Arts, crafts, and dance - developing aesthetic learning processes in arts and crafts through a general teacher education and higher dance education collaboration

Abstract

The context for this research is a collaboration that took place in 2021 between the general teacher education study program in arts and crafts at the NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University College of Dance Art in Oslo, Norway.  The higher dance education institution visited the general teacher education institution with the workshop KROM, an anagram for body and spaces in Norwegian. KROM was developed at Rom for dans (Dancespaces) and is a well-established workshop project that has been touring schools in Norway widely. The KROM workshop visiting the teacher education institution became an educational design research project guided by the question: How can a workshop collaboration with the topic “body and spaces” carried out by an educational design team from a primary and secondary teacher education institution and a higher dance education institution produce insights about aesthetic learning processes in arts and crafts? An educational design team consisting of six members from the two involved institutions designed, carried out, and researched the project. Central insights offered as an outcome of the collaboration are as follows: the quality of the collaboration in the design-team itself is of crucial importance; active connections to the traditions and pedagogies of the hosting subject, in this case arts and crafts, need to be made by the hosting teacher educators in order to support the teacher candidates’ learning; and, dance engages specifically the elements of body, space, embodied collaboration, and play in arts and crafts aesthetic learning processes.