This study is carried out by the Department of Culture and Media, School of Education and Humanities at Dalarna University. The field work is carried out as a team work between teachers in compulsory school and us as researchers and teachers in art education and media within Teacher training programs. We will present and discuss experiences and outcomes of an EU-funded project as part of a bigger Audio-Visual Media project (cooperation between our university and companies in the region). Our partners here were in addition to a selected school also an advertising agency.
Our first study was performed in two classrooms with 42 eleven-year-old pupils in primary school. We followed the classes for about one year as participating observers. The pupils were introduced to a variety of digital tools such as a digital platform (blog), cameras, sound recorders etc. We were curious to find out if these tools could increase the pupils´ interest to respond to each other’s work (art work, as well as tasks in social sciences and mathematics) and to see if they also got more reflective about their own assignments.
In this development project a blog was designed specifically for those classes. This was done in cooperation with an advertising agency in the region. The aim of the activity was also to offer an opportunity for grown-ups around the children to participate, such as parents, teachers or us - the researchers. In the study we examined the phenomena “response”. What kind of responses could be noticed? What kind of ideas to develop this feedback was presented – by teachers as well as pupils? What can be done within the frames of the school? And how can the audio-visual technique eventually support this?
In the study we use a design theory perspective of learning and we discuss our data based on concepts like multimodality, esthetic learning processes and digital literacy. The presentation will particularly focus on response as a tool for learning (visual art critics), but also examine multimodality in the classroom (as part of a democracy project) as a way to inspire and motivate children in the process of learning.
The results of the study show that the pupils are very interested in giving one another feedback on artwork as well as other assignments but, surprisingly, not on the blog. The discussions in the classroom resulted in a deeper engagement on the part of the pupils and an ability to elaborate their work more with better results. Pupils found the work with the digital tools to be the most enjoyable, and this has a broad effect on their interest in their school work.
After this first study was implemented we have widened the project to include older pupils as well (this time children between 11-16 years of age). An art teacher is involved and the blog will be a part of the schools art education. The plans are to continue the work from the first year, but make it wider and use a broader social context. Aspects related to this second step of the study will summarize the final section of the project.
2014. s. 92-92
34th World Congress of the International Society for Education through Art, Theme: Diversity through Art – Change, Continuity, Context. Melbourne, Australien. July 7-11, 2014.