A Framework for teaching Visual Arts Education + the Creative Process

As of Fall of 2012, I made the decision to use inquiry-based learning for as much as of my curriculum and instruction as possible. This is because I learned that the best practices for the student artists I work with are inquiry-based so they figure out things a little more on their own in addition to being able to learn  and develop their own individual creative process so that they can ultimately become more independent and autonomous in their visual art idea cultivation and creation.

I came up with this framework just this year and it is working so well with pretty much every project I have done so far. There are four stages to the inquiry-based learning experience but I have named them intentionally so that they say what they mean and mean what they say for the type of learning that is intended to be done during that stage. Here are the four stages as well as a little bit of detail about what usually occurs during each individual stage.

1. Explore & Experiment - When the student artists get their hands immediately on and into art mediums and can try them out with little interference of direction from me other than, "I don't know. What do YOU think it does? Maybe you should try it?"
2. Figure Out & Focus - When the students are starting to have a better of what the medium does (or doesn't do) and they take that and align the project objective with it in order to make informed decisions about what they may (or may not) want to do in order to achieve the results they are striving for. This process involves peer review and critique of work that has been done in different stages, me doing demonstrations of possible best practices, and answering questions they may have formulated based on the Explore & Experience stage.
3. Stick or Scrap - This is basically the single defining stage that either forces them to go back to Explore & Experiment a little bit so they can go through the Figure Out & Focus at least one more time (that's usually all it takes) OR for them to know and believe with confidence that they want to go in one direction with their project or another. It is usually known (by them individually) subtleties as much as how they should be holding their paintbrush to achieve a certain effect on the support they are working on, what exact color palette they will use, etc.
4. Know & Go - This is the final stage of their creative process where they are confident to step up to using finally and high-quality/grade art materials in order to create something intentionally that will be complex in it's presentation and also show evidence of good technique that is obviously apparent, the subject matter will say something as much as show something (meaning they are being a visual communicator instead of making something because "it looked cool"), and, finally, they will be completely confident to stand by their work and defend it as a successful work even if someone challenges it and calls it unsuccessful.

Just for your own better understanding of how this is applied, here is an example of this instructional framework in action in a 2D Design project endeavor of continuous line drawing and mastercopy attempts called The One-Liner. Click here to view the original posting of it. 

Definitely, this approach to teaching/instruction/learning is student-centered and requires a LOT of time for it to happen just as I have detailed it should. I have the time to do it though (or rather I am permitted that sort of luxury) because I work in private school education where my curriculum isn't so heavily dictated by the state and I teach high school student artists (who are incredibly high level in their abilities and understandings already) who I see for one full semester of four 55 minute classes a week.

I have found that doing long-term projects is better and teaches them more than shorter ones. It also allows me plenty of time to do demonstrations (as I did for this project already) without leaving out opportunities for them to do their own guided technique exercises like speed drawing when they are forced to let go of themselves a little and cannot help but submit themselves to natural creativity as it might happen. In my experience, I have witnessed that the students show much greater ownership and investment in their work and this alone has catapulted the quality of their artwork far and beyond a level of it being of only scholastic quality.

At this point in time I am using this teaching framework only within the studio art classroom for 2D Design as well as 3D Design (more heavily with 2D Design though) but eventually I hope to optimize it enough for it to be a standard that will be used in all of the visual design courses I teach. To my knowledge this approach to curriculum and instructional framework does not exist anywhere else and I believe I am likely the only teacher who uses it. I think it could easily be adapted to any content area that might heavily use inquiry-based learning.

This teaching method of curriculum and instruction 

was designed and created solely by Andrea Ream Ellwood. 

If you have any questions or comments about it or are interested in using it or publishing it, 

please contact her directly with your inquiries at DreamPrayCreateATgmail.com



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