The Application of Practice as Research Methodologies to Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning

The piece that follows is a reflection that engages existing research in the areas of Practice as Research (PaR) and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), with research and pedagogy in embodied cognition. It reflects the complexities of engaging in a process-driven model for an assignment that values the generative nature of failure. As an artist/researcher in the field of dance, I bring embodied knowing into spaces where the mind/body divide is still upheld and valued. Within PaR models, process has value beyond the output of the artifact, and failure is the doorway to potentiality as it is functionalized in a creative/dance process. It is a traceable attempt on my part to deliberately bring the messiness, community, rhizomic thinking, discovery, engagement, affect, “aha!” moments, and multiplicity into the classroom in the same way they accompany me in the dance studio and choreographic process. I believe it takes a deliberate act to take a reflective perspective to teaching and learning (SoTL) and creative research. This is my deliberate weave