Proposal view
| Proposal Type: | Individual Paper |
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| Domain: | Learning and Social Interaction |
| SIG: | Social Interaction in Learning and Instruction |
| Type | Submitted Paper |
| Equipment |
PC and projector |
| Paper Details |
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| Title | Creating potentials for learning through the visual |
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| Abstract | Visual Education is an emerging field of practice. There is a compelling case for visual education based on the increasing dominance and importance of visual forms of communication, its role in leading creativity and innovation in shifts towards a ‘knowledge-based economy’, and in developing important understandings about each person’s sense of self and identity as well as their place in society. This paper presents a model of effective practice in visual education developed as one part of a large national research project. The model draws specifically on perspectives and practices examined from purposive sampling of sites of effective practice, and focus groups and interviews with teachers, students and art professionals. From a sociocultural perspective learning is mediated through signs (’psychological tools’) and tools (‘technical tools’), individual activity and social relations, which fundamentally shape and transform mental processes. The research found that effective visual education was situated in studio-based experience/activity that featured working with materials and relationships of trust, and the development of applied aesthetic understanding. Students’ personal, social and cultural agency emerges from these practices. The full model developed from the analyses provides evidence of the processes used by teachers, with meaning created and embedded within the learning setting, mediated by the tools being used and the forms of interaction and relationships developed. Together, these provide the means for creating learning potentials through the visual and the opportunity for learners to become effective and creative participants in an innovative visual society. |
| Summary | Visual Education is an emerging field of practice. There is a compelling case for visual education based on the increasing dominance and importance of visual forms of communication, its role in leading creativity and innovation in shifts towards a ‘knowledge-based economy’, and in developing important understandings about each person’s sense of self and identity as well as their place in society. This paper presents a model of effective practice in visual education. It represents one part of a large national research project that adopted a multi-method approach with a range of sampling strategies. These methods included a scan of the relevant research literature and policy context, examination of all Australian State and Territory curriculum documents pertaining to Visual Education, a questionnaire of teacher education in Visual Education in Australian universities, a survey of the provision of Visual Education in a stratified random sample of Australian schools, purposive sampling of sites of effective practice, and focus groups and interviews with teachers, students and art professionals. These latter methods allowed in-depth examination of perspectives and practices identified in the earlier broad ranging methods. The model draws specifically on these perspectives and practices. A sociocultural perspective is used to develop an understanding of the processes of effective practices in visual education (Vygotsky 1978; Wertsch, 1991). From this perspective, learning is mediated through signs (’psychological tools’) and tools (‘technical tools’), individual activity and social relations. These mental and physical ‘tools’ developed through the cultural practices of the classroom fundamentally shape and transform mental processes. Analyses of classroom interaction and interviews with teachers and students from the case study examples of practices allow elaboration of how teachers structure the means for visual learning. The defining characteristics of visual education are emerging from practice. One definition developed from respondents explains visual education as: A pedagogical framework that supports the development of practical and professional skills and knowledge in the visual. As such, it encompasses traditional visual arts education and visual modes of education in other aspects of the curriculum including craft and design education. It relates to purposefully increasing student’s levels of understanding—from developing to critical—of representational information in relation to social and cultural contexts. In Australian schools visual education is a broadly inclusive field with a wide range of activities, content, conceptual understandings, skills and processes. It appears across different phases of schooling, and is taught and learnt in different parts of the curriculum though with a critical role played by teachers of Visual Arts, Craft and Design. The research found that effective visual education was situated in studio-based experience/activity that featured working with materials and relationships of trust, and the development of applied aesthetic understanding. Students’ personal, social and cultural agency emerges from these practices. These are further developed in the paper using examples from the site visit transcripts. For example, effective visual education is mediated by relationships of trust. These relationships have a number of dimensions. First, the social environment nurtures teacher and student as co-constructors of learning. Teachers report how they get to know “their students very well and [used] their understandings of the student’s feelings, thoughts, and life situations outside of school to guide classroom interactions”. This pedagogical practice sees the learning interactively tailored to meet student needs. What art teachers report is that students in this context: “find their own voice”. And that “what art offers [to] the student is [also a] connection to themselves. Art teachers work at this intimate level of communication”. This learning to ‘trust oneself’ is a second dimension of these relationships and reflects student’s confidence to express him or herself. The third dimension underpins the second, and is student’s ‘trust’ of the materials that they work with, and their own capacity to employ these to successfully communicate. Evidence from focus groups, site visits, and interviews suggest that ‘relationships of trust’ are critical to high quality learning. The full model developed from the analyses provides evidence of the processes used by teachers, with meaning created and embedded within the learning setting, mediated by the tools being used and the forms of interaction and relationships developed. Together, these provide the means for creating learning potentials through the visual and the opportunity for learners to become effective and creative participants in an innovative visual society. |
| Keywords | Arts education Instructional practices Social interaction |
| Appendices | |
| Authors | ||||||
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| Name | Surname | Institution | Country | EARLI Number | Presenting | |
| Judith | MacCallum | Murdoch University | Australia | jamac@murdoch.edu.au | * | |
| Peter | Wright | Murdoch University | Australia | P.Wright@murdoch.edu.au | ||
| Kathryn | Grushka | Newcastle University | Australia | Kath.Grushka@newcastle.edu.au | ||
| Robin | Pascoe | Murdoch University | Australia | R.Pascoe@murdoch.edu.au | ||
| Judith | Dinham | Edith Cowan University | Australia | J.Dinham@ecu.edu.au | ||
