Exploring Education Students’ Reflexivity through the Arts and Sharing My “Bricolage” Dilemmas

Authors

Janet C. Richards, University of South FloridaFollow

Abstract

As part of course requirements, 16 education students in a master’s cohort tutored groups of elementary children (the same groups throughout the semester) in an after - school writing program that emphasized an ethos of care. The education students had never taught children and consequently had difficulties reflecting about their lessons through weekly e - mail communication. As the course instructor I had a hunch innovative artistic processes might unleash and heighten the education students’ abilities as reflective practitioners . Therefore, I asked them to explore their pedagogy through the arts. Concurrently, I engaged in arts - based educational research (ABER) to ascertain in what ways arts constructions might prompt the education students’ motivation and abilities to thoughtfully consider their work. Using constant comparative methods and a “bricolage” approach, I discovered arts - based techniques, particularly poetry, fostered and illuminated their introspections. The education students also had distinct preferences among the three modes of reflective inquiry I requested they employ (e - mail communication, self - portraits with dialogue, and poetry). As suggested by respected ABER scholars, I monitored and documented my dilemmas throughout the inquiry process in an attempt to achieve verisimilitude and to inform new arts - based researchers. I share these dilemmas and oversights, and discuss puzzling, unanswered questions in this paper.

Keywords

Arts - Based Educational Research (ABER), “Bricolage, ” Education Students, E - mail Reflections, Ethos of Care, Methodological Issues, Poetry, Self - Portraits

Publication Date

11-4-2013

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2013.1448

Recommended APA Citation

Richards, J. C. (2013). Exploring Education Students’ Reflexivity through the Arts and Sharing My “Bricolage” Dilemmas. The Qualitative Report, 18(44), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2013.1448