Innovative pedagogies in visual art education and sustainable development - an asynchronous continuous professional development course

Abstract

An asynchronous CPD course ‘Innovative Pedagogies in Visual Art Education and Sustainable Development’ offered by the University of Malta ‘Connecting Art with Real life issues’ (CARE) team specialist primary Art teachers, generalist primary in-service teachers and pre-service teachers. Twenty-five participants enrolled for the 10 week CPD (12.2020 -2.2021). The CPD covered Education for Sustainable Development, Art Criticism, contemporary art and sustainable developmentt hrough: Big Ideas, The Public; Ecological Literacy; Compassion; Diversity; Conservation and Change; Regeneration; Alternative Pedagogies for ESD and VAE; Professional Learning Communities & Collaborative Lesson Study. The all but one asynchronous sessions included various recorded (Panopto) lectures, power point presentations, tasks, think questions which students were required to respond to on the online fora, readings as well as relevant YouTube feature documentaries/talks. Art was largely presented as an exercise in political critique and action, presenting audiences with realities as well as alternative realities. Big Ideas provided a broad backdrop for teachers to develop pupils’ meaning-making and creative strategies around research on artists and contemporary artworks. Tasks set varied from reflective exercises to more creative or pedagogical ones. This approach stimulated some participants to write about teaching strategies they used to expose children in their classes to a direct experience of nature, which can have a considerable impact on learners’ general education. This holistic understanding of the environment was also reflected in the interdisciplinary slant of the course, which balanced political debates with pedagogical and creative strategies, aiming for an integrated approach that would help learners in class gain a deeper understanding of the unity of things. Online fora to stimulate debate and aid reflection about common action on global environmental issues were ongoing. This emphasis on collective action corresponded with various topics and lesson planning strategies engaged with during the course, such as children’s collaborative work on lessons to be drawn from contemporary art about diversity and identity formation and the final asynchronous session’s focus on communities of practice, peer mentoring and collaborative lesson study. The course’s final assignment required the participants to form working groups which would either a) select a subject area from the primary Art curriculum and design a single lesson plan based on a specific Big Idea, deliver the lesson, take photos of students’ works, and write an evaluation of the lesson, or b) select a Big Idea that is relevant to children, design a topic plan and a set of lesson plans and write a critical evaluation of the set of lessons. Tasks given during the course that were hands-on were considered relevant while the stimulation of debate between lecturers and participants as well as amongst the participants themselves was considered to be very positive. Experts from different subject areas helped to make interdisciplinary teaching and learning more accessible. Creative lesson plans created by individual participants or groups of participants confirmed that the integration of different strategies, Big Ideas and subject areas was viable.