Learning Action Plan:
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Usage in Visual Arts

Clinical Teaching Practice 1, Semester 1 - August 2020

CONTEXT

In Clinical Teaching Practice 1, I taught Visual Art and Design classes. School X prides itself on the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within its classrooms. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers considered ICT an effective teaching strategy “to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students” (The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), 2011). 

School X is a digital school, where students and teachers are required to bring their own personal device - an iPad in the younger year levels, and a laptop for senior school. As a result of this, most classrooms were equipped with a projector and Apple TV, where the teacher could connect to through the school’s wifi. School X also relied heavily on their Learning Management System (LMS) to communicate with students. Students would access the LMS each class to view their email, timetable, class planner, work for each class, assignments and feedback, as well as additional resources uploaded by their teacher. Students would also communicate to their teachers and submit work and assignments through the LMS.

For the majority of my time at School X, Years 7 to 9 were working from home through the LMS system. The prior integration of such a system into the students' lives whilst they were doing face-to-face learning made the move to remote learning seemingly simple. However, School X’s Off-Site Learning Policy (2020) states that students are only expected to be given half the amount of work as they would with face-to-face learning, and any Zoom calls are to be no longer than 20 minutes. This means that a lot more information than usual would need to be provided to students through the LMS.

With this in mind, I developed multiple online resources for the younger year levels that were uploaded and accessed through the LMS. These included:

  • Demonstration videos uploaded and linked via YouTube

  • Theory videos uploaded and linked via YouTube

  • Downloadable PDFs to accompany theory and demonstrations

  • Downloadable PDFs of practice theory questions

I also commonly accessed other ICT resources such as:

  • Zoom

  • Learning Management System

  • Office365 applications including Outlook

  • Microsoft applications including Word and Powerpoint to view resources that other teachers had made

AREA OF STRENGTH IN ICT

The exceptional situation of having students learn remotely gave me an opportunity to create and present videos of myself demonstrating a task or theory, that were then uploaded to Youtube and linked to the LMS. This is not something that would have been done if these students had been learning face-to-face, as these demonstrations would have been presented in person.

Dreyfus’ model of skill acquisition is based on the development of skills through instruction and experience. It assumes that through repeated practice by following demonstrations or examples, the learner will eventually become more experienced in the skill and will no longer rely on the help of an instructor. (Dreyfus, 2004.) Cognitive apprenticeship employs an instructor who demonstrates how to perform a task, before providing advice or scaffolding to assist the learner as they perform the task on their own. (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2013.) These theoretical approaches and strategies are commonly used in Visual Arts education, and I have applied them to my teaching practice. Online learning, however, posed a challenge for effective pedagogies and methodologies, as the learning is asynchronous, with the teaching and learning occurring at different times.

Demonstration videos were produced to assist students in the understanding of key concepts and skills. Videos such as these are an effective way to close the gap between classroom and online learning, by bringing the online learning into the classroom and vice versa, due to its “multisensory” nature. Hampton (2002) observes that video is a “successful medium because it links the audio and the visual together to provide a multisensory experience for the learner.” Students are benefited because they are able to play, replay, pause and rewind to specific parts in the video, whilst learning at their own pace and being engaged both visually and verbally.

These videos allowed me to demonstrate my skills in other ICT resources such as iMovie and Youtube. The process involved recording the content with my phone, transferring the recording from my phone to my laptop, importing the recording into a video editing software (in this case iMovie), editing and adding voice overs where necessary, exporting and uploading as an unlisted video on YouTube (only accessible via the link), and then hyperlinking the video in the class page on the LMS. 

By creating these videos, I was able to create clear and concise content that would not overwhelm my students. Through the process of planning, filming and editing, I created a resource that was informative and to the point, and not too long where students could lose interest. Upon review of these videos, my mentor teacher described them as “brilliant” and praised the clear and succinct presentation of information. Feedback from Year 8 students described these videos as “helpful to follow along with”, “(not) too fast or slow” and “very clear”. When sharing with my Visual Art and Design teacher candidate peers, they commented that I had established enough “ground work” that would enable individual assistance and scaffolding.

AREA OF IMPROVEMENT IN ICT

Whilst my feedback indicates strength in these videos, I am left wondering how effective or necessary they would be once face-to-face learning resumes. 

In comparison to Years 7 to 9, Years 10 to 12 were on site. I had the opportunity to teach a practical skill-based lesson to VCE Art Unit 2 in the realm of a portrait drawing workshop. I did not, however, incorporate any ICT usage into this 2 hour workshop. The class consisted of me providing demonstrations and information verbally and visually through drawings and examples whilst students followed along and applied the techniques to their own drawings. 

In Visual Art education, ICT can be easily used as a tool for theory, research and planning. Artworks are a visual representation of ideas, and lend themselves hand in hand to the representations that exist on the Internet and ICT. Complete artist catalogues and databases, critical responses and contextual information and easily accessible, including virtual representations of the worlds finest gallery spaces that can be projected into the classroom. However, crucial to Visual Arts education is the notion of material practice (Hausman, 2000) - you cannot fully understand art without making art. It is these practical classes based on physical skill-development, that incorporating ICT has proven to become a challenge.

In the physical art classroom that this class was presented in, ICT equipment and resources were limited. I had considered creating and presenting a powerpoint for this class to accompany the theory portion and discussion of facial anatomy, but upon discovering that this particular classroom was not equipped with a screen or Apple TV like the other classrooms, or even a blank wall to project onto, I changed my mind. I had not considered that each student would have their own personal laptop or other device with them.

Therefore, an area of improvement would be the incorporation of more ICT usage into practical and skill-based classes, by taking advantage of the resources students have with them. The use of online resources would allow students to become more involved in their own learning, rather than being passive receivers of information like they were in my workshop. Upon reflection with my mentor teacher, he suggested a greater focus on “confirming understanding” before moving on to the next part of the lesson. Online game-based resources such as Kahoot would allow for the shift from teacher-centred learning to student-centred learning. Game-based learning has the potential to be an effective tool for learning because it stimulates students both visually and verbally. (Woo, 2014). Kahoot quizzes are accessible via students laptops or phones, and provide real time feedback for both the students and the teacher, in turn acting as revision and a formative assessment.



LEARNING ACTION PLAN

My proposed course of action for future teaching would be to embrace a flipped classroom pedagogy. Flipped classrooms flip the traditional model of education, providing instruction outside of the classroom and online, whilst moving practical activities that would traditionally be done at home, into the classroom, where the teacher is there to provide additional support and opportunities for scaffolding (Bergmann & Sams, 2015).

I have found an unknowing strength and confidence in creating digital demonstration videos. My plan is to continue creating these videos, even once face-to-face learning resumes, to provide additional instruction and revision for students. Students will be able to view these videos prior to the class to create a fundamental understanding of the skill or topic, allowing for more engagement in the topic in forthcoming lessons (Woosey & Miles, 2019). By creating the “groundwork” for the knowledge, as commented by my peer, further development and learning can then be provided during class time, as well as effectively increasing student-teacher interaction. These videos will also work as revision for students, as they are able to pause, rewind and watch at their own pace.

Alongside this, I would employ the use of web-based games such as Kahoot and PollEv and other student response systems (SRSs) to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of the curriculum in an interactive environment, as well as increasing student engagement (Woo, 2014) and gratification while providing the teacher with real-time indication of students knowledge.