Arts-Based Research: Embodying Pedagogical Knowledge and Its Evolution

• In Event: Arts-Based Research as Pedagogy

Abstract

As the field of education increasingly recognizes the importance of affect in learning and the embodied nature of cognition (Grawemeyer et al., 2017), arts-based research offers a methodology for “mak[ing] use of emotive, affective experiences, senses, and bodies, and imagination and emotion . . . as ways of knowing and responding to the world” (Finley, 2008, p. 72). This presentation illustrates two approaches to integrating arts-based research with teacher education—layered collaborative visual reflection and walking coupled with cartographic practices—and explores how arts-based inquiries might be supported within these contexts. An emphasis will be placed on how inquiry might be implemented in layers and cycles, with inquiry occurring both at the pre-service teacher and teacher educator levels and in repeated cycles over time.
Arts-Based Research and Aesthetic Knowing
Guided by epistemologies that value subjective knowledge, “openness to the spontaneous and unknown” (Leavy, 2018, p. 20) and pre-verbal understandings, arts-based research relies upon “aesthetic knowing,” the notion that meaning can be generated and communicated through artistic processes and forms (Leavy, 2018). Arts-based research makes space for artistic ways of knowing (Barone & Eisner, 2012), draws attention to the power of form in shaping and communicating meaning (Finley, 2008), and prioritizes the unsettling of the ordinary (Rolling, 2017, p. 494).
Arts-Based Research Methods
In a course tied to a field experience, pre-service teachers engaged in walking practices to conduct firsthand, sensory investigations of their school zones. Walking was accompanied by cartography, as pre-service teachers employed metaphor and utilized various forms of geographic knowledge from their mindful experiences to map their sense of place and construct critical geographies for their larger teaching contexts. Additionally, in a practicum course, pre-service teachers participated in field experiences in schools and then reflected visually on those experiences in class. Meta-reflection followed as pre-service teachers used acetate as a surface for another layer of visual imagery and text. This presentation draws from a review of field notes, curricular materials, student maps, visual journals, and large-scale collaborative visual reflections to demonstrate how pre-service teachers and I engaged in these activities.
Strategies and Support for Arts-Based Research
To support pre-service teachers’ engagement in arts-based research, I utilized a variety of strategies—defining relevant concepts; introducing guidelines for collaboration; posing guiding questions to elicit student reflection; presenting contemporary artists; and demonstrating various creative strategies (Marshall & Donahue, 2014). Following students’ research process, I engaged in a layer of arts-based research myself, as a teacher educator—reflecting on the learning that occurred in my students’ investigations and, eventually, sharing my research process and product with them. This dual-layered, arts-based research processes was implemented in subsequent course iterations, evolving, as each cycle drew from knowledge gained in the previous cycle. The materiality of these visual art inquiries allowed me to develop, build, and amend my inquiries physically across cycles. As arts-based products were layered and revisited, the progression of practice became palpable and accessible for pre-service teachers and the larger academic community.

Author

• Joy Gaulden Bertling, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville