The Mantle of the Expert

The mantle of the expert is a system for learning through active imagination and enquiry methodology. This was developed by an educator who was called Dorothy Heathcote who’s work spans over 50 years.

The mantle of the expert’s aims is to reduce subject boundaries which resonate with the work of Dewey whose focus was to involve learners in problem solving (Suzie Pugh 2014). “It is a conceptualised learning approach based in AT1 Speaking and Listening & Drama for Learning which focuses on curriculum domain/s the teacher wishes the class to learn.”(Mantle of the expert)

This is designed to give learners more responsibility for their learning as they work on the tasks alongside their work. It also enables them to become more confident and is designed to increase this and their engagement in tasks.

“The technique can be used to actively explore issues across the curriculum through drama, empowering pupils by giving them an opportunity to assume responsible roles and make decisions in guiding the outcomes. In the UK, many schools are adopting Mantle of the Expert as a cross-curricular approach.” (Drama Resource)

An advantage of doing this is that it allows the children to make the decisions for themselves,  However it is the teachers  job to guide the drama , but they can step in and out of role as and when they need to. IF you click on the link below there is a video which can help to describe the approach:

http://dramaresource.com/strategies/mantle-of-the-expert

"Learning transforms who we are and what we can do…it is not just an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming a certain person. “ (Wenger 1998)

The Mantle of the Expert could coincide with The Leonardo Effect as they can work together. You can place the Leonardo Effect into a drama role and optimise the learners understanding. Going through each stage and having a drama role enables learners to think for themselves, engage more in tasks and work as a group to achieve the best outcome. The aim of this is to harness and use the ability of learners to play together for curriculum purposes.

http://www.imaginative-inquiry.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/moe-element.png

 

“The development of a community of inquiry, the acquisition and application of new skills, the frame of role-play, cross-curricular experiences and activities  based on relevant problems, which are perceived as ‘real’ by the community” (Taylor 2006)

The Mantle of the Expert is a very good way to engage learners in tasks. Giving them responsibilities to undertake their own learning can allow them to take more confidence in group tasks and team work in future life.  It can help them to broaden their minds and come up with new ideas that enable them to come out with a better outcome than what they would if they did not use this method.

References
http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/about-moe/faqs/what-is-mantle-of-the-expert/comment-page-1/
http://dramaresource.com/strategies/mantle-of-the-expert
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, A. (2006) A Critical Evaluation of ‘‘Mantle of the Expert’’ as a Teaching and Learning Approach, Based on Pupil and Practitioner Opinion.  http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/community/research/ .

The Leonardo Effect

Stage 1 Capture Learner’s Imaginations: Use first-hand experiences in relevant contexts to inspire self-generated questions. Drawing on learner’s inherent curiosity a process of discovery-based learning begins, involving research with multimedia, books, experts, fellow pupils etc. Learners feel empowered and teachers feel energised to learn with them.

Stage 2 Development:  Learners explore in depth, develop ideas and conduct experiments via visual, aural and kinaesthetic means. This exciting and open-ended stage enables children to make connections, drawing out the learning process to facilitate development of all the learning capacities including skills, knowledge and understanding.

Stage 3 Creation:  Learners are challenged to apply their knowledge and skills in an innovative and creative context, which takes their learning to a higher level, exceeding usual curricular requirements.

Stage 4 Reflect and Communicate: In this phase pupils evaluate their own work and communicate their knowledge to a wider audience in the school or beyond in a multitude of ways, or embark on a new learning adventure inspired by the skills and knowledge they have acquired. (Suzie Pugh 2014)

The tunnel

A way in which this can be shown is through a task that we did in our seminar groups. The task was to work in groups to create a company that builds bridges, create some designs and design a bridge that is to be built connecting Swansea over the river.

Once we had built our design, drawn up plans and created a budget, the lecture – Suzie then came round and we had to present our ideas. The cost and how long it would take to build. The key was using our imagination and it really shows in the group I was in because instead of building a bridge, we decided to build a tunnel that went under the river so that it wasn’t a landscape spoiler.

You can also see in my group that a lot of development takes place because we looked in depth at other bridges that we already built, developed from them and came up with new ideas. This is what helped us to come up with the tunnel idea rather than the bridge idea as it seemed more viable.


Replica of tunnel through water

There is also a lot of creation that has taken place because in the group we applied our knowledge to what was already built and worked from there. WE then came up with what the bridge would look like through the ideas of current bridges and even went as far as trying to design it so you could see how it looked from a landscape view rather than just a tunnel under water.

View of Right side of the Tunnel

A view of the Entrance to tunnel

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe that we managed to acquire the last stage as well because we evaluated our work, presented it to our fellow students and explained how it would be built how e acquired the idea and the costing. There is also a video below which shows the presentation of a bridge that the other group had created and you can see the level of depth that has been done in order to achieve what they have.

 

References

http://www.leonardoeffect.com/resources/Factsheet.pdf

Suzie Pugh 2014



Arts Vs. Science Debate

We are unique for possessing a drive for a deeper understanding of the world rather than just what is necessary in order for us to live and survive. Science and art are like twin pillars of creativity and innovation in any dynamic culture. They can be seen to be as different as day and night. Arts are about creativity and imagination whilst the sciences are about a rigorous application of technique and methods. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (Einstein,1929)

Although art and science can be seen as two completely different things, the one thing that we have to remember is that there will always be a debate of what is better for us. Arts or Science. Arts can allow us to use our imagination whilst science is ‘one way’ explaining methods and different techniques to things all in the same way.

Using our imagination to looks at things differently enables us to be our own person and stand out from others. But would the science route mean that because there was set methods and techniques, that if we followed these, we would all be the same as we are not doing things differently?

Personally I think that there should be a balance of both the arts and science because “One characteristic common to both artists and scientists is playfulness, but that is not a characteristic usually associated with scientists in the general public’s mind” (Stange, 2010). “It seems that science is still viewed as a very serious and a very large mechanical process, and is something that may be explained a little by how it is taught, with a strong emphasis on following the rules of rigorous methodology.”

Can scientists use their imaginations and apply it to the science? Would that make them become unique and stand out from others as well? IS it that because society still sees science as a very serious process that there is no time for imagination only for the methodology and techniques? These are all questions that still come to the same conclusion. The Arts vs. Science debate.

 Dr. Mae Jemison’s views is however eye opening as she says  “Science or art? A ridiculous choice. The arts and sciences are connected. And our mission, is to reconcile and reintegrate science and the arts. Both the arts and the sciences, are not merely connected but manifestations of the same thing - they are our attempt to build an understanding of the universe, and our attempt to influence things (things in the universe internal to ourselves and the universe external to ourselves). “The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity and are our attempt as humans to build an understanding of the world around us”

References

Stange, K. (2010). The Solemn Frivolity of Art And Charming Frigidity of Science. The international Journal of Arts & Sciences.

 

 

Does Education Kill Creativity?

Creativity is import for us as it allows changes and to develop the world. Being unique is important and creativity allows us to be unique.  But in Education could the taught to test and the way the curriculum works prevent us from being able to express our creativity and uniqueness?

Ken Robinsons states “Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not – because the thing they were good at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatised.” He also says that “the current education system was designed and conceived for a different age” meaning that maybe the way that education works today isn’t the right education and standards need to be raised.

After watching a video- linked below, this gives a real insight as to education and does it kill creativity. Instead of anaesthetising children to get them through education we should be opening them up to different ideas and making them come to life with their talents and abilities inside them.  

These days it seems to be that education is modelled purely on industrialisation and the image of it because as Robinson states “they still are organised on factory lines such as ringing bells, separate facilities, having separate subjects” These days it should be about putting everyone in to the same style of education as different people can perform better than other even at different age levels. So why are we putting our kids through school in somewhat ‘batches’ rather than allowing them to potentially use their creativity to perform well?

Divergent thinking is an essential capacity for creativity. Allowing you to see different interpretations of questions and answers and finding different outcomes. This allows the person to become unique and different.

A test was carried out on 1500 people in a book which was given to them called ‘Break Point and Beyond’. If you scored above a certain level you would be considered a genius at divergent thinking. 98% of kindergarten children scored this percentage however, because this was a longitudinal study, the same children were tested five years later and another five years later which showed remarkable answers. Because they had been educated, they had only been told that there is one answer to the question given and it’s normally given to them. This isn’t because teachers want it this way it’s because it happens this way because of the ‘gene pool of education’.

“A viable alternative vision that frames education as a transformative and creative process rather than merely an informative one” (Kegan, 2000)

 

References

Kegan, R. (2000).What “Form" Transforms?: A Constructive-developmental Approach to Transformative Learning. In J. Mezirow (Ed.) & Associates, Learning as Transformation (pp. 3- 34). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

What is Creativity?

Creativity is a means of connecting the previously unconnected in ways that are new and meaningful to the individual concerned (Duffy 2006). Creativity allows and enables individuals to be able to find different routes and paths that they can travel. It is a process of conscious invention and describes the resourcefulness of ordinary people rather than extraordinary contributors (Craft, A. & Jeffrey, B. 2008).

 Being creative is what makes us all unique. Having our own way of doing things and creating new ideas allows us to be different from everyone else thus making us stand out and being all different. Everyone needs to be creative in order to be different because without this everyone would be the same or similar and the world would be a boring place.

 Being creative is important. Education must not favour students because of their creative abilities but instead they should optimise the talents that all learners may have and can open them up to new ideas and to embrace the notion that we as learners need so it can give us many opportunities to be able to play with ideas.

In Education it is also better for them to emphasis students being able to break their barriers and not to use traditional but non-traditional approaches to problems. Also it should try and get students to make new connections and to acknowledge the importance of an environment which encourages and values the importance of creativity and using the imagination.

 Whys is creativity important for us you might ask?  Well For creativity to occur, a set of rules and practices must be transmitted from the domain to the individual. The individual must then produce a novel variation in the content of the domain. The variation then must be selected by the field for inclusion in the domain (Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1999)

The other predominant thrust of work in the field looks more at everyday creativity (Richards, 2007), such as creative activities that allow the average person to be able to  participate in each day.

 

 References
Duffy, B. (2006) Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years (pp. 3 – 27). Berkshire: Open University Press.

Craft, A. & Jeffrey, B. (2008) Editorial.  Creativity and Performativity in Teaching and Learning: Tensions, Dilemmas, Constraints, Accommodations and Synthesis.  British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 577–584.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999) Implications of a Systems

Perspective for the Study of Creativity in Sternberg, R. (Ed.) Handbook of Creativity (p. 35). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, R. (2007) Everyday creativity: Our hidden potential in Richards, R. (Ed.), Everyday creativity and new views of human nature (pp. 25 - 54). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.