the processes became focussed more on the individual and the quest for insight and balance, than I was anticipating.

One of the key outputs was the quality of engagement and discussion, both as a whole group and in smaller groupings. Other outputs included a relationship to the physical space we were in and beyond the room; performed/presented vignettes - in pairs - about the practitioner/teacher relationship; performances/presentations in groups of 3 or 4, which focussed on the impact of teaching on practice.

Any improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

This workshop functioned better as a ‘development space’ rather than as a focused ‘research’ exercise. It may have helped to focus on some of the issues and directly address them in greater depth, as a whole group, following on from the small group performances and conversations, to try and capture the responses of the group more effectively.

Facilitator:

Having completed one session I would learn from this experience and build on it. The changes would be:

• Try to engage people in a deeper discussion/analysis of the dynamic between teaching and practice and try to document this more methodically.
• Try to see the process more as research, which they are engaged with at a higher level.
• Fewer activities.
• Get someone else to do the filming.
• The performative approach is a strong framework to build upon and could have gone even further

Any comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

The performances were often powerful in their representation of quite simple concepts, which enabled participants to possibly work more intuitively. Given that teaching and creative practice are often personally [and wholly] demanding roles, this workshop enable individuals to approach the relationship and role of the teacher-practitioner fairly directly, as an experiential one.

Facilitator:

The workshop was very effective in engaging teacher-practitioners in exploring the issues. Participants welcomed being given the space to articulate and share their feelings, attitudes, prejudices, preconceptions, assumptions, achievements, commitments and so on.

Several people also commented on the importance of being able to express the dynamic visually and performatively, not just through discussion.

Participant feedback

Managed to create a real sense of group in a very short period of time. This encouraged a kind of openness and directness amongst participants.
A great opportunity to be word free and action full.
As a series, very effective - need to build relationships over time to be bale to explore in depth.
Very friendly, nice pace, interesting discussing in groups.
Could have been longer - all day to be more in depth
Great to have support/time to think about the issues.
It is good to meet and discuss personal experiences and this was well facilitated. Could be more frank discussion of incentives and motives.
It is extremely interesting and important to be asked to manifest our thoughts through embodies means. This honours practice and feels refreshing.
Very effective activities which were blissfully not based specifically on head work and definitions but on more expansive methods of reflecting on the theme
I enjoyed meeting the people in the workshop.
Varied and kept interesting. Opportunities for sharing.

Embody Evaluation: Project leader: Antonia Clews and facilitator: Richard Layzell 6/2009

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Some interpretations of the wall collection:

• When ‘a teacher’ you see a wider picture, when ‘a practitioner’ you are focused on what you are doing [the telescope as a metaphor with teaching at the far/fat end].
• You own practice is on the outside - knowledge encompassing everything -  but your own learning is in the centre - and is what one gives out
• [The wall collection] is set of things that are essentially ‘the near’ and those which celebrate randomness - these are the predominate tropes, with others that fall in between.
• Can’t see linear relationships - everything wraps around everything else, is intertwined…
• We are always doing something for a purpose, always wrapped together - separating teaching and practice is possibly a false opposition.

Reflecting on the process of ‘model making’

“We were ‘practising’ and you can either intellectualise that and think about what you were making or be more experiential and be tactile, and the act of doing - you can chose to link thought deeply or let it flow and see what practices gave you - [the model making] was your little bit of creativity, what it was like to make those shapes - bringing those experiences together - we were engaged in the exercise and how random the whole thing is in terms of practice and teaching  - how sometimes you find yourself in this random space or surreal world where you are not quite sure of who you are or what you are doing but it’s just about inspiration fun, play or passion or seeing in the eyes of the group you are with whether there is any engagement. That’s the problem with a lot of this, the intellectualising of these differences between practitioner and teacher-practitioner, academic, lecturer, researcher - many people [in HE] don’t see any differentiation between them - not so extreme as seeing spaces in-between.

People see it in a different way - how joined up or not joined up they were or how precious they are about ‘that’s my bit’ - being practitioner for a few minute is just a joy in itself, we were all quite engaged with it …
Spatial Positioning - the loci exercises

The exercises were designed to ask participants to consider where they stand in relation to teaching, practice, research and learning. The whole group’s locations were then overlaid so that it is possible to see where the majority of individuals decided to locate themselves. The idea was to visual a space where these fields of practices overlapped, but perhaps where the push or pull of one particular area may feel more dominant at a particular juncture of time and relationship, for the individual.

Reflecting on the loci exercises

Participants felt that the mapping exercise would be interesting and useful if repeated against “Where would you like to be?’ or “Where do you think the university would like you to be?” reflecting the degree to which these responses are context specific.

Some participants felt uncomfortable with not knowing what the clear terms are and the definitions being used - particularly whether it is private [small r] or public research [capital R]? However, what was evident from looking at where individuals had chosen to locate themselves was that although the whole discussion was dominated by the research-practice relationship, not many individuals had located themselves firmly in the ‘research’ space.

Individuals were surprisingly spread out across the space with little evidence of ‘clustering’ although it is evident from the teaching-practitioner continuum that participants had a stronger affiliation with teaching than creative practice and with practice than research.

Surprisingly there was not much evidence that people may be choosing the central space when asked to locate themselves between the three fields - although there is obviously a greater density within the centre. One participant felt that she put herself in the centre because you can feel equally distant, or far away, from everything  - trying to create her own space [centre as own construction away from everything you are meant to be doing].

Obviously it is difficult to draw conclusions as this exercise is a point in time and individuals may not choose to place themselves in the same place. With reference to the final Loci map of this group, responses that could be inferred, in response to the statements are that:

1.    Where do you stand in relation to practice and teaching?
More participants closely relate their identity to teaching than practice.

2. Where do you stand in relation to practice and research?
There are a range of positions between research and practice, but most participants   view themselves as being closer to practice

3. Where do you stand as a learner, in relation to practice and teaching?
More participants view their learning as through their teaching, although there are some central positions [between all three]; learning through research is stronger than practice

4. Where do you stand as a teacher, in relation to practice and teaching?
Although there are some central positions, teaching has a stronger affiliation with practice than research

5. Where do you stand as a practitioner, in relation to research and teaching?
More participants view their practice as having a stronger affiliation with teaching than research

Notes from Discussions -  ensuing from the Loci Exercise

Practice

The nature of what most of us is doing is so entrenched in practice, the ephemeral and immediate nature of it ‘being there’ and then it’s gone, being made and then gone and then starting the next project, it’s crucial to make a stand for research and practice as research, to make an archive of research, worthy of what we [creative practitioners] want to be research

Practice is about pause for thought - being in a moment with something and possibly not quite knowing, so that relationship to knowledge is tied to uncertainty, a space of determined uncertainty, common to a lot of creative disciplines - we should better at saying what ‘our space’ is.

All aspects of practice inform each other - better model for arts practice [than triangulation] is the crystal as it’s multi faceted - we are all trying to do the right one [aspect of practice] to reveal what’s in the middle - difficult to separate it out.

Perspective on research-practice

Rhizomic approach, multi interlinked knowledges - clusters - not linear investigations. The bricoleur - pulling together all sorts of stuff which we do -  and are very good at this in our practice, do it all the time.

Archive of practice needed - experience in the moment, then becomes a different thing - a paper, a presentation - reflection on initial research.

See practice as research - multiple practices [fine art, commercial etc.]
I practice stuff - I do research - I am a practitioner - our identities our multi-faceted and there is a danger in pigeon-holing us into an academic identity.
Your practice is your own research - but this is being read as university/academic research [new knowledge/dissemination etc'.

Need to articulate research as practice may result in a positive in that practitioners have to defend their practice through articulating it, clarifying how you are seen, want to be sent, what you do etc? ...[facilitator].
Does there need to be a practitioner definition of research? [facilitator]

Practice in the academic context

Who defines what is seen as research? [facilitator]

Trained as theatre designer now in education - not designing performances but experiences - still designing - no difference - same processes.

Constantly struggle how to ‘play the game’. ‘The battle’ of the acceptance of art in the academic curriculum. The university which used to be the art school - try and be creative as much as possible within the confines of the current system - how much of our baggage [emotional, education etc.] do we bring with us? - fight or play game very well - or comply with what ‘old academia’ calls research - not been able to establish our own experience and our own way of judging what is valid research or practice.

We internalise the system. Research is different in academic terms now too - in the same way as artists, the lone academic has now got to disseminate to wide number of people.

What scientists do as research, is practice - it’s what they do.
Pressure in the arts on outcomes  - time needs to be afforded into depth of investigation - but no-one questions experimental science.

More of a stigma, more pressure about research and practice than teaching and practice - reflecting current agenda of the academic context. Monoculture  - need to have phd to teach- breeding generation of academic research.
Ten years ago all ‘they’ wanted was for you to bring your [practitioner] experience to the curriculum - now with PGCE and jumping through the hoops to maintain that - it is essential that practitioners are brought in - not that everyone has to be doing research - the pressure [to do research] is a blockage.

Trainee performers would rather follower eminent practitioners not eminent researchers -students want to learn practice -  having done a degree, they want to do it.

Things aren’t static  - need to keep up with current issues - research with a small r means that your teaching is up to scratch. Institutional Research criteria relates to funding, student numbers etc. and this is asked of practitioners to verify or validate what they are doing ..

This [10by10 research] is important if somehow it can give practitioners the language and the tools to present what we do [to keep what we've got  - trad conservatoires being taken over by mainstream HE]

Antonia Clews, 10by10 Project Leader : Report on Workshop No4: Loci 5/09

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This workshop was unusual because it was situated within an academic conference about teaching and practice, so there was much discussion about the issues prior to the workshop itself and the workshop was within the academic realm. Further to this the workshop was half the length of standard 10by10 workshop.

The workshop was mainly focused on exploring the relationships between teaching, practice and research and interestingly the participants were most interested in focusing on the practice as research and teaching relationship rather than the teaching and practice relationship. Asking participants to spatially explore ‘where they stand’ in relation to different aspects of their practice was an effective way to prompt debate, although greater exploration of the terms may have benefited the process. As usual the simple creative exercise was a good way of getting practitioners started in term of exploring the issues and relating to practice based techniques.

Facilitator

The artefacts and the process of making them appeared to be very comfortable for participants and led to interesting discussions, which could have been further developed. Some artefacts appeared to have, and sometimes to need a dialogue or narrative recounted alongside them.

Any improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

Greater time exploring how participants felt in their ‘locations’ and what the terms meant to them would have slowed the ‘loci’ exercise down and meant participants would have more time to consider their decisions. Adding ‘research’ to the teaching practice relationship meant that discussions became focused on the more pressing academic expectations and context rather than allowing practitioners to examine any issues arising from being both-practitioners and teachers. This may also have been due to the fact that the majority of participants were predominately teachers and that the conference context had already raised the status of the teacher-practitioner.

Facilitator

Possibly to give more time to the first section of making and exploring how the meaning was manifest in the artefacts. Putting them up on the wall was quite problematic for some and leaving them on the floor may have been better for those that depended on the floor for their structure!

Any comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

Both the physical spatial exploration and the more intuitive model making exercise were effective in allowing the issues to be raised and explored, personally and then further through group discussion. More time is needed than was available in this context to explore the issues in greater depth, but the techniques were a good way of ‘getting somewhere else’ quickly.

Facilitator

The second half of the workshop with the positioning exercise was quite effective, though did get bogged down in the meaning of research in this context. I was struck by the difference between early career teachers and those who are nearing the end of their careers and I think this was an important factor in the responses. Similarly the participants were there as part of an academic activity (a conference, albeit about practice) and that too may represent a difference in the responses.

Participant feedback

I like the creative, hands on element.
I like using other things than post-its which feel too familiar from work-shopping in general.
Interesting to take part in visual mapping ideas to think about own practice and teaching in relation to this mapping.
Thought I could have done with a little bit more time on the thinking and recording of questions given, I felt a little rushed.
The workshop was extremely useful. The 3D making of models was a lot of fun - I worry that outside influences such as current ’state of mind’ ‘personal visual language’ ‘nervousness about being at an ‘event’ may result in the abstract form only relating a certain amount of how we see the teacher-practitioner. Really enjoyed the debate after the triangulation exercise.
Innovative - refreshing. Liked the doing aspect.
I enjoyed the practical aspects of this workshop, however, felt that some of the terms needed definition as often they wouldn’t say what I wanted it to.

Loci Workshop Evaluation: Project Leader: Antonia Clews and Facilitator: Alison Shreeve
6/2009

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Some reflections from participants on the teacher-practitioner which emerged through word-storming the terms creative practitioner, teacher and teacher-practitioner as three distinct groups, include the following:

There appears to be a lack of definition of the role of the teacher practitioner and an underlying a sense of insecurity, which was not present in the discussions about creative practice and teaching.

In discussing the creative practitioner, mostly positive attributes were identified - although there are some negative aspects to being a creative practitioner there is little evidence of insecurities - uncertainty etc. are things that practitioners are clear about, as these characteristics are the badge of job -  such as struggle, struggle to find space. Discussion predominantly focused on talking about the process of creation and values where insecurities are focused in things you have some control over developing. Words such as brave and challenges refer to insecurities but the meeting of these in a context ..

Discussions about the teacher practitioner focused on areas of responsibility rather than creative process, and how to maintain the creative process whilst the organisation may be resistant to insecurity and challenge - dominance of institutional context for teacher practitioner.

For teachers, discussions didn’t touch on insecurities, role seemed quite clear, has an historical grounding [of practitioner teaching] - focus on history - how teaching has change and how ‘we were taught’ ….

Goal orientated aspects and imperatives of education and teaching process contrast to practice where the goal, or happy accident, is more likely to emerge. In education there is no room for mistakes so goals mean you are more likely to be afraid of making mistakes..

If practitioners are given freedom of time and practice and an open brief in terms of results this enables you to be a teacher and practitioner where you are taking real knowledge - you can teach risk and getting lost - tactics of practitioners and makers  - but have to do some of that ‘in a bottle’ translate it into a different context.

Negotiate what is appropriate to being a teacher-practitioner - practicum is hard to pin down - can’t say you are going to do one thing or another [as a teacher], you might offer an example for student to reflect on; deal with ‘it’ in the studio context.

Issues of ownership may be an issue in HE - be clear if it’s your own work or that of your students. Teaching theatre is not how ‘I ‘ would do it when directing theatre in practice - it’s the students’ work not mine [normally it would be a shared product] as need clear role as teacher-practitioner.. but have to work it out by context to context.

Reflections on the Teacher-Practitioner Index:

Participants reflected that the Index contained many emotive words - love, joy, passion etc.

It was suggested that identity should be in the centre as it’s mostly what we are talking about and that the word values is missing from the vocabulary although it was discussed. Hard work and certainty missing form the core space …

Several labelled images were selected as being particularly symbolic of the teacher -practitioner, interestingly all of these express some sort of contradiction or relationship between different states:

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the Index making process. It is clear the role and characteristics of the teacher-practitioner as distinct to creative practitioner and teacher is complex and difficult to refine or pin down. There was some consensus that once you start to define a term [the index being seen as being unfinished] more and more questions emerge.

Words used within the discussion generally referred to emotions, behaviours and states, processes or contexts. These groups or categories, appear fairly equally represented although there are perhaps less emotive words and actually words such as discomfort, empathy and restless were nearer the creative practice end of the scale than the teaching, with behaviours such as broker, sharing, motivator at the teaching end. Notable within the index are places where words are positioned next to each other but are contradictory in meaning, such as pro-active and standing back, or integrity and subsumed. This potentially reveals the personal investment of individuals and identity issues within the teacher-practitioner role, as many people chose to describe it differently.

There seemed greater positivity expressed in the vocabulary developed by the small groups to describe what it is to be a creative practitioner or a teacher, than that for the teacher practitioner.

Participants of the ‘teacher’ group figuratively described the process of segregating the role of teacher from their practice as “like having to amputate a limb”. The nature or roles of teaching and practice as distinctive or different was evident in some of the small group discussions which had a singular focus of teacher or practitioner, but there was a sense that the group as a whole felt the teacher practitioner has a role and identity which is inclusive of a range of characteristics across the fields of teaching and practice, which in turn are context dependent.

Participants felt that working with images as well as the text, extends associative range beyond what would have been looked at, made things more beautiful and also ‘aestheticised confusion’. Others felt that the visual and verbal  intermingle, but having to put them together (labelling images with words) created some constraints.

Full text/image teacher-practitioner index

Antonia Clews, 10by10 Project Leader : Report on Workshop No3: Index 4/09

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The combination of small group discussion, and working with text and image [digital photographs taken on site within the session] worked well in terms of drawing out a range of ideas and issues around the teacher-practitioner. Participants appeared uncomfortable with the process of focusing on ‘the teacher-practitioner’ as a refined index, which is distinctive from, or which does not necessarily include, all aspects of both practice and teaching. The large number of words and images produced [indicating a broad range of experiences and interpretations about the teacher-practitioner and a difficulty in defining it], with the resistance to limiting the selection, meant that the final index was perhaps not as refined as it could have been and the process of critical consideration needed more time.

Facilitator:

Index was a very ambitious workshop in terms of its aim to work with an equal emphasis on processes, outputs and outcome. As the emphasis was in many ways on the quality of the visual ‘product’ perhaps some of the process and output was compromised. The resulting index looks beautiful, classified and more coherent in the o-nline gallery, but in reality it was less organised and less comfortable.

As the objective was to work with photography and new technologies within a very short frame of time, the workshop was subject to a large element of risk and unpredictability in terms of its mechanics. This was something we were keenly aware of and if we had chosen to work with traditional media, which is ironically more reliable, many lessons would not have been learnt. As this was an experiment, it seems fitting that the element of ‘risk’ in process and output indeed produced some unexpected encounters, and through some of its failures (identified below) there are certain successes.

Suggested  improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

As with all workshops, deliberate and facilitated ‘meaning-making’, drawing on the work produced, within the session, may have helped participants reflect more on the outcomes of the workshop and enable a greater clarity of the issues. Following the generation exercise, which encouraged a wide range of material, greater discernment or more restrictive rules about which of the many words and images, to be included in a final index, may have resulted in the final ‘product’ being more resolved. This is difficult to manage in a large group scenario and can only really be achieved through small groups of individuals working together, and greater time. The workshop was slightly compromised due to difficulties with the printer [this may have been resolved by bringing a back-up], which unfortunately meant a delay in printing out participants’ images and some groups did not see their photographs printed. This slowed the workshop down and meant that there were fewer images than words to work with, and that the text-image relationship was less of a vehicle in the workshop than envisaged.

Facilitator:

This workshop was unique in that it was, in many ways, truly out of context/out of institution (even the institution of creative practice) and this displacement, this ‘heterotopia’ helped reveal how challenging it is to facilitate our practice once we remove our props or aids, whether physical or psychological. I felt constrained in the knowledge that there were certain theoretical aims to the workshop, when usually my outcomes are planned to be entirely unexpected. Maybe the process suffered as a result of this as I failed to focus on the practical challenges and problems which are usually my main focus; however the outcome in the end was interesting in the very ‘absence’ of what we had envisaged - the words actually not being brought together with the images - we are left with ‘disconnections’, even an absence of connections.

• The failure of the printer to output as many images as we had planned, created an ‘absence’, what we might call ‘contingency’ or ’slight panic’ in teaching or practice. I think we have all experienced this. This however became a trajectory for an un-anticipated learning outcome - this ‘absence’ is actually quite a unique opportunity to reflect on the teacher-practitioner role, realising what kind of skills and self-awareness are needed when working in unfamiliar territories. Contingency it a familiar scenario for the teacher-practitioner, except in this case the only resource left was the time and space, and the facilitative relationship, which was quite a frightening prospect for a visual artist practitioner.

• The workshop was dependent on a clear visual documentary strategy of the process to express and articulate concept and findings. Unfortunately the process, in particular the key assemblage of the visual index at the end, was not adequately documented. This was irretrievable as it was an installation work. However again, this ‘absence’ or ‘failure’ created a new space or challenge, where we had to recreate the index post-workshop which became reduced even to a form that was ‘purely visual’, where the words appear less important or obscured. I feel this actually was a success and the index to be viewed in an alternate way.

• The process of ‘indexing’ which asserts a need to classify, and the documentary process, perhaps reveal that the teacher-practitioner is actually something with a much less fixed identity; which essentially resists pinning down, Maybe the mechanics of this index is of the type you cannot control and requires continuous flow, exercise or reshuffling, juxtaposing several spaces at the same time and resisting definition.

• This workshop proposal presented a very tight time constraint. The mechanics of the tools and technology within new media can be laborious and slow and probably irrelevant to the process. This applies to the Index workshop because it involved definite gradual shifts of development and output, the ‘timelapse’ being the time between moments of exposure and non-exposure. To hide some processes can often be a more effective mode of delivering and the workshop did not have time for the post production.

Comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

Loosely exploring associations through text [in affect, brainstorming] seems to be an effective way of generating discussion around the wide range of associated issues. The juxtaposition of text and image was an affective way of thinking more about associated meanings and interpretations. The dynamics of the groups created a positive space where individuals felt comfortable with exploring different ways of describing teaching and practice roles and relationships and further time and discussion defining a set of juxtapositions may have added extra depth.

Facilitator:

It was good not to establish any hierarchies in the beginning via informal introductions, with little emphasis on what we brought to the table. The group was very relaxed through-out, this was in fact the perfect testing ground for elements of failure, as when things went wrong, the group had a strong and empathic relationship with one another, enabling things to progress relatively smoothly and issues to be implicitly explored without too much awareness of them (the photographic images exemplify this). I believe and hope that this also enabled the effective exploration of issues following the workshop, via reflection and viewing the gallery of images created online.

I am certain that a calmer method of delivery, where ‘it doesn’t matter’ if something goes wrong, creates a calmer and clearer vision enabling the teacher-practitioners to explore some less obvious issues that might be subjective and pertinent to them, which after all are perhaps the main signifiers or ‘glue’ of the index and are ‘the real’ issues at stake….words like ‘flow’, ‘knowing not’, ‘ a bag of roosters’, ‘vulnerability’ emphasise this. But even more so, the photographic images are true personifications of the ‘here and now’ which was the main atmosphere during the workshop, and they also provide evidence that issues are not always easy to verbalise. The freshness of the imagery exceeds the verbal outputs and quite rightly the final gallery, presented ’sans’ their verbal counterparts represent very effectively the issues at stake.

Participants Feedback:

“Excellent - need summing up/reminder at end re where it is going/what it is for for, from our point of view”
“No pressure, lots of physical mental space, which is positive”.
“Needs context clearly setting out - tendency to polarise without sufficient opportunity for dialogue”.
“Inclusive but clarity of purpose - effective session. Team leadership sometime faltered”.
“Thought provoking. Perhaps sometimes unclear re purpose/intention - possibly had to generate index from relatively momentary analysis/engagement - but certainly interesting”.
“Practical, visual approach was very refreshing”.
“Shame the printer failed as I’d have enjoyed the purely visual index”.
“Too soon to know sorry”.
“Interesting and useful but break diffused energy and used up too much time. Marvellous group. Explanations not always clear. Enjoyable”.
“I enjoyed the pace and space provided and the combination of intellectual and playful tasks”.
“New experience for me”.
“Printing out images was too slow and we lost the connection with our images. The index concept is useful. Good group of people”.
“Buzz groups to generate words and groupings in smaller numbers for images, very effective”.
“More engagement with participants and more flow in the delivery”.
“Very interesting method of extracting thoughts/info. The images injected additional thoughts to the words and sometimes changed the meaning”.
“Made me think of the open space aproach but with an even freer setting”.
“Visual with verbal very useful”.

View the final Index in the galleries or download a pdf of the full text/image teacher-practitioner index

Index Workshop Evaluation: Project Leader: Antonia Clews and Lead Facilitator: Helen Marshall
5/2009

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The groups shared locations were then mapped onto one template to represent the three loci and to look at any shared positions and patterns across the group. Given that there was no consensus  in how to define the terms used,  it was up to the individuals to interpret the statements in their own way, and to stand where they felt they wanted to position themselves in the ‘here and now’.  Although primarily an experiential exercise for participants, the mapping aspect of the Loci exercise was very interesting. See the forthcoming Loci report in the Commentary section for further information.

Red: “where do you stand between teaching and practice?” Green: “where do you stand between research and practice?” Blue: “where do you stand as a learner between teaching, research and practice?”  Yellow: “where do you stand as a teacher between research and practice?” Orange: “where do you stand as a practitioner between research and practice?”

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Recent facilitation: The Central Arts Partnership London, Into the New Glasgow. Techniques/approaches: holistic improvisation, experiential exercises, inclusivity, the concept of community

Experience of supporting or working with the relationship between creative practice and teaching.

This has been a continual interplay throughout my career working as an artist, teacher and mentor. There is always an overlap.

Further information can be found at:

http://www.rescen.net/Richard_Layzell/r_layzell.html

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Please arrive before 1.30 pm as the workshop will start promptly. Tea and coffee will be provided during the workshop.

Location: Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery, Furnival Building, Sheffield Hallam University

‘Pause’ is designed to enable teacher-practitioners to explore processes in their creative practice and in teaching, through different drawing strategies. Reflecting on the process of learning through practice, participants will be encouraged to explore how this can support their teaching practice.

Go to Workshop Registration Form

Penny Hay will be the lead facilitator for this session.

This 10by10Series workshop is kindly supported by Sheffield Hallam University,  and is co-hosted by the Sheffield Institute of Arts, alongside colleagues from Architecture in the Faculty of Development and Society.

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The index was originally created in a spatial arrangement of images and text on the ground [unfortunately photographs do not adequately capture the final index, in situ]. The words and images have been presented here, in an attempt to reproduce the basic elements,  of the original index [the text labels below the pictures are not specific to the images, but have a relationship with them].

The index originally included aspects of creative practice [towards the top end] and teaching [towards the lower end] of the layout. Figurative lines were drawn so that the final index represented what the group felt was the core of the index for the teacher-practitioner, as the central area between the continuum of practice and teaching.

View pdf of the re-created full text and image ‘Teacher Pracititioner Index’

CREATIVE PRACTICE

TEACHING

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Please arrive before 1.30pm as the workshop will start promptly. Tea and coffee will be provided during the workshop.

Location: The Red Room, Phoenix

‘Embody’ explores the impact of teaching on practice and how practitioners may assimilate and realise their teaching experiences through creative practice. The workshop also explores ‘the performance of being a teacher’, working with the concept of the body as a creative tool.

This workshop uses inclusive performative techniques which are designed for creative practitioners across the disciplines.

Go to Workshop Registration Form

The lead facilitator for this workshop is Richard Layzell

This 10by10Series workshop is kindly supported by CETLD [Centre for Excellence in Learning through Design], University of Brighton

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Space focused on prompting participants to explore the third space ‘in between’ teaching and practice, and the liminality of the different teacher and practitioner roles.

Questions offered for participants to consider include; what does this interstitial space allow and generate in terms of cross over and new ideas? How do teacher-practitioners maintain the integrity of their roles and develop a professional profile? How do the roles influence or direct the practice of ‘the other’ and what are the tensions between them? How can the tensions be identified and exploited?

Overview:

Notable within this workshop, despite being given the space to reflect on the relationship between teaching and practice from a practitioner perspective, discussions tended towards discussing the institution/academy, or student learning, and participants appeared to find it difficult to focus on teacher-practitioners as having a distinct perspective. Indeed the tensions between practice and teaching are generally framed as tensions relating to academic perceptions of the value of research [as practice].

Participants expressed familiar tensions between creative and academic contexts, which are often raised in teaching-focused staff development scenarios, and these concerns are not distinct to teacher-practitioners (as opposed to teachers). Issues such as the prioritising of quality, assessment, benchmarking and end-product over process, the lack of time, and issues of constraints on creativity and risk-taking within academia, were identified as the prime context of teaching, whilst the context of practice and it’s processes were less actively described. The outcome driven culture of HE is described as being at odds with the concepts of freedom/space, highlighting the conscious effort required to make space for self [as a practitioner] within an institution.

Of interest are the comments that teacher-practitioners may find it difficult to act as ‘teacher’ rather than from their subjective positions as ‘practitioner’, when faced with student’s creative problems. From the other perspective, it is suggested that full time teachers keep the connection with their practice through ‘practice-like activity’ - as they might within their practice, through the classroom ’studio’ with their students. A further view is that some practitioners want to keep their practice separate from their teaching and feel that teaching drains them creatively.

A further insight is that some practitioners feel the need to research ‘knowledge’ in order to teach, but welcome this as an opportunity that benefits their practice, along with co-learning through their students. Other literature (Artist Teacher Scheme evaluation 2006) reveals that teachers who have lost touch with their practice feel the need to participate within a community of practitioners, to keep themselves up to date and also that knowledge of the contemporary arts field makes full time teachers feel more confident. This up to date knowledge and its impact on confidence is thus shared by both teachers and teacher-practitioners, although practitioners may feel their expertise is teaching through creative process, whilst they feel teacher’s expertise may be derived through the teaching process.

This workshop highlights that there are opportunities to ‘reclaim’ or reprioritise practice and a further recognition that with an emphasis on the development of pedagogy, ‘practice as practice’ may be being forgotten, whilst many of the teacher-practitioners emphasis how important their practitioner identity is to their teaching.

The Balancing trick of the teacher-practitioner:

Logistical constraints prevent freedom as a practitioner - the realities of doing a job [of teacher]. There is a requirement to be involved with admin and management, which makes it difficult to carry out practice, but there is also pressure in relation to research, which makes HE fraught. Research can be divisive - the bridges between those that ‘do’ research, and teaching and curriculum development, are under-developed [issues to do with academic culture creating barriers between values]. Recognition that the institution may prevent flows and establishes systemic constraints through years worth of ‘how we do it’, preventing opportunities to explore connections.

Teaching is rewarding process personally but perhaps not so rewarding for practice. There is a difficulty in being creative when helping others become creative. When supporting individuals with your own creative energy and ideas, it’s difficult to have much left. One needs strategies to not give away too much of oneself - not put oneself into students work/practice (”where would I go with this”?) rather than focusing on drawing the individual out - difficult to balance role of facilitator, rather than having own subjective opinion/experience in response to an issue.

Practice can be individual [private] or with a desire to connect with ‘arts’ community so that the educational institution can become part of your practice in some way - the issue is also a balance of integrity. A set of ideas, ideas that need testing, discussions with students and projects you set [as teacher-practitioner], can all be associated with something you are currently working on in your own practice, which makes it quite nebulous.

Teaching is a privilege, to have the ‘head space’  - but the practitioner side is that you need to do something about it .. Many colleagues find the connections problematic and want to keep their practice separate. Many teachers say they are practitioners although not that active, and one view is that there is a difference between creative [more 'self searching' through their practice] and commercial practitioners.

Difficulties with being a practitioner within academic culture:

Benchmarks for ‘research as practice’ are new
Issues of institutions not catching up with industry - still in traditional style degrees because ‘the system’ can’t evidence quality
Teaching for creativity where institutions don’t take risks
Teaching students to articulate through materials, who may never go on to become creative practitioners

Benefits of being both teacher and practitioner:

Students input into they way one sees own practice, and you can gear teaching around own interests
Research is needed to inform teaching, make sure ‘know’ enough
Teaching personally rather than being a resource - students look at you as doing what they are trying to learn, expected to bring your own practice -
Mature students bring wide contextual knowledge where you can learn from them as a practitioner
‘Updating’ on subject based knowledge [research] - the more you know the more informed your practice is so benefits the individual through meeting the expectation to carry out research as a teacher [but possibly not so specific to own research interests]
Teaching is an enjoyable process - a good feeling - a reverse struggle when have to go back to practice - sometimes ‘I’m a teacher-practitioner not practitioner-teacher’

Teaching and Practice as Process:

Teaching and practice processes run in parallel activities and sometimes converge and fall apart, but are equally important:

Critical reflection is part of training as an artist and is used as a teacher Teaching is informed by the way practitioners make works - [e.g how it is encountered, affected] - like a student project.

‘Art’ doesn’t work on a routine basis - it’s a process that can’t be assigned to time constraints - teaching impinges on practice. There is a lack of time - ‘research’ time is essentially used as a ‘catch up’ time. In defining ‘practice time’ allocation’, it changes the nature of work e.g. “this is research”..

If you have to benchmark a product - how does this impact on the process? - struggle with students as the product is assessment related - students want a formula, but as a practitioner it’s difficult to work with this structure - to box the creative process, and difficult to define for others. This concept of achievement restricts creativity and creates fear and conservatism within the learning environment

The ‘comfort zone’ is where artists ‘do process’ and teachers ‘do product’ and artists resist this [product], seeing work divided into creative versus measured/academic work, rather than looking at things as not so qualitatively divided.

Practice as research:

‘Political noise’ or institutional policy and priority has a major impact on the value of practice within HE, with pedagogic practice and ‘research as practice’ current agendas at institutional level. The strategic issues of getting time and money means that practice has to be seen or described as research for it to have validity. Research is often ‘in-house’ within the institution, the idea being that it feeds down through practice - but some practice is given higher accord. The question is whether there is a pressure on the integrity of the artists’ practice - and these tensions are felt.

Practice and research have become synonymous and yet this isn’t being discussed or the efficacy of practitioners being researcher or whether research is integral to being an artist. Does every practitioner by default research? This suggests that there are conflicting institutional messages with researchers not being involved in teaching and not enough bridges between teaching, research and practice.

Seeing practice as research gives it a currency, validity, it can then be funded and supported; but if it’s about industry practice [about working with a client] then unless it has a research component, it’s not seen as the same activity. But practice contributes to a research culture.

Teacher-Practitioner Identity:

Frustration is expressed at the ‘power plays’ and politics which exist, including the status issues of part-time teachers, and the different language and experiences of ‘freedom’ between full time practitioners and teacher-practitioners. The impact of context on identity is viewed as crucial in terms of the extent to which practitioners may engage with the educational culture, versus opportunities to pursue networks external to HE, with perhaps greater kudos for an artist. For full time staff they may be pursuing ‘practice like’ activity with students in the classroom as a type of mimicry for practice - by default working ‘through’ the students to maintain way of working, or to establish a research profile.

Practitioner aspect of teacher-practitioner needs to have authority, tools and resources to give students
Practitioner’s see self, and are viewed by others, differently because they are actually producing work [not just teaching].
Deliberately don’t try and think about what is my practice and don’t want to see yourself mirrored back by students and also don’t feel fully developed as an artist.
Practice is not visible to students but the confidence that come from it is and practitioners feel a bit on trial, are ‘checked out’ [web-sites/google etc] by students who need to position you..
Whether conscious of it or not, in a teaching role practitioners are passing the ‘identity perception’ on [am I still an artist if I didn't create anything this year?]

Antonia Clews, 10by10 Project Leader : Report on Workshop No2: Space 4/09

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As Director of a Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching [CLIP - Creative Learning in Practice], I have tried to make learning from projects with staff, participatory, rather than didactic learning experiences. We have  ‘conversations’ where project leaders have chatted about their findings and the facilitator’s role is to keep the conversation going. Workshops to support colleagues in presenting to their peers have also been important, to help shape ideas into interactive events, where multiple voices have had an opportunity to speak. I continue to learn from others about constructing and running such events.

Experience of supporting or working with the relationship between creative practice and teaching.

I have recently completed a doctoral study investigating the way that creative practitioners experience the relationship between practice and teaching and how variation in the experience might be constructed. The study also looks at the potential impact that these different relationships might have on the student learning experience. Further information can be found at:

http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/Alison%20Shreeve.htm

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‘Making’: The heart of what teacher-practitioners do is to make and do things - a subversive activity - outside the academy. The process of making/practice is essentially the transfer of energy, which is directed into the classroom. This is the main transfer - it’s not about knowing the skills, but about being excited about process.

‘Process of Discovery’: the teacher-practitioner is a continual learner through the process of play, making connections, understanding own practice - the co-learner with the student.

‘Fluidity’: a continual experiential learning interaction, across lots of levels; phenomenological stimulation, gift of self, interaction, enthusiasm - passed on to students [play being the membrane between these elements]. Navigating the unknown - not knowing where we are going.

‘Present’ - don’t know what you are getting/giving - inspiration and play - not one way - transmit, power, clarity of communication

‘Experience’ - finding your practice - finding skills and knowledge - balance of ‘how to’ with philosophising - role of humour and fun.

‘Do’s and Don’ts: Visiting Lecturers need for ‘a survival guide’ as the HE infrastructure is not supportive

Part 2: Audience related messages about the teacher-practitioner role:

On considering the different readers or audiences of a ‘how-to’ manual for teacher-practitioners, and the messages for these specific groups, a particularly strong message was that teacher-practitioners can only learn to manage the difficulties inherent with coming to HE through experiencing this for themselves. The groups however then describe a number of issues and responsibilities that are inherent to managing the teacher-practitioner role:

Students - communication needs to ensure that process [of practice] remains transparent [ risk-taking, exploration, research etc.], students need to think about their own processes and end-products, teacher-practitioners need to balance between skills and concepts - push boundaries, keep language simple [reduce academic speak].

New Teacher-Practitioners -’ tips and hints’ that could go in a manual: tension/balance of time for practice, versus income, technical advice on nature of the role/workload, bureaucratic aspect etc. but, cultural issues couldn’t be put in a book such as balancing the autonomy of the individual, versus the strategic view of the institution; emphasis that these tensions cannot be prepared for as they have to felt through experience to really understand them.

HE Decision Makers - teacher-practitioner perspectives may potentially conflict with management’s - particularly in reference to time, freedom from constraint, in producing something that is viewed as of quality and value but doesn’t fit into institution parameters/economic drivers, cannot be measured - doesn’t fit into the institutional agenda. Speak different language so problematic [the 'how to' manual would have 'windows' which enable manager's to see new aspects of reality].

Industry Decision Makers - agenda currently changing - practitioners can do what they like if you frame it to tick the right boxes so it looks like it’s what ‘they’ want - can also push new ideas which ‘they’ haven’t thought of — clear presentation, well argued but with a ‘pzazz’ hook - not just business but excitement - substantiated by deliverability. The new value of creativity in business - the artist now a credible commodity so don’t need to put a lid on these aspects.

Part 3: Shared themes:

Common themes from across these groups discussions were identified, particularly the notion that the teacher-practitioner is on a learning journey in much the same way as the student, that this experience and process leads to professional capacity. A number of tensions were identified within the teacher-practitioner role relating to conditions for creativity and institutional culture and the inability to communicate aspects of experience and practice to others.

The Teacher-Practitioner Learning Journey [non-directed]:

Enjoyment  ——————————————————- Audience

Subversion                                                                                       Convention/Communication

Practice      ——————————————————- Teaching

Personal:
subversion
playfulness, fun
engagement of self - emotional responses/personal contribution

Learning Journey:
Navigation - the journey
aspects shared by the teacher-practitioner and the student [co-learning]

Process not knowledge:
not a fixed body of knowledge
expert as ‘not knowing’

Experience not instruction:
instruction v things you can’t communicate, because they need to be experienced
the didactic - instrumental & operational versus the instability needed to be creative & challenged

Part 4: Book Making:

Individuals within the workshop made books about the teacher-practitioner, revealing a range of themes, tensions, relationships, processes and ideas, many of which explore the processes of creativity interlinking with learning and teaching whilst working within and against different contexts, and most of which express a strong sense of individual identity as a creative practitioner and also a common sense of the learning journey or processes of the practitioner being non-directed; or perhaps emergent.

• Journey through infrastructure, policy, creativity, quantifiability and flow,
• Journey as experiments with failure, moments - enjoy mistakes - the end if the beginning,
• Documenting own learning journey, breakthrough moments, Processes.
• The subversion of practitioner - different viewpoints, read-re-read - suprises - creative cycle
• Point of confusion, no instructions, change, random, don’t take direction - do - obtuse becomes knowledge transfer - life long learning - encourage, foster - a blocked journey through obtuse language - a clarity- less is more is liberating - to arrive at the front
• Easy steps to supporting the creative practitioner, create your own practitioner, useful forms
• Layers and opening, character unfolding, world opening up
• Freedom from constraint, serious play, enabling time - no hidden cost to creativity - tips for creative - throw away all user manuals

The books can be viewed in the Teacher Practitioner’s Book Gallery

The review of the workshop process highlights the passion and positivity from this group about learning, predominantly through practice, but also through teaching; whilst suggesting there may be a lack of critical reflection about the teacher-practitioner role, or model. Although practitioners may view themselves as individuals. or their practice as ’subversive’, it is questionable whether their role and it’s impact in HE is subversive.

Antonia Clews, 10by10 Project Leader 2/09

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This workshop has been incorporated into the From Practice as Research to Practising for Learning conference at University of Winchester, The Stripe Complex, supported by Palatine.

To attend this 10by10 workshop you will need to be a conference delegate at this event.

This workshop will be facilitated by Antonia Walker, 10by10 Project Leader and Alison Shreeve

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There are facilties on site if you wish to get drinks/lunch before hand. Please arrive before 1pm as the workshop will start promptly. Tea and coffee will be provided during the workshop.

Location: Sunley Pavilion, Level 3, Royal Festival Hall

If we create a visual index of representations of the teacher-practitioner, what might it tell us about the relationship between creative practice and teaching?

This workshop uses digital photography to develop an index. Artist-teachers working in the performing arts are particularly encouraged to attend this workshop, although those from other disciplines are welcome to participate too. Please bring your own digital camera if you have one.

Go to Workshop Registration Form

The lead facilitator for this workshop is Helen Marshall.

This 10by10Series workshop is kindly supported by ResCen, the Centre for Research into Creation in the Performing Arts, Middlsex University

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Review of the workshop including processes, outputs and outcomes:

This workshop was based on the concept of non-directed creative exploration and interpretation of the interstitial, or third space, between teaching and practice. The principle behind the workshop was to establish a free space in an arts studio where participants were left to mark/create what they wanted, without interjection, (for about fifty minutes). They were then asked to record their thoughts from their work and responses to others on post-its and put them on the wall for others to read. There was a break between the creative activity and the ensuing small groups discussions. Participants were not asked to talk about their work, the post-its or the experience of the first session.

The strength of the workshop technique was that it did promote emotive responses and effectively promoted a space for the creative practitioner although the teacher aspect of teacher-practitioner did ultimately dominate the discussion. Participant feedback indicates some unease with the process and that they were a little unsure of the connection between the activity and the following discussion. The ‘free-form’ approach may be most effective as form of staff development, where there is a greater connection between discussing the issues, the process of exploring through ‘purposeful’ practice [as a way or working out or through] and then reflecting on further issues arising. A range of difficult issues were expressed towards the end of the workshop but there was not enough time to explore these in depth.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

The workshop was split into three parts: one for laying out the area to be explored and ideas around this concerning the liminal and interstitial; the second around the free use of materials in a studio space and the third for discussion around the exploration of identities and issues arising from these. In the studio time, materials were provided, some of which were minimalist and some unusual (road marking crayons; and blocks of chalk) selected to inspire novel and inspirational use from the unexpected and to challenge customary media.

There was a mixed group of participants from different academic and professional backgrounds, some of whose art practice was stronger, some of whose teaching practice took a dominant lead. What resulted was the possibility of looking at the dynamics which emerged, regarding where people felt they were placed in relation to their professional profile and their commitment to their art practice, and how these two influenced each other. This presented various challenges for the facilitators as it emerged that many workshop participants felt the tension of this duality and the unacknowledged / unvoiced interstitial space and found it a frustration in the institutional framework with its research and outcomes agendae. What subsequently became apparent is that as the group gained momentum in discussing this liminal space, they appeared to seek more resolution, which was not possible in the limited time frame of a three hour workshop. This may be possible to return to in the future.

Suggested improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

The facilitator set the context at the start of the workshop but with limited time for discussion. Voicing responses as a group prior to the mark-making activity may have created stronger connections for participants which may have made it easier for individuals to come back together after their individual practice based exercise [conducted in near silence]. A clear relationship between the experiential ‘freedom’ and the issues [discussed later] could be communicated through a] articulating the intent behind the design of the activity as a post-event rationale; linking the methodology with content for participants and b] specifically addressing both participants’ experience of their work [which were varied] and their written responses to their own and others work through the ‘post-its’.

There needs to be a clear bridge between the two parts of the session [practice and discussion] to maximise the effect of the workshop. This could be resolved through keeping the creative process, visual product and subsequent discussions in one space, rather than divorcing participants from maintaining a connection with their creative work. Although it was the right decision not to focus on the experience of the ’space’ as this was not the goal of the workshop but a stimulus, participants may have benefited from more pro-active guidance from the facilitator to draw-out explicit relationships. However it is important for participants not to feel like they are in a ‘crit’ situation.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

In a repeat workshop in the same time frame, it would be beneficial to have a less pedagogic structure at the beginning in terms of definitions of the main areas. This could be achieved by including key definitions in a brief, (interstitial, liminal, threshold), and inviting participants to frame the direction of the discussion from a personal and experiential angle.

It would be of positive benefit to run the workshop over a whole day to allow the participants to exit and enter the identity profiles of teacher-practitioner and the interstitial space with longer use of the materials and more time to reflect. The opportunity of reflection upon process and input would allow the participants a richer and fuller exploration in situ of the liminal state, as well as the prospect of being able to relate this experience more directly, with other professionals, to the apparent ‘messiness’ (complicated and complex nature) of this intermediary position. It would then be possible to relate this back to the two roles: creative-practitioner and teacher-practitioner. The emergent issues were involved and potent and it would have been beneficial to have more time to investigate them, both in the preliminary stages and in the final discussion stage.

In retrospect, it would also be worth the workshop running in the same studio/room so that the participants remained with their artwork, rather than there being a physical separation from creative to discursive activities, each without recourse to the other. The studio time felt both creative and instigative and produced a highly stimulated and positive response and to have the art practice present in the ‘Space’ workshop gave greater identity to the artist status. However, separation from the finished artwork denied possibility of further link into the ‘creative space’. Advanced discussion around it could have been as a direct result of further reflection on the artwork produced and ideas stimulated in the context of art practice; how it differed from the teacher-practitioner role, etc.

It would also be interesting to consider not necessarily having introductions, as these may have created more of a sense of working within an institutional framework in terms of how participants identified themselves within their institutional hierarchies. It therefore set the precedent for the creative-practitioner to take second place, whereas during the studio time there was a sense of parity.

Comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

A critical engagement with the issues was perhaps a little slow to develop through primarily focusing on individual creative process. It is particularly evident however in reviewing the creative outputs, that as a collection, the work represents visually and conceptually, some strong themes and issues expressed across the group. The small group discussions effectively drew out a wide range of the issues towards the end of the workshop.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

Interestingly, although ‘process’ was deliberately not included as a component within the workshop, many of the participants referred directly to the ’space’ element of the workshop to frame their sense of the teacher-practitioner, and introduced the element of process as being important.

‘Space’ was successful in allowing the issues around identifying ‘practice identity’ and initiating debate around this and where the workshop participants felt their identity lay provoked lively discussion about the self in relation to the institution and the demands of the job profiles, as well as how they would ideally define themselves. It was evident that by the end of the discussion time there were more confident and in-depth comments emerging, fuelled by debate and a forum for exchange of ideas and experiences. It was at this point that the ‘hybrid’, the practitioner-teacher, was beginning to take shape and the interstitial space was beginning to be described through considered reflection.

Participant feedback:

12 creative practitioners participated in Space [1 participants made no additional comment].

Feedback indicates that some of participants felt they benefited more from the discursive element of the workshop, than the ‘free’ space of the mark-making exercise, which was non-directed.

Comments on the technique used in this workshop and its effectiveness as a staff development approach:

“more opportunity for discussion?”
“effective mix of experiential and group discussion. Not enough time with strangers and different disciplines to establish new and common ground”
“too loose. I think a more structured approach would have felt more effective. Not sure what it gave me. .. feel like it’s been of more use to the researchers”
“have thought about this area a lot, so not much new ground here. However, it is a really good idea to integrate this approach in staff development”
“the creative session was fun, but I’m not sure how informative it was in the context of the workshop. I felt that the discussion was really productive, and more time could have been allocated to that element”
“total free creative time as a tool to engage liminal space”
“a little hazy – not sure about the effectiveness of the free session in prompting subsequent discussion.. our group seemed a little unclear of the focus of follow-on discussion”
“as a therapeutic tool, very effective .. as a conceptual theoretical approach, analytical tool – less effective”
“would have been interesting to probe the outcomes of practical task further”
“I enjoyed the conversation, but didn’t find the practical work very elucidating, although I enjoyed playing with clay”
“I found the workshop helpful in finding the space where creativity can happen without bringing in the editor too early”

Space Workshop Evaluation: Project Leader: Antonia Clews and Lead Facilitator: Helen Jury
3/2009

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Work as a facilitator includes ‘Making Art in Healthcare Settings’ at Tate Modern as part of ‘The Performing Medicine’ project which provides training to medical students and healthcare practitioners using the performing and visual arts.

I deliver photography and video workshops that enable students to interrogate their individual practice through some of the processes and techniques that I have developed in my own self directed practice  - and my experience of facilitating groups and designing and leading participatory projects has become an essential and natural extension of my practice.

I have produced projects in the public realm in a variety of different contexts and this often creates unexpected partnerships. Central to the delivery of any part of a programme or project is the use of lens-based media, namely photography and video. I also use discussion, writing, drawing, installation and the internet as a resource and as a creative tool.

Experience of supporting or working with the relationship between creative practice and teaching:

One of the mainstays of my practice is a track record of working as an artist in education settings, principally schools. I am currently working on a major solo commission that will span three years in two schools. The outcomes and content produced from each facilitation session will be showcased in a series of site-specific exhibitions in East London, an online archive and timeline.

I was part of the Teacher Artist Forum, TAP, a professional development programme for artists and teachers. An action research process which sought to demonstrate that jointly training artists and teachers can provide an exemplary model for preparing a future generation of arts educators.

http://www.performingmedicine.com/

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links created by building bridges across little islands – feeding and performing separate but building bridges by practitioner islands; links made by fluidity, something that flows

it’s a maze

inside and outside perspective messy

tangled tension barbed wire dangerous journey tangled, feeding, competing

fragmented off the page to who knows where relinquishing responsibility – authority flipping between different positions

connectional engaged subversion only distinguishable from a distance

interventional containment and escape coming in and going out

mapping distinct only when put in perspective teacher can sometimes be passive

landscape the inter-subjective urban landscape: connectivity and movement horizontal and vertical

fray-ed, layered, hidden delicate processes vulnerability – exposure which is the status quo? – the originator

taking away from self to build, self as defined by boundaries sometimes obscuring each other

over the edge textural space liminal play spontaneiaty, automatic, self-conscious and un-self-conscious

reflective, situational be yourself

process foundation it’s a nebulous state of being interwoven

structure and systems make it harder for the space to be mushy, messy, merging feels restrictive

language; holding together; masking

kinesis; situations; play user interface; open source; gaming

no concept of time [hurrah!] not enough time perfection and then difficulties arising?

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‘Space’ is designed for teacher-practitioners to explore the interaction or meeting place, between their practice and their teaching. The workshop focus is on giving the participants ‘making’ space to explore their own creative practice and to discuss the experience of teaching as a practitioner, in relation to this.

Helen Jury will be the lead facilitator for this event.

This 10by10Series has kindly been supported by the Clip CETL.

Visit the Galleries to view the creative work on the teacher-practitioner and process of this group, or the Commentary section for a Review of the workshop process and Report on the products or outcomes of the workshop activities and discussions.

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Review of the workshop including processes, outputs and outcomeThe session was most successful in terms of supporting exchange and opportunities for creative activity, with quite a strong influence on stimulation [the exhibition and a collection of illustrative images/slide-show]. The participants were energetic and feedback shows they enjoyed the workshop - creating some interesting and thoughtful ‘books’. Many of the exchanges and conversations within small groups were not documented - although groups feedback.

The range of activities and timing were well measured although it would be possible to run this workshop without the exhibition visit, although it is difficult to measure how important the exhibition may have been to stimulating reflection on ‘the teacher-practitioner’ and creative ideas. The time gained however may have been more productive in enabling more time for greater depth on some of the issues.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

The timing of the exercises seemed about right and there was a good balance between group and individual, short and longer exercises. Building the gallery visit into the workshop appeared superfluous, few, if any participants appeared to link what they had seen in the gallery to the exercise(s).
The outcomes seemed generalised. While the participant did raise a number of issues these were very generalised and there is a lack of critical examination of these.

Suggested improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

A great improvement would be in terms of getting greater clarity in what individual ‘book authors’ wanted to express to their ‘reader’. At the end of the book making session the books were passed to another colleagues who was then asked to say something about the book to the group. The benefit of this is sharing and interpretation. The downside is that the meaning within the book may not be accurately presented, in favour of description tending to focus on the book rather than message about the ‘teacher-practitioner’. The ‘how to’ or manual concept [as a definitive 'three things this book says to your audience' may have become lost through concentration on the creative product. It is important to hear the maker's intention. Participants were asked to label their books with their three messages which the researcher hoped would address this, but these three things needed to be more rigourous statements. This represents the challenge of balancing experience for workshop participants with producing research material/data and the role of researcher interpretation. It is important in this workshop that participants revisit their books through the web-site and add their 'translation'.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

Although it is unlikely to occur again I would omit the gallery visit from the programme. In this instance participants could have been made aware of the exhibition and its relevance to the workshop and invited to visit this before the workshop. This would have left more time for a critical discussion on the outputs.

It was impressive that all participants produced a book but there is a lack of commentary on these by the participants. Whilst they can be invited to do this on-line we could have used more time (left by omitting) the gallery visit) for discussion. To continue the theme this might have been in the form of a book review. This review might have examined the book's relevance and utility to the intended audience. In particular, one might reshape the process to focus on a user manual for students and/or a new teacher practitioner (ie leave out HE/industry decision makers) to focus the activity on teaching and learning/teaching and practice.

Greater emphasis might have been place on the relationship between form and content. A few of the books were interesting objects but lacked content and some of the content was aspirational/inspirational but lacked critical edge. The idea of manual still feels right but more balance or emphasis needs to be given to the relationships between the instructional/didactic parts of a manual and its critical or discursive elements. 'Book chapters' might be suggested such as technical/technique; knowing and playing; working and thinking and so on. It might be worth considering having the book made by pairs of participants and stressing more critical/reflective aspects. Working in pairs might support a more enquiry-led process.

It would be worth considering some tools to enable the recording of the decision-making processes undertaken during the brief development for the book and the design/making of the book. Perhaps some form of mind-map technique, diagram or log of decisions? This would assist the participants in reflecting on the process and outcomes and assist the facilitator/project manager in the review of the outcomes.

Comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

The workshop was very effective in terms of engaging participants with the broad themes and exploring these creatively, but less successful in drawing out these issues to great depth. It also appeared that participants tended to focus on the positive aspects of creative practice and teaching. Facilitators and perhaps the project leader, have a key role in drawing out these issues or delving further in. This is dependent on issues such material produced, group dynamics and time but indicates that the facilitator may need a more directive role or the activities need to be less open ended in some instances.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

As a 'first time' event this workshop seemed to go well and it is worth considering re-running it as part of this project (10x10) or adapting it for other workshops/purposes. All the teacher-practitioners clearly engaged with the process and these processes did support a debate. However the debates did not develop and remained rather descriptive and speculative about the books rather than revealing views on teacher practitioner relationships.

Participant feedback:

13 creative practitioners participated in Arrival [3 participants made no additional comments].

Feedback was positive, although comments on the techniques tended to focus on enjoyment, play and creativity rather than as effective means to reflect on the teaching-practice relationship.
Comments on the technique used in this workshop and its effectiveness as a staff development approach:

“Inclusive, rigorous, good conversations, responsive”
“It highlighted making and doing as a form of thinking”
“Techniques good but felt more depth could be obtained by doing less, or having a whole day” “I enjoyed this afternoon simply as an opportunity to be creative in a scissors and glue sort of way. I’m not sure that I have benefited particularly from the activities but then these things always come to me later”
“It was nurturing to spend time in creative reflection with peers”
“Play as a tool for creativity is effective”
“Excellent, really enjoyed the interaction”
“I like the way that small groups were created in advance, allowed the group to mix”
“The invitation to play using scissors, paper, craft stuff was great fun”

Arrival Workshop Evaluation: Project Leader: Antonia Clews and Lead Facilitator: David Clews

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I am a second year media communications student with a particular interest in lens based media.  By documenting the 10 by 10 project I can keep up my practical work as well as gain experience working to a brief outside of an educational context. This also gives me the chance to interlink my practical experience with my course so I can learn more about the relationship between media practice and research.

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All films created by Juliette Winyard, 10by10 Production Assistant, with the assistance of Richard Wood, Artswork BroadcastLab

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1.30-4.30pm. Please feel free to arrive from 1pm for coffee, prompt start. Meet in the Light Studio on the top floor.

‘Arrival’ will be shaped by the Arnolfini exhibits ‘Supertoys’ and ‘The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey’. The workshop is designed to engage teacher-practitioners in thinking critically about the distinct practice that is constructed at the interface of professional practice in creative and cultural enterprises and teaching practice. Participants will work from a response to the exhibition, and play with the concept of the book.

David Clews will be the lead facilitator for this event.

This 10by10Series workshop is kindly supported by the Arnolfini.

Visit the Galleries to view the creative work on the teacher-practitioner and process of this group, or the Commentary section for a Review of the workshop process and Report on the products or outcomes of the workshop activities and discussions.

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Using drawing as a means of developing the skills of perception, communication and invention, I have run a wide range of workshops and bespoke professional development programs for many different audiences. I am an Academic Developer for the ADM HEA Subject Centre.

http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/about-us/staff-team/carolyn-bew-academic-developer

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Reflection on the workshop processes, outputs and outcomes:

The final part of the work-shop, to feedback and discuss the group outputs unfortunately was cut short due to a lack of time, and as the time to discuss and respond to the process is the most revealing probably the most critical. The individual words and sketches that were produced in the first ten minutes of the session were surprisingly potent in their simplicity and also from a research perspective, produced a large amount of visual material to work with.

The second collaborative part resulted in three groups working in very different ways including; a drawing using the metaphor of cooking, recipe and cake to represent some of the elements of the TP relationship, another group create an ‘advent calendar’ presentation showing the dual perspectives of a range of issues and finally one group demonstrated ballroom dancing, reflecting partnership relationship, the learning process and mastery. Surprising here were the variety of approaches and difference in out-put, offering a range of insights on the TP relationship - although because these were as a result of group dynamics, slightly harder to read - particularly without the time in the third part to de-code the metaphor. This second part of the workshop, although harder to interpret the material produced was very successful in terms of engaging participants with a creative exploration of the issues, and without using dominant ‘teacherly’ language to do so, which is always a challenge. Since the aim of the workshop was to explore issues relating to teaching and practice from a practitioner’s perspective the approach proved to be effective, and the fact that each group took on their own interpretation of the ‘project’ reflected this.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

The workshop enabled:

• Exploration, using visual material, of the relationship between professional arts practice and teaching in HE
• Greater understanding of the role of the teacher practitioner

Suggested improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

As with anything, more time was needed - all elements were needed to make the workshop work so extra time to reflect and discuss the group outputs and what they reveal about the TP relationship is crucial, as is to ensure none of the inputs and insights from group members are lost because they stay within the session.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

Exploration through physical involvement can dramatically increase participation, freeing up thinking and experimentation beyond the set text. This pro-active approach can help avoid a seminar/workshop being dominated by a few individuals or driven by dominant perspective and allows for identification of issues not yet articulated. Thus real understanding developed as participants were invited to explore through the activity of drawing the complexities of the relationship from both a professional and personal perspective

The research ‘data’ in this session consists not simply of the creative product, but also observation, discussion and analysis of the process of its production and the choices made. A way of capturing this would be of benefit.

Comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

Drawing, as a technique, proved to be very effective at enabling individuals to express both conceptual and pragmatic responses to the question. The group work and the time constraint to produce a final piece meant that on the whole, participants enjoyed engaging with the question as a creative project which appeared to result in them participating fully. As with all situations or discussions, there are always individuals in a group who stand back from the process.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

All participants gained perspective. Ultimately, the experience proved to simultaneously inspire confidence, educate, amuse, enthuse and unify the group.

Recommendations on how the workshop, or aspects of it, might be used to support the relationship between teaching and creative practice:

Drawing as a creative process, a way of exploring, representing, expressing and resulting in a visual end-point, engaged teachers with a process which enabled them to consider scholarly issues in a different language, enabling individuals to respond without having to use the dominant ‘teacherly’ discourse to reflect on learning. Using a practice based technique does highlight practice [in its myriad forms] as an alternative framework, with a different set of characteristics to pedagogic practice. It is by having the conversation through different mediums that any differences can be explored more immediately.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

The act of transcription through drawing enabled an exploration of meaning and understanding of the context of the teacher practitioner and established the underlying issues, tensions and conflicts around the question of constructed identities and simultaneous representations.

Observations about the teacher-practitioner role and how this affects both teaching and practice.

The workshop revealed that clearly there is a point of tension between practice and teaching and that thinking about practice enables different thinking about teaching. The implications from the workshop is that teachers do not have the opportunity to explore issues around teaching through a practice based process, which has implications beyond any workshop, for the curriculum and does raise the questions whether teacher-practitioner should be understood as a practitioner-teacher.

Lead Facilitator evaluation:

Broadly speaking, art design and media education is about the development and practice of creativity. It follows, then, that the curriculum should be designed to encourage experimentation and exploration, develop skills and challenge complacency. This can most effectively be achieved if students are taught by all sorts of people in surprising ways, and for this we need real flexibility and a range of contacts and relationships in order to develop a creative culture.

Inevitably, the structures and byzantine bureaucracy of education can be seen as militating against this. Indeed, the workshop session exploring the role of teacher-practitioner (above) highlighted institutional structures as an impediment to establishing and maintaining relationships with leading creative practitioners and agencies.

Feedback from participants on the ‘drawing-out’ workshop

9 participants completed the feedback sheet and questionnaire, the number attending was around 12-14. The majority of participants commented on the lack of time as an issue but 7/9 participants also commented positively and on it being enjoyable. These two comments capture the main aspects of the feedback:

” An expressive, experiential workshop which allowed us a moment of ‘play’ which we rarely have time or creative space for”
“interesting approach to looking at the issues”

If you were a participant please add your own perspective in the CommentSpace or add a comment to your drawings in the Gallery

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http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/about/profiles/profile.asp?user=academicwala4

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Participants pinning up their series of one minute sketches on the teacher practitioner role.

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Chairs represent the elements from within the participants fields of practice. The participants in groups then make connections between the elements with coloured string.

The map, drawn at the time, is a visual record of the process [drawn by David Clews, lead faciliator].

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Post tags: connections, fields of practice

‘Field of Practice’ diagrams for different participants, identifying the different elements that exist within their field [with consideration of proximity and impact on self]

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Post tags: field of practice

The Drawing-Out workshop was based on three parts – the first was designed to draw out individual spontaneous responses and to make a shift into a different way of thinking; brainstorming words associated with the teaching-practice relationship followed by a quick drawing round, sketching representations of someone else’s words. The second part involved small groups working together to draw/create a single collaborative reflection on the teaching-practice [TP] relationship. The third part was meant for each group to feed back about what their pieces were saying about the TP relationship, the process of creating the piece and for the group to make any observations as a result of both their own processes, and in response to others.

View Analysis: Product

View Review: Process

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This workshop aimed to explore connecting different practices, participants were non-arts practitioners and the workshop piloted the technique, but did not derive material about the teacher-practitioner. The workshop focused on working with chairs and spatial relations and small group collaboration to engage participants with exploring the questions; ‘what is your field of practice? and ‘what are the connections between different fields of practice’?

Reflection on the workshop processes, outputs and outcomes:

This was an ambitious workshop, not just because the facilitators had not worked with the technique of ‘chair-drawing’ before, but also the complexity of the issues of describing practice, identifying sharing elements of practice and also working in a conceptual way to explore these issues. The actual process of physically working with chairs proved to be surprisingly effective as participants readily engaged with the ‘chair is not just a chair’ approach [although in some cases perhaps held back from the full extent as they described that their chairs would be stacked up to the ceiling, rather than actually stacking them]. Participants also enthusiastically considered which elements/chairs could be connected with reams of string, although this stage perhaps may have benefited from more critical consideration of the types of relationships.

The workshop outputs are difficult to interpret if you were not part of the workshop [chairs connected with string] but part of the facilitator’s role during the workshop was to map the process as the participants worked, which is effective, but means that the facilitators have to produce outputs along-side the participants. This would not be an issue if the workshop is purely designed as an experience for the participants and there was not an additional concern with producing outputs as part of a research process. Given that none of the participants were creative practitioners this indicates that the facilitated process was engaging, although the content tended towards teaching and away from disciplinary practice, it being the dominant shared discourse.

Lead Facilitator Comments:

The workshop processes are complex and cover a lot of ground. However the two teams of 3 participants worked within the time constraints. The facilitators’ fears that using techniques that may be familiar to arts/spatial design/performance practitioners would prove difficult for other non-arts teachers was unfounded; all the participants appeared enthusiastic and more than one stated that working with unfamiliar and challenging processes helped them think innovatively and creatively.

The outputs using chairs and string to construct real-time models of relationships in practice-teaching worked well. However in this exercise and in the preceding exercises there was a tendency for participants to think in only general terms and some of the work lacked criticality. This revealed itself in the final exercise in the way teams kept adding elements and relationships without questioning the quality of the relationships. The danger was that everything became connected to everything else.

Suggested improvements or adjustments to the technique/approach adopted in the workshop:

Some of the participants found it difficult to define the constituents of their practice and although the facilitators provided guidelines I think more specific ‘instruction’ was needed and rather than leave all aspect of practice as constituents to be open, a focus on skills, knowledge and process may help to make it more closely related to the distinctive nature of practice. The majority of the participants in this workshop, although labelling their field of practice as a discipline, were actually describing the process of teaching that discipline. Given that this group are not creative practitioners we would not expect this to be such an issue. There still remain the issues of how participants identify shared elements of practice within their group, which did seem to cause one of the groups problems. This is possibly because they were not making tangential connections. The process of making connections across elements or chairs could also have represented more complex relationships based on defining more precisely the nature of the relationships - again the facilitators may need to be more specific in offering parameters or constraints to the creative process.

Lead Facilitator Comments:

The main improvement needs to be in the area of encouraging the participants to explore critical relationships. Perhaps more time and discussion needs to be given to the earlier exercise where participants locate elements of their practice on a spatial diagram (the target diagram). Perhaps there is a preceding exercise or this one is discussed and then repeated to refine thinking about practice

Field of Practice diagrams

Comments on the effectiveness of the workshop in engaging teacher-practitioners with exploring the issues:

The process of working with chairs had an interesting impact in that the chairs became the problem rather than the complex thing they represented. In way the process did enable participants to work with some complex issues that might have become too bound in an academic process. Working spatially with physical objects resulted in creating an outcome that had a meaning created through group negotiation. There was however a lack of critical engagement in thinking through the process of making connections.

Lead Facilitator Comments:

There is no question that in this instance the participants were engaged, the extent to which they were engaged in exploring issues is more problematic. Some attention needs to be given to how participants can be encouraged to avoid generalised statements about practice and to think more specifically and critically about their practice.

How the workshop process is recorded is critical if the material is to be treated as research material. The aspect with real potential is the visual/interpretive mapping of the chair models. In this workshop the ‘map’ was built as the workshop progressed and although this can be refined to engage the participants more effectively at the moment it is highly mediated and the lack of a set of conventions, if you like, map symbols and ‘cartographic’ convention, means that a consistent set of maps (or an atlas) across several workshops will be difficult to achieve.

Recommendations on how the workshop, or aspects of it, might be used to support the relationship between teaching and creative practice:

Conceivably the difficult with this technique is precisely it’s value. For the process of working conceptually with objects in space to work, critical thought needs to have been established on defining the field of practice first. Refining a field of practice necessarily engages the practitioner with the tacit nature of their knowledge and processes - this was noticeably missing from this workshop participants reflections. To make meaningful connections between different field of practice whilst being playful, entails being critical whilst in a creative process. This duality may emphasise some of the tensions inherent within the teacher-practitioner role.

10/08

Lead Facilitator comments: David Clews, ADM HEA

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Over 60 participants have already drawn the teacher-practitioner relationship cards since the initiation of this research method in February 2008 at an Artswork staff development event, Bath Spa University. Each workshop, as part of the 10by10Series, will continue to integrate the simple card drawing exercise within the session, as both a means to introduce participants to reflecting on the teacher-practitioner relationship, but also to contribute to this growing body of visual research. The aim is to accrue over 200 of these cards to underpin the varied techniques and materials gathered from across the 10by10Series.

It should be noted that not all the workshop participants prior to the 10by10Series are currently employed in professional practice, so the drawings do not exclusively reflect the experience of teacher-practitioners, but more accurately represent perception. 31 of these cards are from the ADM HEA Teaching Creative Practice event in July 2008, where the audience was disciplinary specific and the proportion of teacher practitioners/teachers is unknown.

The experiences, views and interpretations represented on the cards, across a range of disciplines, have been grouped into broad types of relationship typologies. The cards varied from very simple, almost naive responses, to representing fairly complex sets of processes and factors, including intrinsic and extrinsic, cultural and personal. At this initial stage of the research, through interpreting the commonalities and patterns in the drawings, four typologies have emerged to form an over-all framework for understanding how the role of the teacher-practitioner may be perceived and experienced.

The full range of the diagrams can be viewed and commented on, in the Gallery.

The Teacher Practitioner Relationship Typologies

Each typology contains further complex relationships such as dependence and dominance and individual diagrams indicate different structures and processes within the broader label. Some examples of diagrams below illustrate how they are informing 10by10 research:

Mutual Relationship:

[33% of the drawings]

The characteristic of this category is inter-relatedness, where there is some overlap between teaching and practice, as each informs and influences the other in a cyclical manner. Both fields are distinctive with different characteristics and contexts.

Mutual: Processes inform each other, cyclical. Equal exchange but the characteristics are different.

Mutual: Each field informs and benefits the other, distinctive characteristics within different contexts Practice benefits from teaching. Both contexts combine to define creative process.

Interstitial:

[36% of the drawings]

Practice and teaching are generally seen as overlapping to create a dialetical or interstitial space. Other than it being in-between or shared, the characteristics or nature of the space are rarely described

Practice is predominantly represented as informing teaching rather than the other way around, so that it less clear how teaching informs practice.

Situated Identity Teacher-practitioner views self as behaving in distinct ways, dependent on context. Teacher-practitioner located centrally between two fields.

Interstitial Practice is outward facing. Teaching predominantly draws from other sources. Both fields over-lap, creating an emergent dialectical space

Transmission:

[6% of the drawings]

Transmission is both direct and indirect. There is a relationship between teaching and creative practice, but only in one direction; practice informs teaching.

This view is not specific to the Teacher Practitioner – it reflects the basic presumption that teachers bring research, subject knowledge etc. to teaching.

Transmission A one way relationship Practice informs teaching, flow is not direct. Teaching does not inform practice.

No Relationship

[23% of the drawings]

A number of drawings indicate that there is no or little relationship or connection between teaching and practice, or that there are boundaries or obstacles in-between.

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Analysis of the workshop material ..

The individual drawings that participants made in response to the words associated with the teacher-practitioner can be viewed in the Drawing Out Gallery and have been grouped within the following categories:

Expert: expert/ guru/ director/ master/ gatekeeper/ knowledge/ contemporising/ technology

Conditions: palimpsest/ penumbra/ death of ‘the practitioner’/ no time/ time pushing/ sapping/ baggage/ underpaid/     valued/ unteachability/ precarious/ vicarious/ through practice/ discontinuity

Personal Characteristic: exploitative/demanding/ multi-tasker/ disciplined/ on-line/ semi-detached/ reflective/ reflection/ reflexive/ self-doubting/ giver/ understanding/ openness/ engaged/ obsession/ joy/ passion

Interface/Relationship: transformative/ relate/ transfer/ interface/ fusion/ dialectic/ bridge/ real-world/ schizophrenic/ inside-out/ back to front/ knowledge transfer/ balance/ cross-pollination/ balance/ exchange/ team work/ collaboration/ interactive/ sharing/ in process

Catalyst: energising/ creative/ creativity/ catalyst/ inspiration/ inspiration/ stimulating/ innovation/ learning ideas / motivator/ motivation/ motivation/ testing & validating ideas

The images are much more expressive and insightful than the words that they stimulated, and indicate a range of emotive reactions and issues associated with the role of ‘teacher-practitioner’. It can be seen from the words listed above that there a number of positive associations with the role of the teacher-practitioner in creating a relationship between teaching and practice but that may be a number of under-lying negative associations relating to the conditions or experience of the teacher–practitioner. It also appears that there may be high expectations of the role of teacher-practitioner – although it may be suggested that similar words relating to the expert and catalyst would be used to describe the role of teachers.

Materials from this workshop were produced by teachers, developers and teacher-practitioners, so it might be that the term is being explored by teachers/educationalists that have a view on the relationship rather than an experience. The words were the basis of the categories, rather than the visual content.

The flip-side/hidden view of the teacher–practitioner:

The dichotomy within the role of the teacher-practitioner explored by one of the groups picks up on  some of the issues raised in the category of ‘interface’. It is this set of tensions, conflicting values and identities and the duplicitous nature of the role that suggests teacher-practitioners may benefit from support in managing the bridging of communities and practices.

• Teacher                                                v       Practitioner
• Power of the Tutor                            v      Need for Patronage
• Uphold the Institution                      v      Challenge Orthodoxy
• The System                                          v      The Expert
• Credibility as an Arts Educator     v      Acknowledged Artist
• Transforming Lives                          v     Change the World

Feedback from participants on ‘How to support the relationship between teaching and professional creative practice?”

‘Recognition of practice as an essential component of teaching in Art & Design, not just lip service”
“Teachers need to be trusted and more fully exploited, rather than micro-managed”
“Better time management – enable flexibility between teaching and personal practice”
“Mandatory practice commitment for tutors in HE, not PhD driven”
“Embed it in the curriculum – tutor/student dissemination of practice”.

10/08

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As an artist, researcher and educator I facilitate workshops in art and arts education, for artists, teachers, students and children. I use a dialogic and enquiry based approach, valuing open-ended, critically reflective and collaborative strategies. I consult the participants about the focus of their own enquiries, negotiating the content of sessions, building on individual experience and valuing the expertise in the group. I place emphasis on developing creative environments of enquiry to support individual creativity. I am interested in the generation of ideas through possibility thinking, as a co-researcher and developing communities of practice as mutual support networks.

Experience of supporting or working with the relationship between creative practice and teaching.

In my personal and professional practice, I have been able to reflect continuously and critically on my own art practice in relation to contemporary art practice, research and pedagogy. I am committed to trying out new ideas, taking risks in a safe environment in order to explore new challenges and embrace change. I hope to be able hold the tension between freedom and control, knowledge and uncertainty, meanwhile providing support and understanding. I am particularly interested in the relationship between experiential learning and visual culture in understanding contemporary art practice. I am the Director of 5×5x5=creativity.

http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/about/profiles/profile.asp?user=academichayp2

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Since September 2008, I have been designing and teaching the Art Psychotherapy module with the Head of Art Education and the Course Leader for the Creative Therapies in Education degree course at the University of Wales. Since 2003, I have been a lead artist and mentor on the 5×5x5=creativity research project, exploring creative responses in pre-school children to develop their individuated learning skills through artist inspired instigations. I have also been a founder member of the AND (Artists’ Network Development).

Experience of supporting or working with the relationship between creative practice and teaching.

In my work as a lecturer on the BA Hons in Creative Therapies in Education, I am working with undergraduates who will have futures in the educational establishment, to develop their role as creative practitioners. The objective is to work holistically, looking at the whole person in the creative context; through exploration of working artistic practice and an understanding of what each person can bring to a system of creative learning. As an artist on the 5×5x5=creativity research project, I have been working closely in partnership with an educationalist in a specialist school for learning disabilities. Through reflective practice, we have initiated learning situations through art practice using a selection of materials and the extremely diverse abilities of the pupils

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