What good is it anyway? Professional dance artists legitimising their work for the Cultural Schoolbag in Norwegian schools

This article examines how dance artists with extensive experience with The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS), a national programme for bringing the arts into schools, convey their rationale for working in TCS. Previous research has found that the artists’ rationale for doing TCS-art is far from established and agreeing on what TCS-art should be or become is inherently difficult. The goal that TCS-art should contribute to the school’s curriculum, potentially challenging the artists’ freedom, continues to pose a challenge to TCS that has so far remained unresolved. Interviews with nine professional dancers show, that they to a little degree have been challenged to contribute to the school’s curriculum and have had few problems establishing a rationale for doing TCS-art in line with being or becoming a professional dancer. Even if this rationale has been adapted to the socio-material conditions of performing TCS-art, it is seemingly within what can be accepted in the art world of dance in Norway.publishedVersio

Cooperative Learning: The Power of Positive Interdependence in Storyline

Chapter 1. This chapter examines student teachers’ experience regarding cooperative learn-ing which was set up for a Storyline. The data consist of group interviews with a total of 22 students, along with the passive participatory observation of three student groups working with Storyline. The study uses a qualitative, exploratory and interpretive ap-proach to the data analysis. The analysis indicates that the students considered coop-erative learning, as the group work was structured in this Storyline, to be valuable for the perception of i) Depth in academic learning, ii) Emotional binding, and iii) Shared responsibility. However, difficulties that might hinder high quality relationships were detected in relation to time pressure and the complementary roles. The study concludes that, although The Storyline Approach offers a good framework and structure for expe-riencing high-quality group working, sufficient time must be set aside to carry out the cooperative processes initiated by a Storyline.publishedVersio

Teaching through Stories: The Storyline Approach in Teacher Education

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Veiledningssamtaler i høyere utdanning: Utprøving av en modell til bruk i forskning på tilbakemeldinger

Tilbakemeldinger er sentralt for pedagogiske prosesser i høyere utdanning, og er en viktig komponent i vurdering med hensyn på læring. Imidlertid dokumenterer en rekke studier at studenter ikke er helt fornøyde med kvaliteten på tilbakemeldingene fra veilederne sine (se f.eks. Damen, Keller, Hamberg, & Bakken, 2016), og at de ikke brukes godt nok for læringsfremmende formål (Jonsson, 2013). For å forbedre kvaliteten på vurderingsprosessen er det behov for mer kunnskap om tilbakemeldingene som veilederen gir. Klassifiseringer er et nyttig verktøy for å beskrive tilbakemeldinger, hvis de evner å fange inn kompleksiteten av fenomenet. Tilbakemeldinger har imidlertid gjerne blitt kategorisert med endimensjonale og relativt rigide systemer. Dette er foreslått løst i en klassifiseringsmodell som består av et fleksibelt og multidimensionalt system, utviklet i en tidligere studie av Karlsen (2015). Denne artikkelen presenterer og drøfter resultatene fra en utprøving av denne modellen brukt som kodeverktøy i forskning, med utgangspunkt sju oppgavefaglige veiledningssamtaler, som utgjør det empiriske materialet. Utprøvingen inkluderer en foreløpig sjekk av kodereliabilitet. Konklusjonen i artikkelen er at modellen synes å være et egnet verktøy til å beskrive tilbakemeldingene som gis i denne formen for veiledning, men at det er behov for videre utprøving av modellens gyldighet som kodeverktøy i andre situasjoner og/eller kontekster.Feedback is central to educational processes in higher education and constitutes the main component of assessment with regard to the learning. However, as documented in a series of studies; even if students appreciate getting feedback, they are more reserved when it comes to the quality of the feedback they receive from teachers and supervisors (Damen, Keller, Hamberg, & Bakken, 2016). To improve the quality of the practice, we need to know more about the feedback that students receive. Classifications are useful tools to describe feedback, if they manage to capture the complexity of the phenomenon. However, feedback is often categorized with one-dimensional, relatively rigid systems that only embrace a few features. This study makes use of a multi-dimensional classification system, developed in a previous study by the Author (2015). This article presents and discusses results of a test of this model used as a coding tool for data from an empirical material consisting of seven feedback situations. The test includes a preliminary check of coder reliability. The article concludes that the model seems to be a suitable tool for description of feedback practices, and that it may give an improved basis for reflection on and improvement of feedback practice.publishedVersio

The value of oral feedback in the context of capstone projects in design education

Research frequently reports student dissatisfaction with feedback in higher education. Large class sizes and modularization challenge teachers in providing useful feedback. Most of these studies have investigated student perceptions of written feedback in coursework, and few attempts have been made considering feedback in face-to-face contexts such as bachelor's degree projects. This study aims to enrich our understanding of students' perception of feedback in the context of supervision of bachelor's degree projects using Karlsen's (2015) PLUS model to systematise factors that help improve their utilisation of feedback in learning. Qualitative interviews were used to collect data from two bachelor student cohorts doing their projects as part of industrial design programmes and computer science at a mid-sized Norwegian university college (n=28). Results indicate that students generally find teachers' feedback more useful than useless. In addition to the students own attitudes towards assessment, they report that how they perceive the supervisors' trustworthiness matters when utilising feedback.publishedVersio

Story-based Cross-Curricular Teaching and Learning: A Systematic Mapping of the Research Literature on The Scottish Storyline Approach

Chapter 19. In recent years, there has been an increased research interest in Storyline as an alternative and student-centred approach to teaching across the curriculum. The Storyline Approach is assumed to benefit students’ learning outcomes and motivation in several ways. Nevertheless, there is a lack of critical and systematic reviews of the research on The Storyline Approach. Based on a systematic mapping of the research within this field (Gough & Thomas, 2017), the purpose of the study is to survey and review the growing body of literature and to derive an evidence-based framework for the approach to direct future research efforts.publishedVersio

The Fairy-Tale Forest: Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge for teaching Primary School Mathematics in The Scottish Storyline Approach

Chapter 8. This study focuses on the development of mathematical pedagogical content knowl-edge when implementing Storyline as a narrative approach to organising cross-curricu-lar learning for student teachers to become teachers in mathematics for grades 1–7. InStoryline, teachers according to Omand (2014) carefully plan “a ‘line’ of episodes, each of which has carefully designed key questions that encourage and support the learner to contextualise and create the ‘story’, promoting exciting learning” (p. 3). The study uses six semi-structured focus group interviews with a total of 24 first year student teachers. A qualitative analysis, based on the framework of Creswell and Creswell (2018), structures the process of coding. The results contribute to pedagogical content knowledge (cf. Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008) for teaching primary school mathematics in the following three domains: i) Playing out the Fairy-tale story; ii) Preparing, exploring and performing the tasks; and iii) Learning through a Meta-Storyline. The results show that the students encountered a completely new way of learning mathematics when using Storyline. In summary, although the student teachers report awkwardness when joining the fictional in-role activities, they see the potential for facilitating playful and explorative learning experiences for pupils in primary school.publishedVersio

“…but, it’s really grown on me, Storyline, as practical as it has been’: A critical inquiry of student teachers’ experiences of The Scottish Storyline Approach in teacher education

Through qualitative interviews and self-administrated online surveys, this study critically examines how 104 first-year student teachers experience The Scottish Storyline Approach, a cross-curricular approach to teaching and learning. Framed by Dewey's (2005) concept of experience, The Storyline Approach is discussed as a possible didactic tool for making teaching and learning meaningful. Although not all students experience Storyline as positive, this study finds that the majority of the students report Storyline as relevant for their future profession.publishedVersio

Troubling dance education from a Nordic policy perspective: A field with an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral potential

This article seeks to create an overview of existing structures for dance education in the public educational systems and of cross-sectoral collaborations of a number of Nordic countries including Norway, Finland and Denmark. A case study methodology of the field of dance education of each of the countries is used for an analysis that seeks to better understand the different kinds of structures we find in these countries. We trace ways of organising, dividing, and defining the field based on different types of documents such as policy documents, white papers, webpages, reports, research articles and curricula. The analyses of case descriptions result in insights about which opportunities or lack of opportunities structures give for children and young people’s long-term engagement with dance as an arts educational practice, how well the systems for educating teachers seem to support dance in education and, looking to dance education in New Zealand, it is discussed what might be ways forward to strengthen the field in the Nordic countries.publishedVersio

An Exploration of the “Mimetic Aspects” of Storyline Used as a Creative and Imaginative Approach to Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education

Chapter 4. The aim of this study is to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the potential mimetic aspects of The Storyline Approach (TSA)1. This study critically ex-amines how student teachers create imaginative make-believe experiences within the use of examples (props) in teaching and learning about sustainability. The analysis fol-lows the parameters set out in Willbergh’s (2011b; 2015, 2016, 2017) theory of mimetic didactics. Data were collected during a Storyline by sound recordings, and immediately after the Storyline using focus group interviews. The result of the study indicates that Storyline expands the students’ own experiences through imaginative make-believe interpretations created from 1) The making of the props: the frieze and the handheld puppets, 2) Taking on fictional roles and role-playing, 3) Applying, sharing and using each other’s knowledge, and 4) Perceiving activities as if they were pupils. This is in-terpreted as important for the students’ professional teachers’ qualification in bridging school content with competance for the future.publishedVersio