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