Arts Education and Pedagogy

Sacred Structures: Narrating Lifeworlds and Implications for Urban Arts Education Practice

by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.

Rolling, J. H. (2011). Sacred structures: Narrating lifeworlds and implications for urban arts education practice. Studies in Art Education, 53 (2), 112-124.

Utilizing the story of an art studio project involving second grade students in a new urban elementary school as they... more Utilizing the story of an art studio project involving second grade students in a new urban elementary school as they explored and engaged with architectural spaces in their community during their yearlong study of the theme of “Community,” the purpose of this writing is to theorize and codify some major tenets of a narrative and reinterpretive approach to urban arts & design education pedagogy—one that recognizes and draws upon the colliding experiences and environments of urban living as an asset to the (re)constitution of identity and community.

Art Education as a Network for Curriculum Innovation and Adaptable Learning

by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.

Rolling, J. H. (2011). Art education as a network for curriculum innovation and adaptable learning. In "Advocacy White Papers for Art Education, Section 1: What High-Quality Art Education Provides." Reston, VA: National Art Education Association. Retrieved November 19, 2011 from http://www.arteducators.org/advocacy/whitepapers.

This white paper reconceptualizes the potential of models of arts practice in generating new curriculum approaches for... more This white paper reconceptualizes the potential of models of arts practice in generating new curriculum approaches for general education and aiding the development of the learner in our contemporary visual age. High-quality art education is argued to provide art educators with an adaptable and dynamic framework for curriculum-making and theorizing. Visual arts theoretical models—or art for scholarship’s sake—offer the promise of divergent and yet synergistic pedagogical pathways through which learners may become adept at thinking empirically through a material medium, thinking expressively in a language, thinking iconoclastically within a context—or in doing each simultaneously. Flexible and dynamic thinking is a key to jump-starting the ability of learners to innovate, inform, and network across the artificial divides of disciplinary content. (My paper is the third in the attached bundle of essays).

Art, Craft, and Assimilation: Curriculum for Native students during the Boarding School Era

by Kevin Slivka

Gas Stations, Trees, and Rockets Wrapped in Weavings and Ideals: The International Fiber Collaborative and Provocations for Social Change

by Courtney Weida

With Jennifer Marsh, published in Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change, 2011, Editor Cheryl L. McLean, Associate Editor Robert Kelly Ph.D., University of Calgary, publisher Detselig Temeron Press
http://creativecommunitychange.blogspot.com/2011/01/about-creative-arts-in-research-for.html

This chapter examines the merging of art and activism within the International Fiber Collaborative (IFC), founded by... more This chapter examines the merging of art and activism within the International Fiber Collaborative (IFC), founded by Jennifer Marsh. As a fellow artist and educator, I have participated in and researched multiple collaborative projects with Marsh and the IFC over the past few years.  The large-scale, cozy-like creations of the IFC might be compared to the ephemeral wrapped works of Jeanne-Claude and Christo, yet they also seem to have a craft affinity with products of knitting circles.  Marsh and other IFC volunteers connect the individual fiber panels into vast coverings to wrap a gas station, a gigantic tree, and a NASA rocket. IFC’s community casts a similarly wide net: extending to artists, craftspeople, school children, college groups, and other makers working collaboratively or individually. Even while drawing upon the very tactile and hand-made traditions of fiber, knitting, weaving, and knotting; the IFC haptically utilizes blogging, email, and other digital networking to connect its global communities.  Online dialogues, exchanges, and collaborations offer alternative spaces of education and cultural production, even while providing participants with opportunities to (re)define artistic identities and conceptions of past and present craft communities. Parallel to this repurposing process is the utilization of a range of recycled materials within IFC fiber work.  This chapter will explore contemporary themes and approaches to globalization and activism in community art as they interweave with traditional craft processes with yarn, thread, and fabric.  As an arts researcher, I will draw upon portraiture methodology to describe the IFC’s unique artistic and social relevance for pedagogy.

The individual and communal themes explored in each participant’s contribution to the Gas Station Project, the Tree Project, and the most recent Rocket Project are myriad, yet share an interest in social change. While the Fiber Collaborative projects are intentionally open-ended and include many diverse political and ideological responses; the shared message of community and activism proves a common thread.  Further, the digital interplay of weblogging, linking, and online commentary allows a range of overlapping and divergent voices to coalesce in ways that transcend traditional, individual art-making and critical discourse. Though the original function of craft objects have utilitarian meanings, (such as a potholder or quilt), the purpose of an individual artist’s panel is often a uniquely personal and/or political expression.  In this way, contemporary craft projects like the IFC engender social change while building layers of multifaceted community space and artistic dialogue.

Making marks: the artful practice of assessment in fine art

by Susan Orr

Artistry in education and aesthetic education: a report of arts-based staff training

by Jannie Pretorius

The central theme of this article is to investigate possible advantages of an aesthetic approach – or arts-based staff... more The central theme of this article is to investigate possible advantages of an aesthetic approach – or arts-based staff development - to school management and teacher training in South Africa. It is argued that the field of education with its specific body of professional and scientific knowledge seems unable to offer satisfying solutions to pressing problems in post apartheid South African schools. It is suggested that the arts should be explored for answers and solutions. The opinions and attitudes of school management teams from some of the poorest schools in the Free State province of South Africa are analyzed as indicators of positive changes in the professional knowledge, confidence and self-awareness of management team members that might be ascribed to an aesthetic approach followed during in-service teacher training. Statistical analysis of pre and post responses of 117 attendants of management training workshops indicates that there were indeed some statistically significant improvements in their professional knowledge, in their confidence as managers and in their perception of themselves as educational artists. It seems as if most of are quite prepared to see themselves as educational artists. The positive changes might provide some encouragement and a kind of quantitative basis for the advocates of aesthetic education.

Who is at the City Gates? A Surreptitious Approach to Curriculum-making in Art Education

by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.

Rolling, J. H. (2006). Who is at the city gates? A surreptitious approach to curriculum-making in art education. Art Education, 59 (6), 40-46.

The author relates the story of an exercise in curriculum-making that took place at The School at Columbia University... more The author relates the story of an exercise in curriculum-making that took place at The School at Columbia University as 4th graders responded to the erection of The Gates in New York’s Central Park in the winter of 2005, a unique installation of conceptual art by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The development of these responses over several weeks surreptitiously afforded each participant in this curriculum experience the opportunity to conceptualize certain methods and meanings most salient to them. This article opens a creative space for reconsidering some notions on what constitutes exemplary content, curricula, and criteria for assessment in art education by drawing upon the metaphor of gateways and the re-search of children.

Art Education at the Turn of the Tide: The Utility of Narrative in Curriculum-making and Education Research

by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.

Rolling, J. H. (2010). Art education at the turn of the tide: The utility of narrative in curriculum-making and education research. Art Education 63 (3), 6-12.

This article relates a story of art education advocacy in the midst of a bureaucracy that misunderstood the purpose of... more This article relates a story of art education advocacy in the midst of a bureaucracy that misunderstood the purpose of art education at the launch of a new elementary school. It further argues that in 2010, art education continues to be practiced in the throes of a scientific knowledge paradigm that misunderstands the greater potential of the arts in education, imposing a ceiling ill-fitted for arts education practices and arts-based research. The author surmises some of the possibilities when the imposed ceiling is removed and we rethink art education, concluding with several schematic counter-discourses that lay out an art classroom without ceilings.

Circumventing the Imposed Ceiling: Art Education as Resistance Narrative

by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.

Rolling, J. H. (2011). Circumventing the imposed ceiling: Art education as resistance narrative. Qualitative Inquiry. 17 (1), 99-104.

This article stems from a story of arts education advocacy in the midst of a bureaucracy that misunderstood the... more This article stems from a story of arts education advocacy in the midst of a bureaucracy that misunderstood the purpose of art education at the launch of a new elementary school. Contemporary visual arts education practices overlap a unique period of change in neighboring social science disciplines, a turn of the tide that involves the embrace of narrative methods to rewrite prevailing working models and paradigms of social science practice. Here at the start of the 21st century, art education continues to be practiced in the thrall of a scientific paradigm that misunderstands the greater potential of the arts in education, often imposing a ceiling ill-fitted for arts praxis, arts-based research, or arts pedagogy. The author argues that art education is also at a turn of the tide and surmises some of the unexpected outcomes when new and ex-centric stories of learning and a “pedagogy of possibility” are more thoroughly explored, allowing practitioners to fully rethink an art education practice without taxonomic ceilings and within the shelter of the unexplored labyrinth.

Re-curating Testimony: Toward a New Pedagogy for Learning from the Past

by Monica Eileen Patterson

Co-authored with Erica Lehrer

The last few decades have seen an upsurge among anthropologists (and others) of critical attention to memory in its... more The last few decades have seen an upsurge among anthropologists (and others) of critical attention to memory in its various manifestations. Simultaneously, there has been a proliferation of museums, memorials and media-based interventions seeking to represent and remember past atrocity. Experimenting at the intersection of these trends, we have developed a “curatorial pedagogy” that engages students in both critical thinking and creative production around the question of what it means for public audiences to “learn from the past” in the face of ongoing global violence.

Developing practical models for teaching motion capture

by Andrew Denton

Co-authored with Gregory Bennett

Motion capture technology is increasingly being used across a range of digital moving image practice, from 3D... more Motion capture technology is increasingly being used across a range of digital moving image practice, from 3D animation, digital visual effects and gaming, to digitally augmented live performance and dance.

Keeping abreast of developing and cutting edge moving image production technologies is often a constant challenge in digital moving image-related teaching programmes, as is the requirement to create curriculum that delivers both a strong foundational technical skill-base, but which is also addresses the meaningful application of the technology to a range of communicative and/or aesthetic principles and outcomes. In addition, there is the importance of sustaining a robust teaching-research nexus within an academic context.

This paper presents a range of preliminary pedagogical and research issues which have arisen at the early stages of developing teaching modules around the use of low cost, entry level motion capture technology at the School of Art and Design, AUT University, New Zealand. The motion capture system being utilised is Optitrack's economical eight-camera optical motion capture package. This initiative represents a 'first step' in the integration of motion capture within an existing digital moving image programme and was conceived to address of a number of core pedagogical and research aims around 3D animation, performance and motion capture.

The move to address motion capture in curriculum at AUT University was a result of several factors. The increasing utilisation of motion capture in the New Zealand animation and visual effects industry has meant that there is a need for graduates to have some developed skills in this area. Motion capture is also a developing field in academic research with regard to its use in the entertainment industries, including cinema, gaming and live performance. In addition an opportunity has arisen to develop some key industry partnerships to build a high-end motion capture facility at AUT University.

A range of research projects being undertaken by postgraduate students and staff are being used to develop a series of motion capture teaching modules. Experience at a motion capture 'bootcamp' at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia is also being drawn on.

Our pedagogical aims around motion capture have two areas of principle focus at this stage. The first is the issue of character animation: the use of motion capture as an aid for teaching animated performance and exploring the relationship between classical animation principles and motion captured movement. The second is concerned with developing director and performer skill sets -- how to direct and perform effectively with motion capture for shifting project and performance mode requirements. Within these particular fields of focus a number of issues arise: questions of motion capture versus classical animation technique, stylised or exaggerated versus naturalistic performance modes, motion captured movement applied to stylised character models and/or photo-realistic models, the translation of 'live' to digital movement, and the digital processing of performance.

The paper will present an overview of the range of projects, and their varied applications of motion capture technology, and the related teaching, curriculum development and research considerations arising at this initial stage.

Views from the chalk-face: lecturers' and students' perspectives on the development of creativity in art & design

by Ruth Dineen

an invited contribution to 'Developing Creativity in Higher Education' edited by Norman Jackson, Martin Oliver, Malcolm Shaw, James Wisdom, published by Routledge

Qualitative data from an action research project into the development of student creativity. Interview responses and... more Qualitative data from an action research project into the development of student creativity. Interview responses and questionnaire comments from students and staff in UK art and design programmes, in further and higher education colleges.

Der MAXimale ERNST Pädagogischer Ethik – Kehrseite der Menschlichkeit, in: Manuel Fröhlich et. al.: Bildung und Kultur - Illustrationen. Jena 2010, pp.111-130.

by Karsten Kenklies

Reform der Lebenswelt - Strukturelle Erziehung durch Kunst bei Piet Mondrian, in: Ralf Koerrenz (Hrsg.): Pädagogik zwischen Tradition und Innovation, Jena 2010, pp.93-115.

by Karsten Kenklies

Teacher-Education In India- A Critical Discourse

by dev pathak

In a time, when the number of schools teachers is burgeoning in India, and so is that of the agencies out there to... more In a time, when the number of schools teachers is burgeoning in India, and so is that of the agencies out there to train/educate the teachers, it is but necesarry to ask a few difficult questions. This article examines the issue with refernce to a case study of an organization called TeacherSITY, and formulates the problems thereof.

In a workshop of school teachers, I asked, "What is the most important thing in school education?"

The answers captured innocence as well as ignorance- some said students, some said transaction of knowledge, some other named curriculum, and still others pinpointed the power relations.

“Correct, all answers are correct; but what if I say that first and foremost is school teachers’ education!”

All the participant teachers almost nodded in unanimity and perhaps in agreement. And this is the punch-line here: we take-for-granted the issues pertaining to teachers’ education (notoriously called training program/ professional development program and god knows how many technical terms for the same). The blanket lack of critical awareness on this issue has caused us too much of damage to be recounted. It seems that everything is fine as far as teachers’ education is concerned. With state machinery handing over the responsibilities of educating teachers (alas! The term is training) to the private player in a neo-liberal India, the imminent danger is becoming graver. Corporate companies are bidding for the educational projects, related to educating teachers, as if teachers were the most passive things on this earth. And what happens at the instances of such biddings?

Cantar versos improvisats a l'escola primària: un exemple al voltant de la innovació didàctica com a experiència crítica

by Albert Casals Ibáñez

Co-authored with Mercè Vilar
II CiDd (2010)

La communication présente un projet innovateur et interdisciplinaire pour l’introduction de la glosa à l'école... more La communication présente un projet innovateur et interdisciplinaire pour l’introduction de la glosa à l'école primaire. Sa partie centrale se consacre à analyser si les expériences réalisées dans cinq établissements scolaires contiennent ou non des éléments qui les rendent susceptibles d'être considérées des critiques, selon la conceptualisation de Woods (1997). Les conclusions se rapportent à l’opportunité de valoriser d’avantage les designs qui relient innovation-formation-recherche dans un cadre de collaboration entre université et école. Ces designs permettraient de vaincre des contraintes importantes –par exemple, les insécurités des maîtres- et réaliser des innovations effectives et critiques.


La comunicació presenta un projecte innovador i interdisciplinari destinat a introduir la glosa a l’escola primària. La part central de l’article se centra a analitzar si les experiències realitzades en cinc escoles contenen o no elements que les facin susceptibles de ser considerades crítiques segons la conceptualització que en féu Woods (1997). Les conclusions advoquen per valorar més els dissenys que uneixen innovació-formació-investigació dins d’un marc de col•laboració entre universitat i escola. Aquests dissenys permetrien superar esculls importants –com ara les inseguretats dels mestres– i realitzar innovacions efectives i crítiques.

Møtet som vokalpedagogisk virkemiddel - Psykiske aspekter ved sanglig utvikling

by Katrine Imerslund

Dette er en artikkel som har vært trykket i magasisnene "Stemmer som stemmer" og "Musikkpedagogen".
Artikkelen er basert på min skriftlige eksamen i vokalpedagogikk ved Barrat Due Musikkinstitutt i 2000. Artikkelen har også vært utgangspunkt for foredrag i regi av Norsk StemmePedagogisk Forum og Eurovox 2003.

Out of Cite, Out of Mind: Social Justice and Art Education

by Therese Quinn

Published in The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education (2006, v. 26, 282-301).

'The Third Space: a paradigm for internationalisation’

by Hilary Robinson

Co-authored with A Harley, E Reid, S Reid, Y Watson, in The Student Experience in Art and Design Higher Education: Driver for Change, ed. L Drew (Cambridge: Jill Rodgers Associates, 2008)