ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature on improvising as a metaphor in, and to some degree out of, education. These understandings tend to focus on adults as improvisers, moments of improvisations, or improvising as an educational tool for specific student populations. In order to provide a sense of the many ways in which studenting might be conceptualized as improvisation, the chapter draws upon various traditions of musical improvisation to illustrate the critically creative skill and knowledge necessary for improvisation. Discussions of educational improvising generally utilize improvisation as a lens to describe at least one of the following three categories: particular kinds of classroom interactions or moments, the teacher-as-improviser, and improvising as a sociocultural bridge to learning for traditionally marginalized school populations, particularly African American teachers and students. Understanding students as improvisers can provide an opportunity to see how students interrupt, subvert, or coopt dominant notions of teaching and learning similar to the focus on Joseph M. Vallente's interactions.
