This paper highlights the use of State Space Grids (SSGs) for studying real-time classroom discourse in an intervention targeting professional development. State Space Grid analysis is both a powerful way to visualise patterns in interactional data, and a starting point for further quantitative analysis. In the present study SSGs were used to explore patterns in teacher–student interactions. The study shows the importance of using micro-level time-serial data and illustrates how change in interactions during and after an intervention can be studied. SSG analysis was applied to study interaction in terms of the coupling of a teacher and a student variable: autonomy support and musical creativity. Video data from 40 music lessons of five teachers and their classes was used as input for plotting teacher–student interactions in SSGs, consisting of two dimensions. SSGs allow visualising change in the situation of interactions in the grid and identifying change in patterns to different grid areas. The findings show how interactions tended to settle in areas representing more productive interaction for all but one class. We discuss the benefits of using SSGs in intervention studies and the implications for educational practice and research of using this time-serial approach.
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The dissertation Pathways of Musical Creativity shows that students’ musical creativity can develop in an intervention with Video Feedback Coaching for teachers, mediated by their support of students’ creative autonomy during classroom interactions in music lessons. Autonomy support entails fostering students' self-determined learning by providing space for their own choices and interests. The intervention introduced teachers to music-pedagogical strategies for enhancing classroom interaction in order to transition from a teacher- and method-centered style to a student-centered and autonomy-supportive interaction approach. This PhD research also took the nonverbal components of teachers' autonomy support into account because classroom interaction in music lessons is also nonverbal and musical in nature.Teachers changed their interaction style during the intervention to one that supported more autonomy, and they were less likely to return to mainly instruction and modelling. Although for verbal autonomy support a beneficial effect was observed, teachers found it more difficult to provide higher levels of non-verbal autonomy support in music teaching. In turn, students showed more originality and variation in their creative thinking and acting in music. Although over half of the classes engaged in playing more complex rhythmical patterns over the course of the intervention, at group-level no effect for this aspect was found in comparison to a control group. These findings suggest that in both primary education and teacher education, more focus should be placed on enhancing classroom interaction and supporting students’ creative autonomy support in music lessons.
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Many studies have suggested that personal practical knowledge is essential for professional development. Recently, there has been growing recognition of the importance of teacher educators’ personal practical knowledge of ‘language’ for student learning development. However, the need for teacher educators to first understand their own language-oriented development in content-based classroom interaction has not received as much emphasis. The current intervention study investigates how eleven experienced teacher educators understand their language-oriented development through the control of task difficulty, small-group instruction and directed response questioning. Data were examined by conducting content and constant comparison analyses. The results showed that the intervention affected the educators’ language-oriented development, which in turn affected their awareness and decisions made to improve their methods of initiation and response during classroom interaction. The results call for more concrete ways to expend teacher educators’ practical knowledge of language to further develop and enhance their language-oriented teaching performance in content-based classroom interaction.
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Developing and realizing an innovative concept for the Active Aging campus in two years, where students, teachers, companies, residents of surrounding Campus neighborhoods will be invited to do exercise, sports, play, meet and participate. This includes, on the one hand, providing input with regard to a mobility-friendly design from an infrastructural perspective and, on the other hand, organizing activities that contribute to Healthy Aeging of the Zernike site and the city of Groningen. It is not only about having an Active Aging campus with an iconic image, but also about the process. In the process of realization, students, teachers, researchers, companies and residents from surrounding districts will be explicitly involved. This includes hardware (physical environment / infrastructure), software (social environment) and orgware (interaction between the two).
A world where technology is ubiquitous and embedded in our daily lives is becoming increasingly likely. To prepare our students to live and work in such a future, we propose to turn Saxion’s Epy-Drost building into a living lab environment. This will entail setting up and drafting the proper infrastructure and agreements to collect people’s location and building data (e.g. temperature, humidity) in Epy-Drost, and making the data appropriately available to student and research projects within Saxion. With regards to this project’s effect on education, we envision the proposal of several derived student projects which will provide students the opportunity to work with huge amounts of data and state-of-the-art natural interaction interfaces. Through these projects, students will acquire skills and knowledge that are necessary in the current and future labor-market, as well as get experience in working with topics of great importance now and in the near future. This is not only aligned with the Creative Media and Game Technologies (CMGT) study program’s new vision and focus on interactive technology, but also with many other education programs within Saxion. In terms of research, the candidate Postdoc will study if and how the data, together with the building’s infrastructure, can be leveraged to promote healthy behavior through playful strategies. In other words, whether we can persuade people in the building to be more physically active and engage more in social interactions through data-based gamification and building actuation. This fits very well with the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) research group’s agenda in Augmented Interaction, and CMGT’s User Experience line. Overall, this project will help spark and solidify lasting collaboration links between AmI and CMGT, give body to AmI’s new Augmented Interaction line, and increase Saxion’s level of education through the dissemination of knowledge between researchers, teachers and students.
Within TIND, Christian Roth studies the training of interactive narrative designers with the goal of developing teaching methods and learning tools for artists and designers to enable the creation of more effective artefacts. Interactive Narrative Design (IND) is a complex and challenging interdisciplinary field introducing new affordances in technique and user-experience. This requires practice-based research for further development of the educational format, demonstrating its potential while identifying and overcoming common learners’ challenges. This project aims to develop a framework for the design and evaluation of meaningful interactive narrative experiences that effectively stimulate a variety of cognitive and emotional responses such as reflection, insight, understanding, and potential behavior change. It provides tools, methods and activities to enable aspiring or practicing narrative designers through an interdisciplinary approach, including game design, immersive theatre, behavioral and cognitive psychology, and the learning sciences. HKU education means to prepare students for success in the creative industries and IND plays an important role for current and future jobs in education, arts and entertainment. IND has the potential to create an emotional impact and spark transformative change by offering agency, defined as the ability to influence narrative progression and outcomes in a meaningful way. This enables interactors to feel the weight of their own choices and their consequences, to explore different perspectives, and to more thoroughly understand complex multi-stakeholder issues, which could have significant impact on the success of emerging artistic, and learning applications. The research project is directly embedded in the curriculum of the HKU school Games & Interaction with annual educational offerings such as the Minor Interactive Narrative Design (MIND) and HKU wide broad seminars. Course evaluation and literature research will be used to create new and adjusted training for different HKU schools and the industry. Outcomes will be shared via an interactive website and events.
