Approaches and Strategies

At the senior secondary level, students are expected to have access to a variety of perspectives, to develop personal views, skills and techniques for critical appreciation of artwork, and to develop ways of expressing their feelings and presenting their ideas visually in art making. A narrow focus on the technical mastery of the materials or a preoccupation with the quality of art form is not sufficient. To promote effective learning and teaching, a combination of learning and teaching approaches should be employed. Enquiry learning and

experiential learning – which emphasise the development of personal views and the personal construction of knowledge are the preferred modes. They seem most likely to address the needs and concerns of individual learners and to promote the development of autonomy in learning. Other approaches, however, including teaching as direct instruction and teaching as co-construction of knowledge, should be employed and intertwined with enquiry learning and experiential learning for achieving other important purposes.

4.3.1 Approaches (1) Enquiry learning

Enquiry learning is a broad term which encompasses a range of learning and teaching strategies through which the teacher encourages students to enquire actively into questions, issues and problems of interest and concern to them. Focusing on enquiry typically leads to a crossing of subject boundaries, which enables students to see and develop interconnections among their knowledge constructs. In the enquiry process, students are helped to develop a wide range of concepts, skills, strategies and attitudes through having to analyse issues and work out possible solutions to problems. The product of enquiry is the construction of new knowledge. The success of enquiry learning relies heavily on students’

initiative and self-monitoring, which contribute to developing the capacity to learn how to learn.

When students and teachers are adjusting to enquiry learning together, there may be an initial period where the teacher needs to take a more directive role, until an appropriate level of student competence in the enquiry process has been achieved to permit the teacher to become a facilitator. Teachers should be aware, however, that too much intervention may stifle enquiry learning, and that too little support may cause frustration among students.

Some characteristics of enquiry learning are as follows:

• Questions/ problems/ issues for enquiry

The questions/ problems/ issues for enquiry, which can be designed by the teacher or by students in consultation with the teacher, should be open-ended to allow a variety of responses, interpretations and solutions, or engage students’ imagination and creativity.

They should be challenging enough to motivate students and advance their thinking, but not be so complex that students are incapable of finding any solutions. Also, enquiry questions must be clearly stated at the start to ensure that students have sufficient freedom and direction for enquiry to take place.

For example, in art learning, there are various stages at which students identify questions and problems, such as “What do I want to say in my art presentation?” This question requires students to look for inspiration from their living environment, visual diaries, memories and so on, and to select and compile information and materials for initial ideas.

Students also need to learn from artists’ work. When they come across artwork which interests them, they may ask questions such as: “Why do artists express their views in such ways?”; “How does the artist express his/her view in this piece of artwork?”; “What am I learning from this artist?”; and “How can this artwork help me in my own art making?”

Since artwork allows for different audience interpretations, students should use their own personal experience and knowledge and look for evidence in their interpretation and appraisal of a piece of art.

At the stage of art making, students may ask questions such as: “What do I want to say?”;

“How do I want to present my ideas?”; and “What kind of art form and medium do I need to present my view?” These questions help students to orient their exploration of media, techniques, materials, visual elements and image development.

From time to time, students may ask a question such as “Does the artwork convey my message?” This sort of question helps students to evaluate and improve what they have done.

Students might initiate an aesthetic enquiry by asking questions such as: “Does every artwork have a purpose?”; “What makes an artwork good?”; “Do the criteria for good art remain the same over time?”; “Should artists always make something that has not already been made?”; “Can an artist make a piece of good artwork with the intention of tricking or fooling the viewer?”; and “Should the artist be consulted when interpreting the meaning of an artwork? Why or why not?” There is no single answer to these questions. Teachers can raise students’ awareness of the philosophical aspects of art by encouraging them to enquire into such issues to develop personal knowledge about art.

They may also conduct an in-depth study of art from a cultural perspective, starting out with questions like “How can works of art teach us about a culture?”; “How does culture determine the style of artwork?”; and “How does the function of an artwork change if its context for appreciation changes?”

• Lines of enquiry

Enquiry learning can vary in scale and in the resources used. It allows for both individual work on sub-tasks and common work on an overall task; and can be utilised in a variety of learning and teaching strategies such as direct instruction, formal class teaching, group discussion or individual tutoring. However, whatever the approach adopted, students should be given sufficient time to learn how to deal with the problems they wish to address in depth, and to develop the knowledge, skills and feelings needed to interact with artwork and materials intelligently. It is not quantity but quality in learning that matters most. In this respect, it is a common misconception that the richness of art programmes should be equated with the number of different projects students complete. Most important of all,

students should be allowed to draw on their existing knowledge, have the flexibility to learn at their own pace and in their own style, and pursue their own lines of enquiry. For example, students may like to explore inspiration for art making in various ways, such as reading newspapers, browsing the Internet, looking back on past events and experimenting with materials. Others may have strong emotions that require direct and free expression with tools and materials. Teachers have to observe students’ needs closely and provide them with appropriate guidance, and sufficient time and space, to make progress in their learning.

• A community of enquiry

Enquiry learning is usually organised around collaborative work in small groups or with structured support from others, including teachers, peers, artists and the community, and thus promoting social interaction and cohesion. Building a community of enquiry in which reflection, dialogue or conversation-based enquiry takes place helps to generate a diversity of responses to questions/problems/issues and a range of perspectives, and enables students to learn from others. A successful community of enquiry requires reciprocity of effort, a willingness to be challenged by the ideas of others, including teachers and peers, and a process of reconstruction of one’s own ideas and judgements. A community of enquiry with a common interest in art, and a shared mode of language for discussing it, fosters engagement and motivation to learn, promotes communication and collaboration among the group members, and helps them to learn with increasing autonomy, initiative and self-reflection.

For example, many students, and sometimes teachers, have a passion for video games.

They may come together voluntarily and build a community of enquiry based on their common interest. They may discuss, for example, the latest games, the aesthetics or the impact of graphics in specific games, and the technical problems of making certain effects in their own games. As each of them has had different experiences and has developed different skills and knowledge in this area, they all have a role to play in the learning community. When questions are raised, they will have opinions to give, experience to share and ideas to put forward. They will be able to challenge the ideas of others. This kind of exchange and communication helps to create a positive atmosphere for self-directed learning and accelerate the pace of constructing and reconstructing knowledge.

• Contexts for applying knowledge

Enquiry learning does not simply involve students in asking questions. It also requires them to process and interpret what they find, to work on it, and to turn it into personal knowledge.

It requires them to seek evidence to support their ideas and to present them appropriately, thus converting information and data into useful knowledge for art appreciation and criticism, and art making. Students may look for information in the biographies of artists,

the scientific discoveries in a certain period, the major events of an era, and the ideologies commonly accepted in the culture of a particular region at a particular time, and then relate this information to specific artworks and speculate on the messages conveyed by the artists.

The process of enquiry contributes both to the understanding of art and the development of creativity, critical thinking and communication skills.

For example, in art appreciation and criticism, students can apply their knowledge of Picasso’s nationality and the history of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to interpreting his painting Guernica (1937); their understanding of Chinese traditional philosophies, Confucianism or Taoism, and culture to the study of landscape paintings; or information about the discovery of cameras to the concepts in outdoor Impressionist paintings.

In art making, students not only gain knowledge about the quality of certain art media and materials (e.g. the differences between painting and print-making) from reading or direct instruction, but also from experimenting with, feeling and observing them - and, when appropriate, applying what they have learned to their own art making. They may also use their knowledge of art to explain, interpret and appraise their own and their peers’ artwork for reflection and improvement.

• Support for enquiry learning

For effective outcomes, the process of enquiry needs sufficient support, even if it is the students who determine how to proceed. It is, therefore, important for teachers to consider factors such as students’ motivation, their level of background knowledge, their ability to manage an enquiry and the nature of their interactions with peers, as well as the accessibility of the tasks, and time and resource constraints, and then to support students appropriately.

(2) Experiential learning

Experiential learning, which emphasises students’ direct confrontation with practical, social, personal or research problems, is recommended for use in connection with enquiry learning.

Experiential learning is a process whereby knowledge is gained through experiences which involve learning by doing and reflecting. The experiences are not confined to the classroom but can involve, for example, the observation of natural and living environments, participation in daily-life events, visiting galleries and museums, and experimenting with media, tools and techniques. Effective experiential learning is characterised by personal involvement, initiation, reflection and evaluation, and the pervasive effects it has on the learner. While adopting this approach, appropriate arrangements and planning are required.

Students usually go through a cycle consisting of the following four phases:

• personal involvement in some concrete experience;

• observation and reflection;

• the formation of abstract concepts; and

• testing/ application in new situations.

The cycle can begin at any of these four phases and should be approached as a continuous spiral. It is suggested that the learning process often begins with a person carrying out a particular action and then seeing what effect it has.

For example, in art making, students:

• acquire concrete experiences by experimenting with media, tools, skills or visual elements that are aesthetically satisfying and achieve their ends. They may also involve themselves in daily-life activities/events to obtain direct experience and inspiration for art making that can be recorded by means of visual diaries, photographs, sketches, videos or notes.

• need to observe and reflect upon what they have experienced in the process of experimenting or participating in an event, and identify initial concepts about those experiences for further consideration.

• develop concepts related to the expressive qualities and characteristics of the media and visual elements, and views on those activities/events. This process of concept formation should normally be supported by interacting with teachers and peers, or through teachers’ direct teaching or demonstration. Students are also encouraged to support their learning through other means, such as reading reference books, discussing with peers or interacting with artists and artwork.

• apply their experience and understanding of the visual language and knowledge developed from those activities/events to their own art presentations.

This process of experiential learning can be repeated or extended at any point until the students are ready to start enquiring into a new topic.

(3) Direct instruction

The use of enquiry learning and experiential learning does not rule out the need for direct instruction. Direct instruction can be used effectively to: guide students in exploring topics or themes for art learning; demonstrate skills in art making; provide examples of different approaches or perspectives for appraising a piece of artwork; and describe a critical analysis of a cultural phenomenon to serve as a reference for students. Students’ participation in the learning and teaching process is still essential to the effectiveness of this approach. Their

minds must actively process any information presented. They need to be encouraged to pose questions to clear up confusion and engage in interaction to find out what they know and do not know relating to the information that has just been provided.

4.3.2 Strategies

In line with what has been set out above, it is important for teachers to use a range of strategies to meet different learning objectives and students’ needs. Specific learning objectives can be achieved through different strategies. The following suggestions are made for teachers’ reference.

(1) Critical dialogue and critical writing

Through dialogue of a critical sort, students hear their own thoughts and the responses of others to what they see, think and feel. This enables them to refine their own thoughts. The process exposes them to a variety of perspectives, and therefore allows them to restructure their own thinking to include useful points made by others. Critical dialogue places the making and interpreting of artwork within a social context. Students can come to realise that an understanding of artwork may be determined by the dialogues in which one is involved, and that new knowledge and better thinking can be brought about through dialogue and individuals’ reinterpretations. Artwork gives rise to many possible dialogues.

For example, a student may focus on talking about the emotional expression depicted in the photograph The Migration Mother by Dorothea Lange (1936). Another student may look for the social and political background of the artwork, while yet others are more interested in appreciating the techniques for developing black and white photographs. All these viewpoints contribute to a new understanding of the artwork. Through this kind of dialogue, students may construct and reconstruct knowledge from their own personal knowledge and gain a deeper understanding.

Critical writing is also an effective means for developing ever-better thinking in art. In interacting with their own written presentations, students can produce new ideas and make adjustments to their previous thinking. They can share their writing with others and learn from the responses they receive. They can also learn from written discussion in chat rooms or from responses to their blogs in the Internet.

Through critical dialogue and critical writing, students go through a process of putting what they see and feel into a verbal form of expression. This helps them to explore the narrative dimension of artwork, clarify and structure their own thinking about art. It helps them to learn how to communicate their thoughts and feelings to others that may lead to further refinement of their own thinking.

Teachers should try to create a suitable environment and allocate time to support dialogue.

They may set rules or guidelines with students that encourage students to respect different opinions and perspectives. Students should learn that the purpose of dialogue is to gain new understandings and to practise respectful listening as well as to promote healthy argument.

(2) Portfolios

Requiring students to keep a portfolio of their work is a strategy that enables teachers and students to see progress and to celebrate work achieved. A portfolio should provide evidence of students’ learning progress in the two strands, i.e. in their ability to appreciate artwork and in their own art making. It also serves the purpose of developing reflection, self-monitoring and self-awareness through encouraging students to look at early sketches and mistakes, examine their strengths and weaknesses, and consider alternative ways of dealing with artwork. Portfolios provide a means for ongoing assessment of students’

learning throughout the senior secondary education. Keeping a portfolio involves students in collecting their initial plans, drafts, self-evaluations, feedback from peers and teachers, works of art which they like or dislike, references and their own artwork. Students are encouraged to make visual diaries which are written and visual records of their daily visual impressions, reflections, explorations, experiences and personal feelings towards events or visual phenomena. Visual diaries can serve as students’ personal databanks for independent study. Video-shooting and photo-taking are effective ways of observing and recording experience.

(3) Creative problem solving

Creative problem solving can be applied to promote the development of creativity in art appreciation and criticism, and in art making. Creative problem solving is a sequential process with iterative loops built in to enable a return to an earlier phase to get additional ideas or insights for better achievement at each step.

The process usually involves the following steps:

• Problem definition – Identify the problem. For example, at the preliminary stage, students feel that the school environment is boring and has a negative impact on learning. After a series of data collection activities, including discussion with their peers, and interviewing teachers and staff members, they identify that the physical environment of the classrooms, washrooms and library are the most problematic areas. Students then divide into small groups and work out solutions to brighten up these areas.

• Idea generation – Use imagination to think of as many ideas related to the defined problem as possible.

• Creative idea evaluation – This process is usually carried out in several steps:

grouping the ideas into categories; developing and synthesising the ideas within the categories; and fitting in ideas which fall between categories. Use a critical and creative mind to develop a list of criteria to judge which ideas are best.

• Solution implementation – Design a good plan with a time schedule and budget, and then put the idea into action. It is always necessary to monitor, review and ensure that the solution is working correctly.

Several strategies can be employed to help students to generate ideas. For example, brainstorming helps to produce many ideas quickly in an unrestricted and non-judgemental atmosphere; and sketching helps to develop visual ideas from physical objects or mental images/concepts. Mind-maps, which help to display the relationships between ideas that arising during the brainstorming process, can be used.

(4) Information technology for interactive learning

Information technology plays an important role in supporting interactive learning and promoting students’ learning to learn capabilities. Students can make use of the convenience of the Internet to collect information for enquiry into their topics of interest, at their own pace. Through the Internet, artwork and contextual information from different geographical locations and time-periods can be brought into the classroom for interactive discussion and appreciation. Teachers may need to provide guidance on Internet searches to avoid having students collect a mass of unnecessary materials.

Students can use the Internet as a platform for interacting with their peers and teachers outside the classroom. Students, teachers and even artists can engage in critical conversations about views on artwork, and daily-life events or ideas for art making.

Information technology can also be a useful tool for assessment and evaluation of learning, such as making use of digital technology for building electronic portfolios.

(5) Reading to learn

Reading to learn is, as ever, an important strategy to support learning. It helps students to acquire extensive knowledge transmitted through language, texts and images in, for example, artists’ biographies, books about art and artists, and other materials related to art, culture, history and social events. Reading materials can be easily accessed through using