T Moss

What Do the Children Say? The Importance of Student Voice

The literature on drama in education reveals many claims regarding what students learn, and the value of role drama, at all stages of schooling. However, while there is a substantial and well-evidenced body of literature in this area, there are few studies that present the voices of those who are perhaps most directly affected by these claims—the students. This article reports on two studies which addressed this issue by listening to the opinions of students in regard to their own learning. Both studies were conducted in classrooms where students were undertaking various forms of role drama. This article compares and contrasts the findings from both studies, and notes that some surprising similarities emerged, in terms of what students said about their learning. Most importantly, this article demonstrates that students are capable of reflecting upon their learning in meaningful ways, and that opening up the conversation about learning in drama to include the voices of our students not only adds another perspective, but also ensures that this conversation remains relevant.

Student identity construction in online teacher education: A narrative life history approach

This paper explores student identity construction through the narrative life history of one non-traditional student, engaged in teacher education in a non-traditional way – a fully online university degree course. The students within this course are all mature-aged. Most are female, and have already developed personal identities as partners, friends and mothers, as well as professional identities such as teacher aides. Adding the new identity of “student” to these already established roles has an impact on these participants’ actions, beliefs, experiences and hence on their identities. Further, the notion that they are now “pre-service teachers” forces students to consider their professional identity in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways. This paper explores the challenges for one student created by the need to negotiate this complexity. Through this exploration using narrative life history methods, the paper considers the implications of the experience of becoming a student and a teacher.

THE ART OF PRACTICE: EXPLORING THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN ARTIST PRACTICE AND TEACHER PRACTICE

In recent times, the similarities and differences between artists and teachers, particularly in relation to artistic practice and teaching practice have gained the interest of an increasing number of researchers (Graham & Goetz Zwirn, 2010; Carroll, 2006; Davis, 2008; Stewart, 2003)