Empowering pre-service teachers through collective creative pedagogies

Project Aim

The project will design, embed, and evaluate creative teaching practices in teacher education. It will focus on strengthening social-emotional skills, professional agency, and ethical activism in future teachers.

Rationale

Education systems are facing rapid change due to social, ecological, and technological shifts. Global organisations such as OECD and UNESCO stress the importance of creativity, responsibility, and critical thinking in preparing young people for positive futures.

At the same time, there is a rise in mental health concerns among young people. This highlights the need for schools to place greater emphasis on relationships and life skills.

In most countries, the current government designed teacher education curriculum lack a focus on developing creative identity, social-emotional competencies, and responsive pedagogical practices. This contributes to challenges with teacher identity, recruitment, and retention worldwide.

Research shows that creative pedagogies and the arts can support social-emotional learning and teacher identity, but access to these approaches is unequal. This project will address these issues and gaps in research directly.

Project Focus

The study will examine how creative pedagogies can support student teachers' identity, self-worth, agency and professional growth.

Methodology

• Co-design methods will be used with young people, student teachers, and creative practitioners
• The project involves universities in six countries: England, Wales, Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, and Iceland
• Action research will explore how pre-service teachers and young people experience creativity, social-emotional learning dispositions, and agency
• A 'worldbuilding' and inquiry-based approach will be used to co-design curriculum
• The project will deliver case studies, policy insights, and a teacher toolkit for creative pedagogy and social-emotional learning

In Year 2 the approach will be embedded across all three pre-service teachers programmes in Wales and wider partnership.

Dr Lisa Stephenson stated: "This research is urgently needed to empower pre-service teachers with creative and responsive pedagogical practices which are underpinned by social-emotional literacy. By bringing international expertise together, this project will help drive meaningful change in teacher education."

Sian James, Programme Manager, Creative Learning Cymru said: "We are thrilled to be co-funding this pilot year of international action research. We need to be driving change at a national policy level to ensure creativity is cultivated across the curriculum; from initial teacher education to professional learning and leadership development."

Leadership and Team

The project is led by:

• Dr Lisa Stephenson (Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, England) - Principal Investigator
• Sian James and Karen Dell'Armi (Arts Council Wales) - Project Leads
• Mark Ford (Welsh Government) - Policy Lead

The co-investigators all leading areas of pre-service teaching, bring extensive expertise in critical literacy, creative and anti-racist pedagogies, critical thinking, education for democracy and as sustainability:

• Dr Helen Lewis (Swansea University, Wales)
• Dr Lesley Emerson (Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland)
• Dr Sonja Kuzich, Dr Paul Gardner, Dr Carol Carter (Curtin University, Australia)
• Professor Rannveig Björk Þorkelsdóttir and Jóna Guðrún Jónsdóttir (University of Iceland)
• Dr Deirdre McGillicuddy (University College Dublin, Ireland)
• Dr Navan Govander (University of Strathclyde, Scotland)
• Miss Naomi Lord (Director, Creatives Now)

The consortium also includes policy makers from Wales, OECD, and the Chartered College.