Improvisation

PGCert in Performance Teaching

Elective Module: Reflective Practice in
Higher Education

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Saturday 7th April, 2018
Improvisation
•In Music
•In Teaching
 Exercise: Improvisation
brainstorm
Key question: What does ‘improvisation’ mean to
you?

• Examples from your practice?

• Examples from your teaching?
• Examples from other areas of your life?
• Qualities, characteristics?
• What’s involved?
• What’s needed – skills, conditions, mindset etc?

Form: flip chart? post its? Collective mind map?

You choose…
Exercise: Improvisation
brainstorm
“Improvisation is an activity
which includes both pre-planned
and spontaneous action, and thus
a risk factor in dialogue with a
pre-defined structure”
Ben-Horin, O. (2016, p.3)
Musical improvisation
 Musical improvisation
Key questions:
• What can our HE students gain from integrating
improvisation into their study?
• How can we facilitate this?
 Musical improvisation
Exercise: Examples?
• From your own teaching?
• From others?
• What does it actually involve?
• When? Where? With who?
• Compare previous brainstorm – in a music context,
differentiate between global/generic/genre-
neutral/style-neutral characteristics and skills,
versus those linked with genre/style/’language’
 Musical improvisation
Purpose?
• For specific performance settings (e.g. jazz
improvisation)
• For practice, exercises etc.…
• Skill development…
• Other…?
 Musical improvisation
Improvisation - Composition
• Similarities / Differences?
• Continuum?
• Venn diagram? (With some shared activities and some
not shared)
• Editing… (more so in composition, and when
practising rather than performing improvisation)
• Starting points… (start similarly then diverge?)
• Solo / group activity?
• Family resemblance concepts… and what’s really
most useful to focus on?
 Musical improvisation
Improvisation - Composition

‘Composition is selective improvisation’ - Stravinsky

 Musical improvisation
Links with theory
• Constructivism
• Deep vs surface learning
• Motivation
• Self-regulation
• Reflection in/on action and other reflective cycles
Pedagogical improvisation

http://prosjektsider.hsh.no/imte/
Pedagogical improvisation
Key questions:
• What can our HE students gain from us improvising
with our teaching?
• What can we gain by doing this?
• How do we do this?
Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Communication and dialogue

• Structure and artistic design

• Learnable repertoires and preparation

Holdhus, K., et al. (2016).

Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Communication and dialogue
• Structure and artistic design
• Learnable repertoires and preparation

Compare Aadland et al (2016). Typology of professional

improvisation:
• Dialogic
• Sequential
• Exemplary
Pedagogical improvisation
“Simultaneous decision and action within a
pedagogical setting. It can be applied to one or
more of several factors such as learned
content, choice of teaching method, the
examples invoked, and body language”

Donmoyer (1983)
Pedagogical improvisation
‘Disciplined improvisation’ (Sawyer)
Good teaching is a balance between structure and
improvisation:

“Creative teaching is disciplined improvisation because

it always occurs within broad structures and
frameworks… disciplined improvisation is a dynamic
process involving a combination of planning and
improvisation”

Sawyer (2004, pp.13-16)

Pedagogical improvisation
‘Disciplined improvisation’ (Sawyer)
“Disciplined improvisation in teaching for creativity
involves reworking the curriculum-as-planned in
relation to unanticipated ideas conceived, shaped, and
transformed under the special conditions of the
curriculum-as-lived, thereby adding unique or fluid
features to the learning of academic subject matter.”

Beghetto & Kaufman, in Sawyer (2011, p.96)

 Pedagogical improvisation

Balance…
• General pedagogic knowledge vs Pedagogical
content knowledge

• Scripted performance vs improvisation

Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Communication and dialogue:
o Responsiveness… be present… listen… interact
o Mutual respect > trust > risk-taking

“Education is located not in the activities of the

teacher, nor in the activities of the learner, but in the
interaction between the two”
Biesta (2004, pp.12-13).
Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Communication and dialogue:

Your examples???
Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Structure and artistic design
o Timing
o Make structural shifts if necessary
• Teachable/golden ‘moments’…
• Whole lessons…
• Whole term or course of study…
• Curriculum design…

Holdhus,K., et al. (2016).

Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Structure and artistic design

Your examples???
Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Learnable repertoires and preparation
• Repertoires of examples or methods
• Prerequisite to use ‘golden moments’, and to
change structure
• Shaped by content knowledge, curricula and
personal experience

Holdhus, K., et al. (2016).

Pedagogical improvisation
Common characteristics from root
traditions – rhetoric, music, theatre
• Learnable repertoires and preparation

Your examples???
 Pedagogical improvisation

• What does ‘successful’ pedagogical improvisation

look like?

• What does ‘unsuccessful’ pedagogical improvisation

look like?
Pedagogical improvisation

Risks?
Trade offs?
Downsides?
Complications?
Pedagogical improvisation
Links with theory?
• Midwife / Fellow Traveler…
• Brainstorm…
 Pedagogical improvisation

Don’t make your improvisation just reactionary…

Also include noticing, and acting on, your own
‘lightbulb’ moments…
 Practice
• How do we practise?
• How do we practise Pedagogical Improvisation? (See
Ben-Horin 2016…)
• How do we practise other aspects of our
teaching/facilitation?
• How to we practise our teaching/facilitation in
general?
Co-mentoring through
Improvisation
 References
Aadland, H., et al. (2017). "Towards a typology of improvisation as a professional teaching skill: Implications for pre-
service teacher education programmes." Cogent Education 4.

Ben-Horin, O. (2016). "Towards a professionalization of pedagogical improvisation in teacher education." Cogent

Education 3.

Biasutti, M. (2009). "Dimensions of Music Improvisation." Creativity Research Journal 21(2): 232-242.

Burnard, P. (2000). "Examining experiential differences between improvisation and composition in children's music-
making." British Journal of Music Education 17(3): 227-245.

Donmoyer, R. (1983). "Pedagogical Improvisation." Educational Leadership.

Holdhus, K., et al. (2016). "Improvisation in teaching and education—roots and applications." Cogent Education 3.

Larson, S. (2005). "Composition versus Improvisation?" Journal of Music Theory 49(2): 241-275.

Sawyer, R. K. (2004). "Creative Teaching: Collaborative Discussion as Disciplined Improvisation." Educational Researcher
33(2): 12-20.

Sawyer, R. K., Ed. (2011). Structure and Improvisation in Creative Teaching, Cambridge University Press.

Sawyer, R. K. (2015). "A call to action: The challenges of creative teaching and learning." Teachers College Record.

Toivanen, T., et al. (2011). "Drama education and improvisation as a resource of teacher student’s creativity." Procedia
Social and Behavioral Sciences 12: 60-69.