DIDACTIC CHOREOGRAPHY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

A metaphor from the world of dance

Marcel Proust is said to have said that “the true journey of discovery begins with a new look”. That is precisely what this book proposes: a new look at university education, a loving and creative look built with artistic decoders. Oser and Baeriswyl (2001) proposed the metaphor of choreography as a new perspective capable of making us re-imagine teaching from parameters taken from the world of dance. Inspired by this metaphor, we have revisited, as they say now, Higher Education.

And what we see from that artistic viewpoint is a stage in which a set of instances and subjects act in unison as choreographers and dancers.

Higher Education institutions act (dance) within the choreographic framework established by laws and academic policies and in turn they design the choreography in which the teachers will dance, and the teachers, as choreographers, will also indicate the choreography in which their students must dance. And although students are fundamentally dancers, they must also have the possibility of redesigning for themselves that learning choreography that is more likely to benefit their creative capacity.

In this artistic view of Higher Education there is a principle that is key: art is a game of balance between what is established (choreography) and the individual expression of the artist (dance). Choreography is necessary to avoid chaos, but it cannot suffocate, it cannot become a corset or a protocol to be followed mechanically. The choreographic norms must not annul the singularity and creation of each artist, but rather encourage them. Art is linked to creation; and there is no art if there is no freedom to create. And there is no education either.

Miguel A. Zabalza is a professor of Didactics and School Organization. He is currently professor emeritus at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He has written numerous scientific studies on topics related to the analysis and development of university teaching and teacher training. He is coordinator of the University collection of Editorial Narcea. He is the president of the Ibero-American Association of University Didactics (AIDU) and the University Teaching Network (REDU).

Mª Ainoha Zabalza Cerdeiriña has a degree in Psychology and a degree in Early Childhood Education. She is a professor of Didactics and School Organization at the University of Vigo, Galicia. Her publications have focused on the didactic training of teachers.

1. Teaching and learning in Higher Education

Conceptual basis and internal architecture of the book

2. The metaphor of choreography

Art and education: compatible perspectives?

Incompleteness of metaphors. Deconstructing the metaphor of choreography

3. Choreographies and University Didactics

Choreography is a bridge and link between teaching and learning. Structure of the choreographies. Institutional choreographies and teaching choreographies

4. Institutional choreographies and training curriculum

Institutional choreographies, collegiality and teaching identity. From the educational model to the Study Plan. Structure of institutional choreographies. Basic model for the analysis of institutional choreography

5. Teaching choreographies

Teaching and learning in the choreography approach. Structure of teaching choreographies. The base-models as the central axis of the teaching choreography. Investigating teaching choreographies. Teaching choreographies and teacher training

6. Student choreographies

University students as adult subjects. University students as trainees. University students as choreographers of their own learning