Early Childhood Student Teachers’ Observation and Experimentation of Creative Practices as a Design Processes

Abstract

In this paper, we address the guidance of student teachers in initial training in schools as an invaluable opportunity to raise creative learning awareness. The objective of this present research is to develop guidance strategies for guiding the identification of creative practices and for analyzing that moment as a “way of knowing”. We analyze how to mentor future teachers so they feel willing to promote student engagement and creative thinking through their own practices. We adopted a case study approach guided by multimodal principles. We found that triangulation of individual interviews, focus group discussions and a diary of class observation was a useful strategy in the guidance of student teachers in initial training in schools. Results show these strategies allowed them to become more accepting of unpredicted or undesired results, as they approached their sessions’ designs as forms of experimentation. We argue it is essential to guide future educators in the critical analysis of the “standard classroom”, helping them design creative alternatives through collaborative experimentation.

Keywords

• CREATIVE TEACHING
• CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
• TEACHER EDUCATION
• CASE STUDIES