CRESL - Current Projects
'Looking After a Giant' (creative approaches to primary science)
In collaboration with MakeBelieve Arts
Project Summary
The Centre for Research in Early Scientific Learning (CRESL) at Bath Spa University is working with MakeBelieve Arts, a theatre-in-education company based in South London, to develop and evaluate the impact of the ‘Giant Tours’ workshops. Giant Tours will excite and engage Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils with the fundamentals of human biology– learning about the body, how it works, and how it heals.
The basis of the science that children will explore through the ‘Giant Tours’ programme is human biology: anatomy, nutrition and medicine. This is based on consultation with local primary school teachers who expressed that this is an area where their pupils would benefit from creative engagement. The programme is funded by a Wellcome Trust People Award.
Our role
CRESL has advised on the scientific content of the workshops and is developing an evaluation tool based on children’s drawings of their ideas about how our bodies work, completed before and after their experience of ‘Giant Tours’.
Contact
Professor Dan Davies, CRESL Director
+441225 875675 d.davies@bathspa.ac.uk
Creative Environments for Learning in Schools – a systematic review of literature
Project Summary
In March 2011, Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) commissioned the Centre for Research in Early Scientific Learning (CRESL) at Bath Spa University, working with Divya Jindal-Snape from the University of Dundee, to undertake a review of literature relating to creative environments for learning in schools. LTS’s overall aim was to review evidence identifying the most effective learning environments and conditions which promote creative skills development in children and young people, whilst the objectives of the review were:
- To describe the key characteristics of the environments and conditions that are most effective in promoting creative skills development in children and young people.
- To describe the impact of creative school learning environments on the educational development of children and young people.
- To describe the roles of teachers in promoting creative skills development in pupils.
- To describe how teachers can best be supported to develop the skills and confidence to facilitate creative learning environments.
Outcomes
Despite the volume of academic literature in this field, the team of six reviewers found comparatively few empirical studies published in the period 2005-2011 providing findings addressing the above objectives. There was, however a reasonable weight of research evidence to support the importance of the following factors in supporting creative development:
- Flexible use of space and time
- Availability of appropriate materials
- Working outside the classroom/school
- ‘Playful’ or ‘games-bases’ approaches with a degree of learner autonomy
- Respectful relationships between teachers and learners
- Opportunities for peer collaboration
- Partnerships with outside agencies
- Awareness of learners’ needs
- Less prescriptive planning
The review also found evidence for impact of creative environments on pupil attainment and the development of teacher professionalism. LTS intend to use the review as a basis for recommendations to schools in promoting creativity within Curriculum for Excellence.
Davies, D., Jindal-Snape, D., Collier, C., Digby, R., Hay, P. and Howe, A. (2011) Creative Learning Environments in Education – a systematic literature review, paper presented at Scottish Educational Research Association Conference, Stirling Highland Hotel, 24-25 November 2011.
Contact:
Professor Dan Davies, CRESL Director
+441225 875675 d.davies@bathspa.ac.uk
Science in the Primary Creative Curriculum (2011-2013)
We are working with colleagues at the Universities of Dundee, Edinburgh, Exeter and the Open University to develop a project to investigate the portrayal of science within various models of emergent curriculum being developed in primary schools around the UK. Focusing on clusters of schools in three different areas of England and Scotland, this project will seek to explore what schools mean by the phrase 'creative curriculum'; what characteristics different models of such a curriculum exhibit, and how the creative potential of science teaching and learning can be further developed in each case. The project is the subject of an ESRC bid and a smaller-scale bid to the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust.