Paradigms align: Emergent research drawing on socio-

cultural paradigms and Vygotskian concepts in drama/education research

Sue Davis, Hannah Grainger Clemson, Beth Ferholt, Satu-Mari Korhonen, Marjanovic-Shane

IDIERI 2012

• Sue Davis, CQUniversity Australia – s.davis@cqu.edu.au

• Hannah Grainger Clemson, UK – hannahgc23@gmail.com

• Beth Ferholt, Brooklyn College, City University of New York bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu

• Satu-Mari Korhonen, Theatre Academy Helsinki, University of Helsinki, CRADLE satu-mari.korhonen@teak.fi

• Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane, Chestnut Hill College Marjanovic-ShaneA@chc.edu; anamshane@gmail.com

Why Vygotsky? He was a teacher, a theatre lover, a researcher and revolutionary thinker. He understood the importance of play, of human interactions, of art and the imagination, the importance of creativity and aesthetic education for all children. He wrote about how humans think, create and learn in ways that are still relevant today.

Drama, more than any other form of creation, is closely and directly linked to play, which is the root of all creativity in children. Thus, drama is the most syncretic mode of creation, that is, it contains elements of the most diverse forms of creativity… The staging of drama provides the pretext and material for the most diverse forms of creativity on the part of the child. (Vygotsky, 1930/2004: 71)

CONCEPT FORMATIONExperience, activity

Perception & FeelingMeaning & Signs

MIND, MEMORY & IMAGINATIONWords and Concepts (including concepts of self)

Internalisation and AbstractionFeedback & internal dialogue

Combination of conceptsthrough work of Imagination

CREATIVE EXPRESSIONMotivation

Ideas & emotionsGoal-directed actionMediated expression

Creative output includingVersions of self

Interacting with others and with

culture

Created and shared within

the culture

Drawing from the culture

Davis 2012

Subject ObjectOutcome

Tools, signs & artefacts

RulesRoles/Division of

labourCommunity

Activity Theory – Vygotsky, Luria & Leontiev, Cole, Engestrom

Activity – the basic unit for analysis

Mediation triangle – Subject, Object, Tool

Joint activity – Rules, Community, Division of Labour

Epiphany workshop – week 2 •Group in circle. Check in – initial thoughts about characters & their special features•Circle warm up – 1,2,3 (1 = walk around one way, 2 = run the other, 3 = movement selected by the group)In pairs – 1,2, 3•Columbian hypnosis•Potter and clay – one person shapes the other in response to given words

(Freak, spectacle, twisted, mystery)

Role of contraction for development and learning

• Contradictions are historically accumulating structural tensions within and between activity systems… When an activity system adopts a new element from the outside (for example, a new technology or a new object), it often leads to an aggravated secondary contradiction where some old element (for example, the rules or the division of labour) collides with the new one. Such contradictions generate disturbances and conflicts, but also innovative attempts to change the activity. (Engeström, 2009, p. 57)

“How can Information & Communications Technologies and drama be used to facilitate creative practice and learning?”

The research question for my doctoral work

Research methodology considerations

• Mainly qualitative, though some quantitative• Inquiry models, expansive learning (see

Engestrom), can draw on narrative and arts-based inquiry, design based research & interventions

• Mixed methods – journals, surveys, interviews, CMCs and digital content

• Grounded theory type coding and thematic exploration

• Case study – exploratory & explanatory• Acknowledging contradictions, contexts, different

meaning making

ParticipantsObjects, Concepts,

Outcome – drama assessment ‘product’ interactive drama created using online spaces + live perf

Tools, signs & artefacts

Rules Roles/Division of labour

Community

Students, teacher, researcher/co-artist, audience at end

School internet use, task centred rules

Small group creation, class community, wider school/performance community

Teacher determined tasks, modelled learning, groups negotiate roles/work

Cyberdrama, narrative form, multi-media skills, concepts about immortality

E-learning sites, Internet, cameras, computers, scaffolding, bodies, cultural artefacts

Activity system analysis

Contradiction or structural tension Regarding participant tool preferences

Contradiction – rules about participant tool use – ICT focus & spaces

Teacher recognises some students reduced engagement

Student resistance to technical tool use

Expansive learning shifted tool use and practices to corporeal, face-to-face interactions

Student use of inappropriate tools/utterances –

Expansive learning - shift to use of institutional sites and rule structure for social network use

Shifts

Findings• Contradictions at the institutional

level (ICT tools) and crisis/conflicts at personal level

• Importance of considering the nature of micro-level interactions in the external activity & internal activity

• Importance of acknowledging ‘flow’ as well as contradiction in models & analysis

• Not all students wanted to use ICTs as for creative practice, some clear preferences for somatic tools

• Student engagement & meaning making related to tool preferences and versions of future self

• Student learning impacted upon through a ‘cybernetics of self’ and degree of flexibility in ‘self’ work as an outcome of activity