Dr Jo Trowsdale

Jo has developed a distinctive art-making model for education (TAME) which emphasises student agency in learning, more active pedagogies and cross-curricula approaches. Her research argues for the unique ways in which ‘art-making’ can support learning not only in the arts, but across the curriculum. Her recent projects have identified the value of art-making for developing children’s confidence in their learning and creativity as well as their knowledge and skills in STEM subjects. Working with colleagues in statistics, she has developed tools for measuring children’s confidence in their learning and creativity that begin to meet the need for more quantitative measurement in arts-based education.

Jo is co-convenor of the Creativities in Education Special Interest Group of the British Educational Research Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and holds an honorary senior fellowship at the University of Warwick. Recent work as part of the STEAM educational community has included engagement with colleagues at the University of Exeter and Brookes University in the UK, across New Zealand and an extended partnership with colleagues at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

• Davies, R. and Trowsdale, J. (2021) The culture of disciplines: reconceptualising multi-subject curricula. British Educational Research Journal
• Trowsdale, J., Mckenna, U. and Francis, L. (2019) Evaluating The Imagineerium The Trowsdale Indices of Confidence in Competence, Creativity and Learning, Thinking Skills and Creativity, Vol 32 pp75-81 doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2019.04.001
• Colucci-Gray, L., Burnard,P., Cooke, C., Davies, R., Gray, D. and Trowsdale, J. (2017) Reviewing the potential and challenges of developing STEAM education through creative pedagogies for C21st learning: How can school curricula be broadened towards a more responsive, dynamic and inclusive form of education?   BERA Research Commission report.
• Davies, R. and Trowsdale, J. (2017) The value of instability: lessons from reviewing how and why creativity and the arts might interact with STEM education, European Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol 4 No. 1
• Trowsdale, J. (2016) Imagineering: Re-creating spaces through art-making, Creativity: Theories – Research – Applications. Volume 3, Issue 2, pp274–291, ISSN (Online) 2354-0036, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ctra-2016-0018, (Open access)
• Trowsdale, J. & Hayhow, R. (2015) Psycho-physical theatre practice as embodied learning for young people with learning disabilities, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19:10, 1022-1036