ImproStory: Social Improvisation and Storytelling in Arts and Skills Subjects in Teacher Education

Seija Karppinen, Ari Poutiainen, Seija Kairavuori, Sinikka Rusanen, Kauko Komulainen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Our pedagogic developing project, ImproStory, addresses improvisation and storytelling. We study how these two concepts could be applied in arts and crafts education for both primary and Kindergarten (daycare) teachers. The majority of our data consists of digital questionnaires in basic arts and crafts studies of primary pre-service teachers (N=323). Additional data (portfolios) contain a group of Kindergarten and primary pre-service teachers with a focus in visual arts (N=8). All data were collected at the University of Helsinki (Finland) during the academic year 2014–2015. According to our study, pre-service teachers consider improvisation and storytelling to be beneficial skills. They see developing them as necessary and useful. Experimenting and learning the approach appear to strengthen pre-service teachers’ collaboration and allow them to build independence, trust, and self-confidence within arts and crafts education. In addition, improvisation and storytelling helps them to recognize their individual creative potential.
Translated title of the contributionImproStory menetelmä taito- ja taideaineiden opetuksessa opettajankoulutuksessa
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Education and the Arts
Volume19
Issue number9
Pages (from-to)1-24
Number of pages24
ISSN1529-8094
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 Apr 2018
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Fields of Science

  • 516 Educational sciences
  • storytelling
  • teacher education
  • crafts education
  • arts education
  • social improvisation

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