IDIERI 2012

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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)

5. CONCEPT FORMATION Experience, activity Perception & Feeling Meaning & Signs Drawing from the culture MIND, MEMORY & IMAGINATION Words and Concepts (including concepts of self) Internalisation and Abstraction Feedback & internal dialogue Combination of concepts through work of Imagination Interacting with others and with culture Created and shared within the culture CREATIVE EXPRESSION Motivation Ideas & emotions Goal-directed action Mediated expression Creative output including Versions of self Davis 2012

6. 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 Tools, signs & artefacts Outcome Subject Object Roles/Division of labour Rules Community • 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)

7. 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)

8. “How can Information & Communications Technologies and drama be used to facilitate creative practice and learning?” The research question for my doctoral work

9. 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

10. Activity system analysis Tools, signs & artefacts Contradiction or structural tension Regarding participant tool preferences E-learning sites, Internet, cameras, computers, scaffolding, bodies, cultural artefacts Outcome – drama assessment ‘product’ interactive drama created using online spaces + live perf Objects, Concepts, Participants Cyberdrama, narrative form, multi-media skills, concepts about immortality Students, teacher, researcher/co-artist, audience at end Small group creation, class community, wider school/performance community School internet use, task centred rules Teacher determined tasks, modelled learning, groups negotiate roles/work Rules Roles/Division of labour Community

11. Student resistance to technical tool use Contradiction – rules about participant tool use – ICT focus & spaces Teacher recognises some students reduced engagement Student use of inappropriate tools/utterances – Shifts Expansive learning - shift to use of institutional sites and rule structure for social network use Expansive learningshifted tool use and practices to corporeal, face-to-face interactions

13. 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