Teaching and Learning in Art Education

Cultivating Students' Potential from Pre-K through High School

Debrah C. Sickler-Voigt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351000949
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

In this student-centered book, Debrah C. Sickler-Voigt provides proven tips and innovative methods for teaching, managing, and assessing all aspects of art instruction and student learning in today's diversified educational settings, from pre-K through high school. Up-to-date with the current National Visual Arts Standards, this text offers best practices in art education, and explains current theories and assessment models for art instruction.

Using examples of students' visually stunning artworks to illustrate what children can achieve through quality art instruction and practical lesson planning, Teaching and Learning in Art Education explores essential and emerging topics such as:

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• managing the classroom in art education;

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• artistic development from early childhood through adolescence;

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• catering towards learners with a diversity of abilities;

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• integrating technology into the art field; and

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• understanding drawing, painting, paper arts, sculpture, and textiles in context.

Alongside a companion website offering Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, assessments, and tutorials to provide ready-to-use-resources for professors and students, this engaging text will assist teachers in challenging and inspiring students to think creatively, problem-solve, and develop relevant skills as lifelong learners in the art education sector.

Part I

Art Education

Thriving in Teaching and Learning

Chapter 1

Teaching and Learning in Art Education

An Overview

Figure 1.1 Tamara Samveli Kocharian, 11-years-old, Dilizhanskaya Detskaya Khudozhestvenaia Shkola i. O. Sharambeiana, Dilizhan, Armenia.

Source: ICEFA Lidice, 39th Exhibition.

Welcome to Teaching and Learning in Art Education: Cultivating Students’ Potential From Pre-K Through High School. This textbook provides pre-service and practicing teachers—and all others interested in art education—with the skills and insights needed to teach successfully in today’s diversified learning environments. It addresses the ways that art contributes to humanity’s overall well-being as a necessary and meaningful part of life (Dissanayake, 1995). Teaching and Learning in Art Education presents teaching and advocacy methods to educate students and the greater society about the visual arts’ purposes and functions. It contains an outstanding collection of international artworks and instructional resources that connect contemporary and established theories with best practices in art education. The student artworks shown in Figures 1.1–1.4 illustrate some of the ways that the visual arts are an essential part of life. Through this textbook’s teachings, we will embark on a journey to discover effective teaching methods to cultivate students’ full potential through art. We will participate in its comprehensive activities to meet chapter objectives like the following for this chapter:

• Describe the importance of art education in classroom and community settings.
• Explain how quality instruction fosters students’ lifelong learning skills.
• Identify the value of comprehensive art education in students’ lives with its connections to the National Visual Arts Standards (NVAS) and big ideas.

Figure 1.2 Elementary through high school students produce a stop-motion film. United States.

Source: Author, Monica Leister, and Emily James.

Figure 1.3 Azimowa Dilaferuz Azimowowna, 14-years-old, Shkola N. 1, S. A. Nyyazow, Turkmenistan.

Source: ICEFA Lidice, 39th Exhibition.

Figure 1.4 Lau You Gi, 8-years-old, Simply Art, Hong Kong, China.

Source: ICEFA Lidice, 44th Exhibition.

Cultivating Students’ Full Potential through Art Education

Art education belongs to each of us. The positive attributes we remember from our educational experiences represent some of the characteristics that define quality art instruction. Great teachers care about students’ personal growth and development. Their art curriculum challenges students to pose and answer serious questions, make connections among disciplines, and apply classroom knowledge to situations that extend beyond school (Trafi-Prats & Woywod, 2013). Great teachers enjoy teaching and inspire students to grow as individuals. They design meaningful lessons and establish open communications with students. All students have a voice. Students learn that it is okay for people to have different opinions as they participate in substantial conversations and learning tasks to answer questions about art, global topics, and life.

Teaching art in today’s diversified learning environments, educators need to be prepared for the practicalities, rewards, and challenges that teachers and students face across our planet. Due to educational institutions’ different missions, philosophies, resources, and levels of support, no one-size-fits-all approach or master key exists that can solve all teaching and learning obstacles. For example, classrooms and community settings for teaching art range from having fewer than ten to more than fifty students per teacher. Some learning spaces have the latest-and-greatest technologies, with ample room, supplies, and furnishings to nurture students’ development. Others have inadequate resources and facilities. Many range between the two extremes. Teachers and students may come from different social, economic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, and therefore must learn the subtleties of how people from differing backgrounds interact. Some students speak different languages; some are preparing for college; some are at risk for dropping out of school; some have disabilities; and some are highly accomplished (gifted and talented). When confronted with oversized classes, working with inadequate budgets and resources, and struggling with classroom management skills, teachers’ enthusiasm can become frustration. This textbook provides practical solutions and helpful exemplars to support educators in being better prepared to teach art in all types of settings and advocate for students’ access to a quality education through art, even when challenges arise.

To cultivate students’ full potential, we need to carry a full set of keys and use each one to guide students on the path to success. Our teaching moves students away from solely memorizing rote information and parroting the teacher. We collaborate with students as parallel partners in learning. Students explore artistic behaviors, processes, and media to communicate ideas, such as modeling clay to replicate the human form or producing a still life (Figures 1.5 and 1.6). They apply their varied life experiences to relate to class teachings (Freire, 2009). We make adaptations to our curriculum and instructional methods so that all students can achieve quality learning outcomes. This by no means entails dummying down the curriculum. When students have difficulty understanding topics or making personal connections to instruction, we help them overcome difficulties.

Figure 1.5 Barbora Římalová, 10-years-old, DŮm dětí a mládeže Praha 3-Ulita, Praha 3-Žižkov, Czech Republic.

Source: ICEFA Lidice, 39th Exhibition.

Figure 1.6 Chee Ying Ng, 16-years-old, Yeow Chye Art Centre, Penang, Malaysia.

Source: ICEFA Lidice, 43rd Exhibition.

Comprehensive Art Education

Comprehensive art education is a holistic student-centered approach to visual arts instruction (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Parsons, 2004; Stewart & Walker, 2005). It developed in response to fast-paced technologies. Our world has progressed into an integrated, multicultural society with instant access to data in written, audible, and visual formats. Using technologies and other resources, comprehensive art education encourages students to learn how themes in art and diverse disciplines come together to invoke greater understandings. Students study the contextual reasons behind art production to make connections among disparate content to foster deeper understandings of local and global issues. Many educators teach comprehensive art education in conjunction with a choice-based curriculum so that students have ongoing opportunities to make personally-driven curricular decisions, feel connected to learning activities (Figure 1.7) and achieve positive results (Figure 1.8; Douglas & Jaquith, 2018). Students learn effective ways to make curricular choices that include selecting concepts, processes, materials, and learning strategies. Rather than teachers giving students all the solutions, these practices inspire students to answer questions and solve problems related to the theories, issues, and beliefs that shape humanity. Classrooms and community spaces become exploratory laboratories in which to cultivate students’ acquisitions of knowledge. As a result, students have the ability to explore topics in depth and transfer class scholarship to the different contexts they encounter in life.

Figure 1.7 Stephan Libwoni Shionda, 10-years-old, Kenya.

Source: Lisa Wee, teacher.

Figure 1.8 Lee Min Hye, 13-years-old, Busan Middle School of Arts, Busan, South Korea.

Source: ICEFA Lidice, 43rd Exhibition.

Comprehensive Art Education and the National Visual Arts Standards

Comprehensive art education aligns with the NVAS. Standards signify the learning outcomes teachers expect students to achieve. Comprehensive art education provides an in-depth curricular plan that guides students in achieving learning outcomes as lifelong learners (McTighe & Wiggins, 2012). The NVAS (National Coalition for Core Arts Standards [NCCAS], 2014a) are voluntary standards developed by leading arts organizations with input from art educators and visual artists including Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith and Lawrence Gartel, who served on its National Artists Advisory Committee (these artists are featured in this textbook’s Artists’ Lessons to Thrive! 12.1 and 3.1). The NVAS writing team examined standards and arts practices from fifteen countries including the United States to identify best practices in art education. The team restructured the original 1994 standards to respond to changes in technology and address contemporary trends and theories. The NVAS model advocates that students gain quality arts experiences through the processes of creating, presenting, responding, and connecting. The NVAS prompts educators to design art curricula with end goals in mind, a practice called backwards design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), and to contemplate how students can apply learning outcomes to diversified contexts. Instead of viewing each grade and subject in isolation, the NVAS brings disparate ideas within the school curriculum together so that students learn content and meaning in depth to achieve long-term personal, educational, and professional goals.

Big ideas are broad topics that students study in depth to address significant human issues that remain relevant regardless of the times and cultures in which people live (Stewart & Walker, 2005; Wiggins & McTigh...