The many becoming the unresolved one: Reconciling the fields of art, research and education through a/r/tography and collage

A study in three secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand explored students’ critical thinking and how that was articulated in visual arts education. The research was motivated by the influence of everyday visual experiences on young people’s lives and the national curriculum’s call for encouraging critical thinking in the context of the students’ cultural milieu. This inquiry entailed multiple methods that included policy analysis, focus group interviews with teachers, interviews with students, classroom observations, photographic documentation and researcher engagement with the art of collage. A/r/tography allowed for the reconciliation of art, research and education and the exploration of liminal spaces through a relational inquiry. The collage process provided insights into how art making can be used as a relational device between researcher and participants that evoked findings in innovative ways. The findings are presented as entanglements of meanings aimed to provoke the imagination and open conversations.

Relevance of Informal Arts Education on Formal Visual Arts Education in Southeast Nigeria

The existence of informal arts education centres has raised a lot of controversy in arts education and practice in Nigeria. Often people do not regard the products of these informal arts centres as artists. They regard them as artisans even though most of them are being trained by formal artists and are being imbibed by their artistic traditions. It is, therefore, pertinent to investigate these informal arts centres and assess their existence and their influence on formal arts centres. This study was, therefore, designed to explore the assessment of informal arts education and its influence on formal art education in southeast Nigeria. The research questions were on the: educational relevance of informal arts education on formal art education, the influence of arts education on formal art education and on whether informal and formal art education can co-exist. The questionnaire was used to elicit vital information from the respondents. The findings revealed that the existence of informal arts education is relevant to formal art education, informal arts education influences formal art education and informal arts education can co-exist with formal art education. The paper recommended that the Ministries of Education should encourage and ensure that the formal art schools and informal arts centres co-exist.

Lost and Found—Unfolding and Refolding Aesthetic Learning Processes

The ongoing marketisation of education is a great loss for visual arts education since explorative learning processes are marginalised in favour of more goal-oriented learning. The empirical material analysed in this research derives from the visual art portfolio of a student from an elective university course in visual arts education. Working within Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophical framework, we examine the folding, unfolding, and refolding of aesthetic learning processes, suggesting productive concepts and practices. The analysis made us aware of our own pedagogical ideals and the loss of having to disassemble them, in line with the new curricula. The student’s visual learning process showed us how to reassemble new and explorative learning processes, assigning aspects of sustainability and an ethics of care in relation to environmental and social questions. We suggest strategies for learning in the folds, where educators are called upon to prepare students for an uncertain future. This demands a creative imagination, an ethical standpoint for negotiating the curriculum in line with differentiation by forming, inventing, and fabricating new concepts and images.

UNDERSTANDING BOUNDARIES OF SPACES AND EACH OTHER: CONTEMPORARY ARTIST USED IN VISUAL ARTS

This visual essay focuses on how social media tools and contemporary artist influence learners and the course process as one of the methods used in visual arts lectures. Participants of this project are ten 6th graders in a public secondary school selected with a random sampling method. At the beginning of the project, researchers asked to the learners about social media considerations, what social media tools were and how often they used social media. In the process of the study, participants used the Louisiana Channel and Art21 channels on YouTube to watch artist Julie Mehretu’s videos about her workshops and actual works performances. Following this implementation, researchers interviewed the learners about the course. As a result of this project, it is assumed that learners will have more active participation in the course by using social media and learners would have more positive views on using social media tools in visual arts courses. In addition, it was concluded that getting to know contemporary artists and looking at their works in detail contributed to children's artistic perspectives. Keywords: Contemporary Artist, Visual Arts Education, Social Media Tools, YouTube, Technology in Education

UPCYCLING JUNK ART AND CRAFT MODULE TO NURTURE CREATIVITY OF CHILDREN

Up-cycling is a sustainable alternative incorporating the prevalent 3Rs of Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce of used items in campaigns to save the environment. The ‘DIY Art and Craft Activity Module’ is used as a scaffolding tool to enhance environmental awareness and its impact among primary school children through Visual Arts Education. This research utilised the Design Development Research Method (DDR) comprising of three phases namely; Phase 1: Needs Analysis, Phase 2: Design and Development, and Phase 3: Implementation and Evaluation. The data was collected by interviewing Visual Art teachers on the usability of the module and document analysis on the collection of artworks produced by students. Findings of this study demonstrated positive feedback from the teachers and students on the usability of the Junk Art module as supplementary learning material in order to enhance recycling awareness among Primary School students through Visual Art Education.

Innovating Culturally Responsive Pedagogy With the Craft Fun Kit (CFK)

This study presents findings on the implementation of a teaching learning tool to enhance culturally responsive learning to enhance awareness of and knowledge about Malaysian traditional crafts in Visual Art classes. Most research in the Malaysian context exploring culturally responsive pedagogical methods has investigated theoretical and general properties, but few have attempted to investigate innovating tools to improve teaching and learning in schools and higher education. New methods with interesting features to teach certain cultural elements will not only trigger learning but can also instil the targeted values in students especially those living in multi racial countries. Using the Design and Development Method for one such tool, this study presents an evaluation of the Craft Fun Kit utilised by an experienced Visual Arts Education teacher in his class to study the students’ responses to and acceptance of the tool both to enhance learning and multicultural awareness. The overall results found that the Craft Fun Kit is relevant and appropriate as a learning tool which can enable students to attain Visual Art education learning outcomes at the secondary school level in Malaysia.

Education trough art in the context of art education of a child at a younger school age

The aim of the article is to indicate the essence and possibilities of educating through art children in grades 1-3 of primary school during visual art classes. In the study, the need to raise the level of competences of early childhood education teachers in terms of creating conditions for children to learn about and experience art directly has been emphasized. Aim of the research: The aim of the article is to show the educational values of art realized in the course of children's art education in grades 1-3 of primary school. State of knowledge: Raising a sensitivity to beauty and developing the ability to express and reproduce art using various methods and techniques was established as a pedagogical task of a teacher in the scope of visual arts education. The encounter with art is the basis of the process of discovering its values. Conclusion: The text emphasizes that raising a child through art is connected not only with the need to constantly expand knowledge in this area, but above all to motivate children's artistic creativity.

Visual Culture As a Teaching Practice in Visual Arts Education in Turkey: Practitioner Inquiry

The present research investigates the experiences of pre-service visual arts teachers in the planning and application phase of a course focusing on visual culture in the special teaching methods course. This course in Turkey provides information about how and with what type of methodologies arts-related topics should be taught in visual arts education. During the first semester, the course was conducted theoretically, and in the second semester the researcher focused on the application of these theories. In this research, visual culture is discussed as one of the special teaching methods of visual arts education. A total of five visual arts pre-service teachers were selected as participants using criterion sampling. The research used practitioner inquiry as a method and conducted during the 2017–2018 spring and 2018–2019 fall semesters, lasting 8 weeks in total. During the application process, the pre-service teachers taught their samples of course plans on visual culture that they created during their pre-service practice to the primary and secondary school students in 2 weeks of classes. The research data were obtained through semi-structured interviews, document review, and reflective notes and analyzed with descriptive methods. As a result of this research, the visual arts pre-service teachers saw the students gain a critical perspective, become more aware of issues in their daily lives, express themselves in a better way, and improve their inquiring skills with the application of a visual culture course plan. With the visual culture course plan, the pre-service teachers also gained several professional experiences and skills.

AN EVALUATION ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VISUAL CULTURE IN VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION

The dynamics of life styles changing with an unprecedented momentum in the current Visual Culture Age; It affects many fields such as communication, aesthetics, visual arts, art history, art education. Visual culture in lifestyles that develop as a result of a process in which the individual is consciously or unconsciously involved; It represents an interdisciplinary field and refers to the connection of culture with visual elements. Having an aesthetic experience in the dynamics of life styles produced in today's world, developing a solution-oriented identity with a visionary perspective, presents a model of a qualified individual as a part of visual culture. Through visual arts education, which will provide a rationalist response to the requirements of the current era, activities that will increase the individual's life experiences and provide optimum benefit can be organized. Education has a great role in the integration of the individual into society and adaptation to life, and in this case, prioritizing a visual culture-based approach in art education gains value. Keywords: Visual arts education, culture, visual culture, visual culture education