Identificación de categorías

The data suggest that working with the senses contributed to the students’ emotional

connection to the material. Sensory work brought students into the ‘now’ which enhanced their engagement and flow. The depth of their engagement, the skills they demonstrated through the processes and results of their artistic explorations, and their reflective responses provided evidence of their new learning. The students proved again and again that they were motivated, energized and challenged by the work. “You concentrate more than usual and put more effort into your work (E.G., Final Student Refection, 2015). The sensory work continued to

contribute to their academic and creative skills in reading and writing, in social studies, and in various arts disciplines long after the project was finished.

Analysis of data gathered through observation, interview, and student work samples and reflections revealed the emergence of major themes. These themes include authentic

connection, integration, awareness through working in role, creative freedom and autonomy, attention and focus, and intrinsic motivation. As stated the various sensory learning

experiences and the integrated arts learning intersect, overlap, and the study addresses how these experiences contribute to student engagement. The research problems (sensory learning, arts programming, and student engagement) that originated from the research questions also overlap. Table 4.4 illustrates how the emerging themes relate to the three research problems.

Table 4.4 Emerging Themes Related to Research Problems

In the next chapter these themes, based on the findings, are interpreted and discussed in relation to the literature and the affordances and implications of this research are examined.

Sensory Learning Arts Programming Student Engagement

Authentic connection to self and experience

Authentic connection to material and curriculum

Authentic connection to active learning

Integration (of multiple senses)

Integration (disciplines and content)

Integration (based on student interest) Awareness through

working in role (awareness connected to others)

Awareness through working in role (explore and express in role)

Awareness through working in role (increased

investment in experience) Creative Freedom to

explore individual sense awareness

Creative Freedom (to explore and express creatively)

Creative Freedom and Autonomy (choice)

Attention and Focus (to sensory awareness)

Attention and Focus (to multi-disciplinary material)

Attention and focus (to the learning experiences) Intrinsic Motivation

(emerging from interior experience to outer expression

Intrinsic Motivation

(enjoyment and challenge of arts processes)

Intrinsic Motivation (inspired and immersed in the experience)

Chapter 5

5

Discussion

The purpose of this case study was to examine how sensory-based arts pedagogies might be structured to provide opportunities for junior students to learn and make meaning in multiple ways. The study further sought to examine how the sensory-based arts pedagogies created potential for student engagement. The study took place in a grade six classroom in an economically and culturally diverse urban neighbourhood in Ontario over a period of three months. I worked collaboratively with the teacher to plan and facilitate integrated sensory arts programming. I visited the classroom ten times and conducted three interviews with the teacher. The teacher’s perspectives and insights were a valuable component of the research. Each of the 22 students in the class participated fully in the lessons. Data from twelve students who had parental permission are included in the study. The data included interviews,

observations and student work samples. I analyzed and interpreted the data to extrapolate the multiple facets of the work and attended to the ways that the teacher and students participated, articulated, and shared their experiences through the collaborative sensory-based arts integrated learning. Students engaged in explicit learning of the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, taste, kinesthetic, vestibular, interoceptive, and proprioceptive senses. They had opportunities to translate experiences through their senses and develop discipline specific skills and techniques to explore and express their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Students worked in creative ways through a variety of arts and language explorations inspired by the book, Fatty Legs, written by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. The programming for this project

followed a version of the principles for creating artful instruction modeled after Aristotle and Dewey (Parrish, 2008):

1) The learning experiences had a beginning, middle and end, and the project continued over an appropriate period of time to sustain engagement.

2) The students were the protagonists of their own learning. They had choice and were immersed in the process by connecting their senses and identity to the material.

4) The context was meaningful. The sensory arts approach created the opportunity for the students to be immersed in the experience and connect to the larger issues in multiple ways. Throughout the study I followed the main research questions: What opportunities for learning and engagement do sensory-based arts pedagogies provide for junior students? How might sensory-based arts pedagogies be best structured and positioned to provide relevant and meaningful learning opportunities to junior students? How might experiences that focus on sensory, mind-body awareness, and the imagination contribute to students’ learning, engagement, and meaning making? Three main research foci arose from the questions that guided the study. These were sensory learning, arts programming opportunities, and student engagement.

I present the discussion according to the major themes, refer to the literature and then relate the findings back to the three main research problems that stemmed from the questions. The approach, the curricular content, the sensory explorations, and the arts implementations inexorably integrate, connect, overlap, and intersect across the three research problems. For each theme the contributing events and interpreted data analysis are summarized and I refer to the parallels, intersections, and the extent to which the study resonates, confirms, or extends the literature from related fields outlined in chapter two.