Visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity: Revealing views and visions of a teacher learning journey

Abstract

By using activities such as visual participatory methodologies, pre-service teachers and university staff members are able to explore and extend their ideas of what it means to be a teacher. In this research project, I sought to prompt a visual dialogue between students and staff. The distance provided when using creative enquiry procedures such as photo-voice, collage, and drawing allows participants, as members of a teaching community, to detach from their assumptions and view themselves, knowledge, and meaning making in more subtle ways. The aim of this creative participatory study was to explore dialogic engagement concerning the learning-to-teach journey of Bachelor of Education (B Ed) students at a South African university. The visual-based interaction of student teachers and staff is revealed, and the movements towards the goal of teacherness laid bare. I make an argument for the use of visual and creative approaches as a means of collaboratively bridging complicated and difficult territory, moving beyond boundaries to spaces of creative action. An account of the potential of artful portrayals as both disruptive and coalescing devices is a key contribution of this enquiry.