title: Calculating for creativity: Maths joins the circus

authors: Coleman, Claire

abstract: Following recent increases in the diversity of students, technologies, pedagogies and environments, New Zealand classrooms are sites of growing complexity. Tasked with covering a broad range of disciplines within each school day, opportunities for subject integration are of increasing value to busy teachers. Developing upon a previous piece of research (Coleman &amp; Davies, 2018), this project sought to gain student engagement in mathematics through a dramatic framework. A key factor in developing adaptable, responsive and capable learners, creativity is an area of intense educational interest and yet substantial confusion (Jefferson &amp; Anderson, 2017). Focusing upon the activation of students’ creative capacities through drama, this project offers suggestions for future praxis and the development of classrooms that invite creativity. 
We began by establishing a fictional pre-text closely related to their earlier studies of insects. Recruited to assist Professor Lee—a flea circus owner, with the redesign of her circus, this pretext deliberately offered opportunities for mathematics integration. When planning we predicted the need for students to engage with numbers and measurement, yet remained responsive to opportunities arising from the drama or instigated by the students themselves. Over the five drama-maths sessions, we collaborated with students both in and out of role, to design, plan and prepare a new cockroach circus extravaganza. We generated data for the research through reflective journal entries, student work, drama based research and focus groups. Our findings indicate an enthusiasm for the use of drama to engage students and make mathematics meaningful and highlight the vital elements for collaboration and creativity. Three distinct elements appear crucial to engaging in an effective drama-maths unit: a sense of unity in pursuing a common goal, the value of the affective and embodied elements associated with drama, and cultivation of skills for collaboration. While this project bolsters existing rhetoric surrounding STEAM integration, it advocates for further development around existing notions of collaboration for 21st century learning.

text: Calculating for creativity: Maths joins the circus Following recent increases in the diversity of students, technologies, pedagogies and environments, New Zealand classrooms are sites of growing complexity. Tasked with covering a broad range of disciplines within each school day, opportunities for subject integration are of increasing value to busy teachers. Developing upon a previous piece of research (Coleman &amp; Davies, 2018), this project sought to gain student engagement in mathematics through a dramatic framework. A key factor in developing adaptable, responsive and capable learners, creativity is an area of intense educational interest and yet substantial confusion (Jefferson &amp; Anderson, 2017). Focusing upon the activation of students’ creative capacities through drama, this project offers suggestions for future praxis and the development of classrooms that invite creativity. 
We began by establishing a fictional pre-text closely related to their earlier studies of insects. Recruited to assist Professor Lee—a flea circus owner, with the redesign of her circus, this pretext deliberately offered opportunities for mathematics integration. When planning we predicted the need for students to engage with numbers and measurement, yet remained responsive to opportunities arising from the drama or instigated by the students themselves. Over the five drama-maths sessions, we collaborated with students both in and out of role, to design, plan and prepare a new cockroach circus extravaganza. We generated data for the research through reflective journal entries, student work, drama based research and focus groups. Our findings indicate an enthusiasm for the use of drama to engage students and make mathematics meaningful and highlight the vital elements for collaboration and creativity. Three distinct elements appear crucial to engaging in an effective drama-maths unit: a sense of unity in pursuing a common goal, the value of the affective and embodied elements associated with drama, and cultivation of skills for collaboration. While this project bolsters existing rhetoric surrounding STEAM integration, it advocates for further development around existing notions of collaboration for 21st century learning.

year: 2020

title: Enclosures and Oceans

authors: McCormack, Fiona

abstract: Enclosure is a concept used to describe how spaces, previously outside the reach of capitalist discipline, become subsumed to market logics, primarily through processes of privatisation. Beginning in Europe in the late Middle Ages, enclosure movements sliced up common fields, pastures and wasteland into private holdings, expropriating peasants from their land while leaving them ‘free’ to sell their labour on the emergent market economy (Hanna 1990; Polanyi 2001). This is a transformation of human and non-human lives and, crucially, of the socioecological relations that had worked to sustain this intersection. Notions of improvement, efficiency and modernization underpin enclosure drives, ideologies carried to the colonies to justify the removal of indigenous peoples from ancestral territories; a violence enacted through both military and legal means (Thompson 1991).

text: Enclosures and Oceans Enclosure is a concept used to describe how spaces, previously outside the reach of capitalist discipline, become subsumed to market logics, primarily through processes of privatisation. Beginning in Europe in the late Middle Ages, enclosure movements sliced up common fields, pastures and wasteland into private holdings, expropriating peasants from their land while leaving them ‘free’ to sell their labour on the emergent market economy (Hanna 1990; Polanyi 2001). This is a transformation of human and non-human lives and, crucially, of the socioecological relations that had worked to sustain this intersection. Notions of improvement, efficiency and modernization underpin enclosure drives, ideologies carried to the colonies to justify the removal of indigenous peoples from ancestral territories; a violence enacted through both military and legal means (Thompson 1991).

year: 2025

title: Maori & Psychology Research Unit annual report 2008

authors: Rua, Mohi

subjects: Maori and Psychology Research Unit

abstract: Annual report of the Maori and Psychology Research Unit (MPRU) 2008. The unit was established in August of 1997. The unit is designed to provide a catalyst and support network for enhancing research concerning the psychological needs, aspirations, and priorities of Maori people. The MPRU is well situated to draw together skilled and experienced interdisciplinary research groups by networking and establishing working relationships with staff and students within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the University, and the wider community.

text: Maori & Psychology Research Unit annual report 2008 Annual report of the Maori and Psychology Research Unit (MPRU) 2008. The unit was established in August of 1997. The unit is designed to provide a catalyst and support network for enhancing research concerning the psychological needs, aspirations, and priorities of Maori people. The MPRU is well situated to draw together skilled and experienced interdisciplinary research groups by networking and establishing working relationships with staff and students within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the University, and the wider community.

year: 2009-03