LSRI: Improvisation and Learning

Professor Mike Sharples and Dr Ruolan Wang

School of Education, University of Nottingham

We shall explore improvisation as an aspect of learning by children and adults. Improvisational learning involves 'making it up as you go along', through rapid alternation of planning and execution that draws upon the resources of a material environment. The combination of cognitive and material constraint provides a structure within which creativity and meaning making can occur. Ensemble improvisation requires mutual acceptance and an ability to build on the emerging performance of others. Learning can occur by exploring a space of possibilities, by developing new routines or coordinations, and by gaining an understanding of the function of improvisation within problem solving or innovation.  Despite its analytic complexity, improvisation through imaginative play forms an essential part of early learning, as children explore imaginary worlds, distinguish fantasy from reality, and learn the rules of games and how to modify them. But an analysis of learning episodes by adults shows little evidence of such playful improvisation. Instead, they engage in improvisational learning a tool for problem solving or as a consequence of progressing a craft activity. Some forms of deliberate and skilful adult improvisation, in drama and music, are based around ensemble play. We suggest there is an opportunity to support a developmental progression of learning through improvisation from childhood play to adult ensemble performance, as a way to maintain young people's interest in learning, to engage them in constructive inquiry, and to develop skills of creative extemporization that will be required to prosper in a complex, changing world.

This event will be live streamed via http://www.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/live/

This talk will take place in Room 35a, Flexible Learning Room, LSRI, The Exchange, Jubilee Campus