PiE 2014 Volume 32 Issue 2

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http://hdl.handle.net/11660/2639

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    Arts-based self-study: documenting the ripple effect
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Weber, Sandra
    Like all forms of inquiry, arts-based self-study research can have unexpected consequences. Although we may start out with a fairly clear objective, the data we generate through arts-based methods might address other questions that are even more important than the ones we thought to ask initially, and our study might have an impact that extends beyond the original parameters of the design. The most powerful results of an arts-based self-study intended to improve our own practice might occur in another arena, a ripple effect that is visible only after our inquiry is completed, and hence, undetected because our gaze has shifted elsewhere. By describing and analysing what happens during and after three self-studies done by teachers and teacher educators, this article illustrates the use of visual and other arts-based methods (photography, video, creative writing and drawing) and explores the challenge and nature of the potential ripple effect in/of self-study for learning and growth for many.
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    Beyond metaphor drawings to envisage integration of HIV & AIDS education: a self-study in primary Mathematics teacher education
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Van Laren, Linda
    Researchers using participatory methods that are engaging, purposeful and facilitate social change may need further pragmatic strategies to encourage the required change. Using pencil-and-paper drawings to introduce HIV & AIDS integration in a discipline such as Mathematics Education is an innovative participatory strategy to initiate change. However, following up on such innovations to encourage take-up of HIV & AIDS integration would benefit the initiative. The following research question guides this study: What pragmatic strategy could I use in pre-service Mathematics Education to further take-up of HIV & AIDS education integration in school disciplines? I explore HIV & AIDS integration in a pre-service Primary Mathematics Education module that I taught at a higher education institution in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, by studying the drawings and experiences of eight final-year pre-service teachers. I use a metaphor-drawing activity to disrupt the ‘comfort zone’ of teaching Mathematics, following up by providing the pre-service teachers with learner activities suitable for primary school classrooms. When asked if they were able to integrate HIV & AIDS in Mathematics classrooms, these generalist pre-service teachers appeared to rely on phase-specific teaching material in order to take up the initiative. There is a need to use innovative participatory methods to initiate change and to provide pragmatic support for this envisaged change.
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    Complex journeys and methodological responses to engaging in self-study in a rural comprehensive university
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Meyiwa, Thenjiwe; Chisanga, Theresa; Mokhele, Paul; Sotshangane, Nkosinathi; Makhanya, Sizakele
    The context in which self-study research is conducted is sometimes complex, affecting the manner in which related data is gathered and interpreted. This article comprises collaboration between three students and two supervisors. It shares methodological choices made by graduate students and supervisors of a rural university at which, selfstudy research was introduced in 2010. As individuals, and as a collective, we reflect on the reasons and decisions for adopting certain research approaches towards selfstudy: the ways in which such decisions are negotiated in conceptualising, conducting, transcribing, and supervising graduate research. While self-reflexive data-collection approaches (mainly journal writing and storytelling) guide our research, the manner in which data is analysed and presented to the wider university community is influenced by expectations and by the context of the university. We, therefore, use innovative approaches differing from self-study research, speaking more to the challenges and expectations of a rural context. We further reflect on the implications such choices have for our research and the work produced – where knowledge shifts are executed, methodologies are re-defined and social change is desired.
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    “Digging deep”: self-study as a reflexive approach to improving my practice as an artist, researcher and teacher
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Scott, Lee
    In this article, I show how I enhanced my understanding of my practice as an artist, researcher and teacher using a self-study approach in my recently completed Master of Technology (M.Tech.) dissertation in Graphic Design. As part of my M.Tech. research, I conceptualised and developed a creative teaching tool that I named ‘PicTopics’. PicTopics are palm-sized cards with pictographic illustrations similar to street signage. I used these PicTopics in a variety of ways, but essentially as creative prompts to foster a variety of creative educational skills within the university, and personally as a tool to generate my own artistic expression at a deeper level. I demonstrate the re-storying of my learning through writing about these artworks as visual indicators of my values, personal and professional growth. I show how the paintings reflect my experiences and perceptions of my youth, their effect on my adult self, my individuality and ultimately my teaching self.
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    The director’s ‘I’: theatre, self, and self-study
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Meskin, Tamar; Van der Walt, Tanya
    This article interrogates the connections between the self-study research methodology and the making of a piece of theatre, and explores ways in which self-study can offer a new arts-based research paradigm for theatre-makers. There are a number of useful parallels to be explored between the self-study project and structures of drama and performance-making. While the methodology is, to a large extent, aimed at teacher educators, we argue that it is sufficiently flexible to be transferable to the context of theatre-making because of the emphasis on practice in both self-study research and theatre. Using the a/r/tographic frame, we explore ways in which the experiential dynamic of both fields offers a unique intersection point from which to generate new thinking. The dialogic necessity of self-study is paralleled by the interactive processes of performance-making – what Marowitz (1978: 49) calls the “actor-director two-step”. Hence, the article uses dialogue as a way of demonstrating our thinking-in-action, and reflects the co-created space of learning and knowledge generation. Using self-study to interrogate our own creative work opens up space for new understandings in relation to both the discourse of Drama study and the broader self-study project.
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    A pedagogy changer: transdisciplinary faculty self-study
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Samaras, Anastasia P.
    In this article, I examine pedagogical understandings as captured through documented critical incidents of a transdisciplinary faculty self-study group which was designed and grounded in notions of sociocultural theory. I report from my lens as facilitatorparticipant- observer and from my work with eleven other participants in a threesemester research project in which we conducted individual self-studies of profesional practice as well as a meta-study of the collective. A diverse data set, which included exit interviews, mid-project and end-of-project exit slips, and individual narratives, served to triangulate and support themes of our exchanging of pedagogical activities, learning with critical friends, and re-imagining our pedagogies. The study suggests that, as universities work to improve student learning, they might consider providing creative studio spaces for self-study of professional practice so that faculty can exchange their talents in order to more deeply understand and experience pedagogical innovations.
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    Self-study of educational practice: re-imagining our pedagogies
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Pithouse-Morgan, Kathleen; Mitchell, Claudia; Pillay, Daisy
    Abstract not available
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    Values-based self-reflective action research for promoting gender equality: some unexpected lessons
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Wood, Lesley
    The idea of using values as a means of guiding our research decisions and judging the validity of our claims of knowledge is well established in literature on the self-reflective genre of action research. Values in action research should always result in virtuous behaviour – to promote the general social good. However, ideas of what constitutes the social good may differ from context to context. This article problematises the notion that ‘good’ values lead to ‘good’ action. Presenting one research project as a case study, I show that the articulation of values does not always result in what I, as a researcher and White, middle-class woman, would recognise as health-promoting action. Yet, the participants view such behaviour as a legitimate means to improve their quality of life, at least in the short term. First, I describe the social and cultural context of the research, before highlighting some value conflicts that emerged, as the participants and I critically reflected on our understanding of more equal and healthy gender relations. It is important to expose such conflicting value interpretations through critical self-reflection, so that researchers and participants can work towards a deeper mutual understanding of how to best address complex social issues such as gender relations in specific social contexts.
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    Vulnerability: self-study’s contribution to social justice education
    (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, 2014) Knowles, Corinne
    Teaching, as a social justice project, seeks to undo and re-imagine oppressive pedagogies in order to transform teachers, their students, and the knowledge with which they work. In this article, I argue that self-study can contribute to social justice in a number of ways by, for instance, making the sometimes limiting norms that frame teaching and learning visible; inviting my own vulnerability through peer and student reflections and feedback, and noticing the important relationship between ontology and epistemology in teaching and learning. One means to avoid the narrow way in which self-study might apply to only one person’s practice is to use theory to legitimise it and make it more broadly applicable. In this study, I use Judith Butler’s ideas relating to vulnerability in order to explain the way in which my teaching and learning is framed and to show how normative frameworks that define teaching can be expanded to be more inclusive. I use excerpts of peer and student feedback in order to demonstrate how vulnerability, reconfigured, can lead to powerful new knowledge.