I was browsing through a list of open source academic journals on the web this morning and found Critical Studies in Improvisation -- a journal of music and performance theory, mostly -- whose latest issue [Vol 3, No 2 (2007)] is a Special Issue on Improvisation and Pedagogy.

Having studied Keith Johnstone's book, Impro, as a source for ideas in the teaching of writing, I found it a worthwhile follow-up. Teaching is always improvised, to some degree, but what these writers focus on is how improvisation in the classroom generates learning.

Of particular interest to me was R. Keith Sawyer's essay on "Improvisation and Teaching" which draws on cognitive learning scholarship to define the skills of "expertise":

1) Deep conceptual understanding. Experts haven’t simply memorized a large repertory of facts. Of course they know a lot of facts, but in the expert’s mind, those facts are embedded in complex conceptual frameworks. Experts understand the mechanisms underlying phenomena and are able to explain surface features in terms of underlying mechanisms and conceptual structures.

(2) Integrated knowledge. Each piece of knowledge is highly interconnected with all of the other pieces of knowledge. Expertise does not result from possessing distinct compartmentalized knowledge; everything known is related in an integrated framework.

(3) Adaptive expertise. Experts have mastered a large range of standard procedures and solutions. When first encountering a new problem, they typically will quickly recall a variety of similar problems they’ve encountered in the past, and they will begin by considering one of the solutions that has worked in the past. But experts do not simply apply these memorized procedures in rote fashion; they are able to flexibly modify the routines they’ve mastered or to combine elements of distinct routines as is appropriate to the new problem.

(4) Collaborative skills. Experts work together with other experts in teams and in complex organizational structures. Unlike the hierarchical corporation of old, where everyone’s job description was quite specific, the boundaries between each team member are fluid, and many tasks require the simultaneous and joint contributions of multiple experts to be successfully accomplished.

One of the reasons this article spoke to me was because I recenty saw a news report on MSNBC that revealed new studies in the brain function of jazz performers, in which scientists have musicians play keyboards while inside an MRI machine. They hope to unravel the "secrets of creativity," and so far their findings suggest that the brain of a creative artist in action, performing live, functions in the same way as a dreaming brain does. This does not come as a surprise to me at all, but I think it is important to recognize the way that irrationality and the unconscious always play roles in the overly rational space of the college classroom, and that what we sometimes see as nonsense is often the most productive classroom experience.

As I prepare to teach some graduate learning modules in the Writing Popular Fiction program later this month, this article reminds me to keep the environment improvisational and not to over-plan the courses into dull singalongs. I think I often have approached teaching in an improvisational way, creating an open and collaborative learning environment, but I tend to think of the literary texts or student writing that we employ as "composition" -- that is, like sheet music. But, no, perhaps the texts are the instruments themselves in the student hands, not a set of directions. Learning occurs when that texts are processed, following student comments and discussions that riff off one another. The teacher can conduct, or perhaps better yet, play along. In the cacophony of student group work and open class discussion, an outsider might hear chaos -- but I need to remember that that's what learning sounds like, as I try to assist students toward a sense of knowledge mastery and expertise.

You can ping this entry by using http://blogs.setonhill.edu/mt/mt_tb-awoisdlkfj.cgi/13964 .