Together a Catalyst: Learning From Our Co-Creative Arts-Based Inquiry About Our Teacher Selves During the Transition to Online Teaching

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated many adjustments to everyday teaching at higher education institutions. While face-to-face lectures were the preferred teaching method of teacher educators prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the shift to online teaching was heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper draws attention to the shifts we transitioned to as teacher educators teaching and researching via online platforms-specifically Zoom-in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explored how three teacher educators used co-creative arts-based inquiry to deepen their understanding of their shifting teacher 'selves' as online users. Object-inspired narratives and poetic inquiry were employed to co-flexively engage with our shifting teaching experiences and question our feelings of discomfort teaching online. Framed conceptually by an ethics of care and collaborative-creativity, we discuss the tensions and possibilities we experienced, and shared through our scholarly online conversations via Zoom to think through the shifts in our teacher selves and teaching. We highlight our online teaching experiences amidst the uncertainty and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. We then share the methodological insight of collaborative arts-based inquiry and how it facilitated reflexive dialogues and deep conversations that ignited self-learning and collective insights into the potential and possibilities of online teaching. Findings highlighted that co-creative, online engagement enabled sharing of emotional experiences and offered possibilities for transforming teacher selves. In addition, co-creative, online engagement enabled the cultivation of relational scholarly thinking. The article highlights the methodological insight of co-creative arts-based research in productively disrupting instrumental university discourse of online teaching.

Beyond Utterances: Embodied Creativity and Compliance in Dance and Dementia

Practices of creativity and compliance intersect in interaction when directing local dances remotely for people living with dementia and their carers in institutional settings. This ethnomethodological study focused on how artistic mechanisms are understood and structured by participants in response to on-screen instruction. Video data were collected from two long-term care facilities in Canada and Finland in a pilot study of a dance program that extended internationally from Canada to Finland at the onset of COVID-19. Fourteen hours of video data were analyzed using multimodal conversation analysis of initiation–response sequences. In this paper, we identify how creative instructed actions are produced in compliance with multimodal directives in interaction when mediated by technology and facilitated by copresent facilitators. We provide examples of how participants' variably compliant responses in relation to dance instruction, from following a lead to coordinating with others, produce different creative actions from embellishing to improvising. Our findings suggest that cocreativity may be realized at intersections of compliance and creativity toward reciprocity. This research contributes to interdisciplinary discussions about the potential of arts-based practices in social inclusion, health, and well-being by studying how dance instruction is understood and realized remotely and in copresence in embodied instructed action and interaction. © 2023 by the authors.

Spreadable Action: Mapping Connections between the Arts and Action Research through an Arts-Based Research Exhibition

Many Canadian immigrant seniors living independently in Canada face unique challenges such as language barriers, adjusting to a new culture, and isolation from friends and family. Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic these issues have become more complicated. This article explores a form of arts-based research (ABR) as an inquiry into ways that COVID-19 has impacted immigrant seniors in Vancouver, Canada. We situate our inquiry within action research (AR) and explore new methodological possibilities stimulated by merging artistic engagement within the inquiry. Our research is mobilized through two gallery exhibitions of Letters to COVID: an invitation to visually reflect on seniors' experiences. We consider what we might do to facilitate support for these citizens, inviting the public to rethink perceptions and strategies of social inclusion and support for immigrant seniors living independently in Canada.

Tactics in Support of the Strategy to Include Artistic Research as Evidence in Systematic Reviews

Artistic research studies produce a felt and often physically embodied type of knowledge initiated in an artistic experience and consolidated as an art form. The actual art work as the outcome of these studies, complements other types of knowledge and therefore requires attention from systematic review authors who synthesize evidence from primary studies. Working with artistic research evidence in a systematic review context requires a different approach to searching, appraising, analysing and integrating research findings than what is usually promoted by international review organisations. In this paper we outline how the different steps in a systematic review process can be adapted to include art work as as a multimodal type of research evidence in systematic reviews. We discuss useful tactics of identifying artistic research evidence, judging its value, analysing and synthesizing such evidence, hereby building on iconographic, thematic and/or art and design related analytical frameworks. In addition, we feature a gallery approach to present artistic research evidence to end-users and feature a multimodal type of evidence synthesis in which individual art works are comprehensively integrated in an audio visual production.

Dancing with your baby: The experiences of the breastfeeding mother-infant dyad discovered through the artistry of symbolic dance

Dancing With Your Baby: The Experiences of the Breastfeeding Mother-Infant Dyad Discovered Through the Artistry of Symbolic Dance is a study that explored the experiences of the breastfeeding mother-infant dyad through the dance/movement therapy techniques mirroring, leading and following, image making, and symbolic dance.An art-based research study with the inquiries of the breastfeeding mother-infant dyad in mind, was designed with a phenomenological approach that included autobiographical narratives and embodied lived emotions and reflection, which allowed for the integration of dance and movement within the arts-based research realm. Interviews were conducted with each participant to provide an in-depth comprehension of their breastfeeding and postpartum experiences. The participants attended three open group discussions where they expressed their breastfeeding struggles and accomplishments, bonding with their child, and motherhood. Participants were asked to create gestural descriptors that described their breastfeeding experience, and through the image making process, participants choreographed a symbolic dance which was captured on film. Journal entries included written testimonial and self-portraits created through photography and visual art. Eight themes emerged from this study: loneliness, pain, tired, importance of nurturing their infant, guilt, grief, joy, and closure. The researcher's embodied empathetic reflection to the mother-infant movement sequences were also captured on film and is accompanied with a voice over that addressed the participants feelings and thoughts, and the overarching themes.This study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and provided participants insight in finding resilience during breastfeeding and nurturing their infants during stressful times through therapeutic movement, kinesthetic empathy, and artistic dance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Children and young peoples' lyrics and voices capturing their experiences within youth justice services

Purpose: This paper aims to explore young peoples' authentic experiences of youth justice services (YJS) during the Covid-19 pandemic. By adopting the creative arts-based method of lyric writing, the research team sought to empower participants through collaboration and participation and to facilitate them leading the narrative (Deakin et al., 2020). Design/methodology/approach: This research adopted a creative arts-based method in which participants worked alongside an artist to generate lyrics that captured their experiences within YJS. Such an approach demonstrated a commitment to participatory, child-first approaches. Findings: Two main themes were identified: identity and relationships. The young people vocalised resistance to frequent labelling and their ambitions to move away from past criminal identity and behaviour. Relationships with practitioners could be a source of frustration within this but were also highlighted as valuable and supportive. Research limitations/implications: As data collection was remote, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns, the opportunity to develop relationships with young people within the YJS prior to conducting the research was restricted. This approach may have also impacted recruitment of participants. The sessions presented short-term interventions and whilst follow-up sessions were offered, many did not take them up. Although the research sample is small and cannot be considered representative, it allows for a valuable insight into the experiences of young people at a particularly challenging time. Practical implications: Upon receiving our findings and recommendations, the first YJS research site has sought to further embed a relationship-based practice model and greater creative/participatory socially prescribed psychosocial therapeutic interventions, including music groups and spoken word artists to work with children and young people. Originality value: This research adds to the growing literature base surrounding creative arts-based research with children and young people for their value towards communication, pro-social identity and development. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Channelling discomfort through the arts: A Covid-19 case study through an intercultural telecollaboration project

In this article we argue, in the context of the current dominance of the performative and instrumental drives characterizing the accountable university, that language and intercultural communication education in universities should also be humanistic, addressing ‘discomforting themes' to sensitize students to issues of human suffering and engage them in constructive and creative responses to that suffering. We suggest that arts-based methods can be used and illustrate this with an intercultural telecollaboration project created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. In this way language and intercultural communication education can become a site of personal and social transformation albeit modest and piecemeal as part of a longer process. Through arts-based methodologies and pedagogies of discomfort, Argentinian and US undergraduates explored how the theme of the Covid-19 crisis has been expressed artistically in their countries, and then communicated online, using English as their lingua franca, to design in mixed international groups artistic multimodal creations collaboratively to channel their suffering and trauma associated with the pandemic. This article analyses and evaluates the project. Data comprise the students' artistic multimodal creations, their written statements describing their creations, and pre and post online surveys. Our findings indicate that students began a process of transformation of disturbing affective responses by creating artwork and engaging in therapeutic social and civic participation transnationally, sharing their artistic creations using social media. We highlight the powerful humanistic role of education involving artistic expression, movement, performativity, and community engagement in order to channel discomforting feelings productively at personal and social levels.

Is this the truth? A study of how undergraduates relate to potentially manipulative and misleading online media imagery

This mixed method arts-based study aims to answer the research question: How do undergraduates enrolled in an online course investigating visual culture at a large public Midwestern university relate to possibly manipulative and misleading online media imagery? Before educators can attempt to improve student media literacy, they must first understand how students experience visual media online. A holistic approach where students visualize their relationship with online media, respond to a survey of their attitudes and behaviors concerning online media, and demonstrate their abilities on anassessment of their critical media literacy, provides a rich snapshot of how members of Generation Z or Zoomers relate to online media.My findings reveal that students are extremely susceptible to manipulative or misleading media and that their unwarranted overconfidence may compound that vulnerability. Meanwhile, their art depicted feelings of anxiety, distrust, confusion, and helplessness regarding their relationships with media. With the increasing reliance on online media, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems as though misinformation online will only continue to proliferate with increasingly dangerous consequences in the real world. As a result, educators, especially art educators, are urged to try to help students develop visual and critical media literacy skills. Recommendations and lesson ideas are provided. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Resilient Warriors: An Expressive Arts-Based Resiliency Program to Promote Rural Upper Elementary Students' Resilience and Well-Being

A considerable gap exists between rural and urban children in their mental health outcomes that has continued to grow during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the critical role of school counselors in addressing this gap, we tested the effectiveness of a 10-week, expressive arts-based resiliency program, Resilient Warriors, with 46 rural elementary students. Results revealed a significant increase in students' resilience and well-being posttest scores. We discuss practical implications for school counseling practitioners. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Professional School Counseling is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A Self-Study of My Parallel Journey of Unlearning and Relearning Using Blackout Poetry in a Literature Didactics Module

As a teacher educator of literature methodology in Mauritius, this arts-based self-study is rooted in the need to improve my professional practice. It emanated from a critical incident during the COVID pandemic when I used blackout poetry during an online synchronous session with in-service teachers for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. The data production tools for this self-study include my own blackout poem, a reflection on the critical incident and an autobiographical resume. In addition, I engaged in dialogic discussion with the in-service teachers who served as critical friends. These tools empowered me to reflect on how I use blackout poetry as a creative writing activity and as a form of poetic inquiry with in-service teachers as andragogic learners. It also provided me with the opportunity to learn how I could become more empathetic to the learning experiences of in-service teachers. The thematic analysis revealed that the blackout poetry activity had not been fully optimized for creative and reflective purposes. First, there was the misassumption that this activity would interest the in-service teachers and intrinsically motivate them to engage in deep reflection and dialogic discussion. Second, I had overlooked temporal and technological challenges faced by in-service teachers. Lastly, the inability to align andragogic (adult learning) theory and practice and renegotiate learning expectations impeded the in-service teachers' learning experiences. This study thus valorizes how reflexive blackout poems, alongside other data production tools, can contribute to the unlearning and relearning of teacher educators to better teach adult learners.

Creating Community During COVID-19: A Virtual Art Gallery to Address Social Isolation During a Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic, a public health crisis, significantly impacted millions of people around the world. "Creating Community During COVID-19" is a community-engaged virtual art gallery that explores resilience, social cohesion, and creativity during the onset of the pandemic in the United States. It aimed to address social isolation and encourage inclusion at a large public university in the early days of the pandemic. The community was invited to submit artworks that reflected how they are staying connected during the pandemic. The artworks were then qualitatively analyzed and highlighted three key themes: (1) reflecting (turning inward), (2) advocating (turning outward), and (3) engaging (coming together). This arts-based project demonstrates promise as a creative approach for promoting social cohesion and positive health and well-being, especially in times of uncertainty.

Exploring the Feasibility and Acceptability of an Online Arts-Based Mindfulness Program for Adolescent Mothers

Adolescent mothers experience high levels of psychological distress due to social disadvantage, adversities, and limited supports. These issues were exasperated by the requirement of pandemic stay-at-home orders and the closing of in-person programs and services. Given the risks associated with adolescent mothering and the impact on their children's developmental functioning, it is imperative that intervention programs are implemented to support these young mothers. There is a dearth of research that explores the feasibility of using online programming with adolescent mothers. This article describes our experiences delivering an arts-based mindfulness program online to adolescent mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several challenges were encountered with respect to engagement and facilitation including high attrition rates and numerous disruptions during programming. Although the participants were motivated and interested in the program, they experienced numerous barriers to attendance and participation. Challenges with respect to technology, parenting, and family life significantly impacted the feasibility of online delivery. Future studies could attempt to address the social inequalities experienced by adolescent mothers to improve engagement and the effectiveness of online programs. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Live Well, Die Well: The Development of an Online, Arts-Based Palliative Care Programme in the Shadow of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The Covid-19 crisis led to an increase in the 'total pain' of many terminally ill patients who faced a reduction in support, due to the temporary closure of front-line palliative day therapy services. A hospice volunteer, I instigated an online day therapy programme for patients previously attending face-to-face day therapy. Participant feedback revealed the importance of providing a space for ongoing peer support for participants' changing sense of identity, an issue for time-limited day therapy programmes. An exploration of key concepts associated with palliative care established the multiple connections between such changing identity and arts-based approaches to living well. This article charts how I used this understanding to develop an alternative, online arts-based support programme, Live well, die well. It explores the links between ongoing mutual support, arts-based activity and the reactions to a shifting identity in patients with a life-limiting illness.

Performing maternities: During and after COVID-19: Part 2

This editorial argues that performance in maternity traverses a public/private binary which enables women artists, writers and creatives to occupy a liminal space of both performance and identity that can give voice to critical notions of what it is to mother during and after COVID-19 across the world. It shows how the articles included in the edition critically and creatively locate the writers within those public and private discourses, negotiating feminist conceptions of ethos as co-collaboration of knowledge through praxis. Art – visual, written and performed – acts as both salve and enquiry, comfort and cry – and the editorial shows how the contributors' work embraced and challenged these contexts and constraints during COVID-19. © 2023 Intellect Ltd Editorial. English language.

A Self-Study of My Parallel Journey of Unlearning and Relearning Using Blackout Poetry in a Literature Didactics Module

As a teacher educator of literature methodology in Mauritius, this arts-based self-study is rooted in the need to improve my professional practice. It emanated from a critical incident during the COVID pandemic when I used blackout poetry during an online synchronous session with in-service teachers for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. The data production tools for this self-study include my own blackout poem, a reflection on the critical incident and an autobiographical resume. In addition, I engaged in dialogic discussion with the in-service teachers who served as critical friends. These tools empowered me to reflect on how I use blackout poetry as a creative writing activity and as a form of poetic inquiry with in-service teachers as andragogic learners. It also provided me with the opportunity to learn how I could become more empathetic to the learning experiences of in-service teachers. The thematic analysis revealed that the blackout poetry activity had not been fully optimized for creative and reflective purposes. First, there was the misassumption that this activity would interest the in-service teachers and intrinsically motivate them to engage in deep reflection and dialogic discussion. Second, I had overlooked temporal and technological challenges faced by in-service teachers. Lastly, the inability to align andragogic (adult learning) theory and practice and renegotiate learning expectations impeded the in-service teachers' learning experiences. This study thus valorizes how reflexive blackout poems, alongside other data production tools, can contribute to the unlearning and relearning of teacher educators to better teach adult learners. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Art-based action-research tools during confinement by COVID-19 based on the work Journey around my room by Xavier de Maistre

This article presents research and an educational proposal on art and literature through Xavier de Maistre's book Journey around my room (1794). It is framed in the period of social confinement carried out between March and May 2020 in Spain and it has been designed and implemented in the Learning and Teaching of Artistic Drawing subject of the Master in Teaching of ESO, Baccalaureate and Vocational Training at Universidad de Almeria. A methodology that starts with the objective of developing experiences that stimulate students from their individuality and isolation promoting reflective and practical learning in times of global pandemic is shown. Through the chosen readings, three activities are proposed around the drawing and the object that promote a creative process where students stimulate their spatial and sensory perception, as well as their creative and imaginative capacity outside the classroom. At the same time, this work addresses, at a theoretical level, the everyday life of the room, both in the novel and in the reality of the students, provoking a dialogue between the classroom and the workshop that allows questioning the educational space, the role of the teacher and the group conscience. The variety of profiles offered by this Master (artists, designers, architects, etc.) has made it possible to provide new approaches to drawing, sculpture and teaching-learning processes in art. © 2022 Universidad de Caldas. All rights reserved.

The pedagogical style of matters of study: experimenting with artistic-scientific interventions in times of corona lockdown.

This paper is based on an online experiment, conducted with bachelor students of educational sciences during the COVID-19 lockdown period in the spring of 2020. The experiment, which took place on a daily basis for a whole workweek, consisted of a series of what we have come to call "artistic-scientific interventions". These constituted a pedagogical praxis in which over a longer period of time students are challenged to collect and 'think with' artistic media as alternative ways of experiencing, studying, and evaluating the corona crisis. Our paper describes the structure and proceedings of this experiment against the background of efforts to develop a new philosophical idea of what it means to do pedagogy. This idea, inspired by philosophers of science like Bruno Latour, contests some of the classical divides that run through the educational sciences, and that we believe pose a great threat to their relevance in current times of crisis: empirical/speculative, quantitative/qualitative, natural/social, facts/meaning, object/subject, etc. What our experiment shows, beyond all obsession with validating hypotheses or consistency of results, is that art, as an education of the senses, can afford science with a much needed platform for (re)creating and/or (re)arranging circumstances in which those problematic divides may be overcome. However, what it also shows is that often this only works when art is approached, not through the lens of predominantly respresentationalist aesthetics, but as a full-fledged part of a scientific (c.q. pedagogical) discipline. Especially in a diffuse digital environment, this entails a need for transindividual, impersonal protocols which allow for both repetition, variation, and feedback, and instil a strong sense of transformative gathering and study.

Exploring Embodied Experience via Videoconferencing: A Method for Body Mapping Online.

Faced with a series of COVID-19 related lockdowns in Australia across 2020 and 2021, and anxious about the safety of our research participants, we developed a novel approach to body mapping, an arts-based research method typically undertaken in-person. We produced a facilitated body mapping workshop hosted via an online videoconferencing platform. Workshops brought together 29 participants with disability, mental distress and/or refugee background who used body mapping to represent their embodied experiences of stigma and discrimination. These workshops generated rich data, and participants reported a high level of satisfaction with the process. In this paper we describe our novel approach to body mapping, and share practical tips for others who wish to undertake body mapping remotely. We outline strengths associated with this method: increased accessibility, enhanced connection between participants, the formation of a space to explore challenging subject matter, the production of rich data, and the creation of diverse body maps. We also discuss shortcomings and challenges which those considering the method should be aware of: increased logistical burden, demands related to space, IT difficulties, the danger of over-sharing, and diminished cohort sizes. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to report on body mapping facilitated via web-based workshops. Here, we seek to provide practical advice and useful insights for others hoping to utilise body mapping online.

Bringing out leaders in dementia (bold): creating the conditions for persons to flourish as social leaders

Background: bold (Bringing Out Leaders in Dementia), funded by the Life Changes Trust, is a creative and innovative social leadership project for people in Scotland living with dementia. Aim: A key part of bold is the bold programme, which takes a person-centred focus to help people empower themselves to flourish through creative methods and personal development. bold brings together people with a diverse range of skills and abilities on an equal footing in a safe and supported space, in which they can explore themselves as ‘social leaders’. Methods: An interdisciplinary team from the University of Edinburgh and Queen Margaret University collaborated with creative artists from the outset to develop the programme that uses a mixture of arts-based methods to encourage creativity, innovation and imagination to explore and develop leadership potential. These include creative writing, working with clay and collage, improvisation, movement, reflective walking, singing and song writing, voice and breathing, and performing arts. In this article we provide an overview of the programme’s design from its outset and of how the creative methods have been adapted and developed to work online as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Results: A brief overview shows how bold has evolved beyond the online programme and how those who take part continue to find ways to create spaces for people living with dementia to flourish as they become part of the bold community. Implications for practice: * A programme for encouraging and empowering individuals to flourish requires a reflective and person-centred approach in a safe and supported environment * Successful outcomes depend on multiple factors, including careful programme delivery planning, good facilitation, and commitment and belief from those who take part * An inclusive and accessible approach is beneficial when using creative methods for people living with dementia

Online Podcast Production as Co‐Creation for Intercultural Participation in Neighbourhood Development

This article describes the usage of an online podcast workshop as an arts‐based research method to reflect on intercultural participation. The podcast workshop was co‐developed by researchers, local civil society actors, and administrative employees and deployed in a research infrastructure based on real‐world labs. We show how the online podcast workshop as a research tool elicits co‐creation with agonistic as well as communicative practices. The podcast combined practices of making with socially engaged research, using digital storytelling. It aimed at enhancing intercultural dialogue and participation and was used as an opportunity for voices that are not sufficiently represented in local public discourse on neighbourhood development to become recognised and challenge marginalisation. Based on one online podcast workshop, the article addresses new possibilities for collective and collaborative action during the Covid‐19 pandemic and frames the podcast as a moderated place for exchange and reflection in the digital space. The podcast workshop intended to foster further discussion on the topic of intercultural participation and was conceived as a tool for empowerment that participants can use for further conversations and exchange in their communities. © 2022 by the author(s).