Leon R de Bruin
Leon de Bruin is an educator, performer and researcher. He works at the Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. His research work spans instrumental music teaching pedagogies and practices, creativity in education, improvisation, cognitive processes, self-regulation, collaborative learning, creative pedagogies, as well as school leadership and ITE.
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between teacher and student that enhance learning and teaching
within the one-to-one music improvisation lesson. This study analyses
the ways teachers elicit student actions, thoughts and processes that
develop student skills, critical and creative thinking processes
necessary for improvisational development. Interactions and interplay
between six Australian conservatoire improvisation students and their
teachers were investigated. Data reveal dialogic interactions that
span instruction, conversation, inquiry and enablement of student
knowledge and skills that constitute a complex socio-cultural tapestry
of discursive threads. Teacher-student interactions that activate
desired creative student activity engage meta-cognitive processes and
the cultivation of creative habits of mind that allow improvisational
skill to flourish. Teachers engage in dialogic interaction and shape
interactional behaviour, asserting a learning culture that makes
explicit and visible the acquiring of skills and knowledge. Implications
for skilled teaching that can effectively craft the at times
improvisatory and ephemeral nature of teacher-student interactions
are suggested.
contexts is dependent on how the term ‘creativity’ is grounded, politicised, and
practised. This paper reports on an international study of secondary schools in
Australia, USA, Canada, and Singapore investigating how creativity is understood,
negotiated, valued and manifested in secondary schools, focusing on teacher and
student understandings, actions, benefits and impediments to creative and critical
thinking. Participant reflections revealed inter-, trans- and cross-disciplinary
learning shaped by teacher collaboration, dialogue and classroom organization that
fosters critical and creative thinking. Implications are made for the ways practicing
teachers develop and foster creativity via pedagogical approaches that enhance
connectivity and interdisciplinarity of teaching practices between domains of
learning. An education-based Creativity Index through which administrators and
teachers can gauge, assess and implement creative skills, capacities, pedagogic
practices and assessment of creativity within secondary schools is posited. Implications
for STEM/STEAM education and centralizing creative capacities in
teaching, learning, and educational change are offered.
Schools’ administrators and teachers feel the necessity to apply
creative education within their learning environments, despite
grappling with understandings of what creativity is and how
best teachers can foster it in their students. This qualitative
international study spanning the USA, Canada, Singapore, and
Australia investigates teachers’ perceptions regarding creative
pedagogies that enhance creativity. Analyzing teachers’
reflections on classroom pedagogy and school practice, this
study explores ways teachers nurture critical thinking that foster
creative intelligences. This study identifies pedagogical practices
involving dialogic scaffolding, inter-disciplinarity, and creative
environments and school practices that promote learning and
thinking “out-side the box” in secondary school learners. This
article posits a creativity index through which schools can gauge
and assess attributes to nurturing creativity.
facilitates the transmission of skills, knowledge and cultural intellect through teaching and learning.
Research suggests the one-to-one tuition model needs to evolve and adapt to meet the demands of the
21st century musician. Within the jazz/improvisation lesson, the learning and teaching of improvisory
ability is a complex activity where developing improvisers hone motor-specific skills, audiative ability,
imaginative and creative impulses that connect and respond to strategic individual and collaborative
catalysts. Observing the negotiation of learning and teaching in three lessons in improvisation between
expert practitioner-educators and their students, this study reveals a cognitive apprenticeship model
that can provide a framework for teachers to develop students’ cognitive and meta-cognitive abilities,
and understandings of expert practice. Case studies of three teacher-practitioners and their advanced
students explore the “in the moment” teacher–student interactions and teaching techniques that expert
improviser-educators utilize in developing mastery and expertise in their students. Teaching to an
advanced improvisation student is a dynamic, fluid and reflexive interplay of pedagogical applications
of modelling, scaffolding, coaching, and reflective processes. The holistic imparting of knowledge can be
understood as a cognitive apprenticeship. Careful guidance by a teacher/mentor can offer the student
an immersive environment that brings thinking, action and reflection to the forefront of learning.
Implications are identified for more effective, collaborative and inventive ways of assisting learning
and inculcating deeper understandings of factual, conceptual and problem-solving concepts that draw
students into a culture of expert practice.
and capacities of expression. Expert music performers utilize extensive self-regulatory
processes involving planning, strategic development, and systemized approaches to
learning and reflective practice. Scholars posit that these processes are constructivist
and socioculturally explained and manifest in individual, jointly negotiated, and shared
learning. This qualitative study explores the regulatory processes of four prominent
Australian improvising musician-educators and four tertiary improvisation students.
Expert and developing musicians’ processes in learning and teaching improvised musicmaking
were investigated through observations of self-regulation, co-regulation,
and shared regulation strategies. I identified and analyzed regulatory learning
strategies located from practice, training, and experience using interpretative
phenomenological analysis. Findings suggest insights of evolving self-regulative
behavior that are dynamic, task-specific, personalised, and contextually contingent
across individual and collaborative tasks and activity. An integrative regulatory
model of learning offers guidance and reflection of metacognitive flow within a
social constructed view of learning. Implications for researchers and educators are
drawn for meaningful educational practice by knowing and understanding expert
improvisers’ complex concepts of self-regulation, critical thinking, problem solving,
and the evolution and evaluation of creative processes in improvisers.
cultural conversations, creative education seems no more central to these conversations than it
was a decade ago. Two recent Creativity Summitsmarked a collaborativemilestone in the global
conversation about creative teaching, learning, ecologies and partnerships, signaling a turn from
nation-based approaches to more globally-networked ones. This essay and the summits offer
not only an international and interdisciplinary survey of the “state of play” in creativity education,
but also collaboratively-generated strategies for strengthening creative research in tertiary
education contexts, teacher education, cross-sectoral partnerships, and policy directions internationally.
KEYWORDS Creativity; Creative ecologies; Interdisciplinary; Education; Creative industries
Keywords: Interpersonal learning, dynamic systems theory, phenomenology, jazz improvisation
between teacher and student that enhance learning and teaching
within the one-to-one music improvisation lesson. This study analyses
the ways teachers elicit student actions, thoughts and processes that
develop student skills, critical and creative thinking processes
necessary for improvisational development. Interactions and interplay
between six Australian conservatoire improvisation students and their
teachers were investigated. Data reveal dialogic interactions that
span instruction, conversation, inquiry and enablement of student
knowledge and skills that constitute a complex socio-cultural tapestry
of discursive threads. Teacher-student interactions that activate
desired creative student activity engage meta-cognitive processes and
the cultivation of creative habits of mind that allow improvisational
skill to flourish. Teachers engage in dialogic interaction and shape
interactional behaviour, asserting a learning culture that makes
explicit and visible the acquiring of skills and knowledge. Implications
for skilled teaching that can effectively craft the at times
improvisatory and ephemeral nature of teacher-student interactions
are suggested.
contexts is dependent on how the term ‘creativity’ is grounded, politicised, and
practised. This paper reports on an international study of secondary schools in
Australia, USA, Canada, and Singapore investigating how creativity is understood,
negotiated, valued and manifested in secondary schools, focusing on teacher and
student understandings, actions, benefits and impediments to creative and critical
thinking. Participant reflections revealed inter-, trans- and cross-disciplinary
learning shaped by teacher collaboration, dialogue and classroom organization that
fosters critical and creative thinking. Implications are made for the ways practicing
teachers develop and foster creativity via pedagogical approaches that enhance
connectivity and interdisciplinarity of teaching practices between domains of
learning. An education-based Creativity Index through which administrators and
teachers can gauge, assess and implement creative skills, capacities, pedagogic
practices and assessment of creativity within secondary schools is posited. Implications
for STEM/STEAM education and centralizing creative capacities in
teaching, learning, and educational change are offered.
Schools’ administrators and teachers feel the necessity to apply
creative education within their learning environments, despite
grappling with understandings of what creativity is and how
best teachers can foster it in their students. This qualitative
international study spanning the USA, Canada, Singapore, and
Australia investigates teachers’ perceptions regarding creative
pedagogies that enhance creativity. Analyzing teachers’
reflections on classroom pedagogy and school practice, this
study explores ways teachers nurture critical thinking that foster
creative intelligences. This study identifies pedagogical practices
involving dialogic scaffolding, inter-disciplinarity, and creative
environments and school practices that promote learning and
thinking “out-side the box” in secondary school learners. This
article posits a creativity index through which schools can gauge
and assess attributes to nurturing creativity.
facilitates the transmission of skills, knowledge and cultural intellect through teaching and learning.
Research suggests the one-to-one tuition model needs to evolve and adapt to meet the demands of the
21st century musician. Within the jazz/improvisation lesson, the learning and teaching of improvisory
ability is a complex activity where developing improvisers hone motor-specific skills, audiative ability,
imaginative and creative impulses that connect and respond to strategic individual and collaborative
catalysts. Observing the negotiation of learning and teaching in three lessons in improvisation between
expert practitioner-educators and their students, this study reveals a cognitive apprenticeship model
that can provide a framework for teachers to develop students’ cognitive and meta-cognitive abilities,
and understandings of expert practice. Case studies of three teacher-practitioners and their advanced
students explore the “in the moment” teacher–student interactions and teaching techniques that expert
improviser-educators utilize in developing mastery and expertise in their students. Teaching to an
advanced improvisation student is a dynamic, fluid and reflexive interplay of pedagogical applications
of modelling, scaffolding, coaching, and reflective processes. The holistic imparting of knowledge can be
understood as a cognitive apprenticeship. Careful guidance by a teacher/mentor can offer the student
an immersive environment that brings thinking, action and reflection to the forefront of learning.
Implications are identified for more effective, collaborative and inventive ways of assisting learning
and inculcating deeper understandings of factual, conceptual and problem-solving concepts that draw
students into a culture of expert practice.
and capacities of expression. Expert music performers utilize extensive self-regulatory
processes involving planning, strategic development, and systemized approaches to
learning and reflective practice. Scholars posit that these processes are constructivist
and socioculturally explained and manifest in individual, jointly negotiated, and shared
learning. This qualitative study explores the regulatory processes of four prominent
Australian improvising musician-educators and four tertiary improvisation students.
Expert and developing musicians’ processes in learning and teaching improvised musicmaking
were investigated through observations of self-regulation, co-regulation,
and shared regulation strategies. I identified and analyzed regulatory learning
strategies located from practice, training, and experience using interpretative
phenomenological analysis. Findings suggest insights of evolving self-regulative
behavior that are dynamic, task-specific, personalised, and contextually contingent
across individual and collaborative tasks and activity. An integrative regulatory
model of learning offers guidance and reflection of metacognitive flow within a
social constructed view of learning. Implications for researchers and educators are
drawn for meaningful educational practice by knowing and understanding expert
improvisers’ complex concepts of self-regulation, critical thinking, problem solving,
and the evolution and evaluation of creative processes in improvisers.
cultural conversations, creative education seems no more central to these conversations than it
was a decade ago. Two recent Creativity Summitsmarked a collaborativemilestone in the global
conversation about creative teaching, learning, ecologies and partnerships, signaling a turn from
nation-based approaches to more globally-networked ones. This essay and the summits offer
not only an international and interdisciplinary survey of the “state of play” in creativity education,
but also collaboratively-generated strategies for strengthening creative research in tertiary
education contexts, teacher education, cross-sectoral partnerships, and policy directions internationally.
KEYWORDS Creativity; Creative ecologies; Interdisciplinary; Education; Creative industries
Keywords: Interpersonal learning, dynamic systems theory, phenomenology, jazz improvisation
This paper reports on a qualitative study of five prominent Australian improvising musicians.
Expert musicians’ beliefs, understandings and processes in improvised music-making were investigated, revealing personalised strategies gained from practice, training and experience. The findings suggest that context situated independent, co-operative and collaborative regulatory processes shape learning, motivation and dispositions through complex cognitive and dynamic task-specific processes. The data are reported under three overarching themes: The personal; the interpersonal-learner and more capable other, and; community. Implications are drawn to the diverse ways of learning, sharing and collaborating in improvised music, suggesting a need for more reflexive and personally situated learning of improvisatory skills and knowledge, and how educators can holistically engage students in critical thinking and creative processes that enhance their improvised music making activities.