Interactive approach to teaching and learning in art education

摘要

Efficient planning and execution of teaching process in art education depends on the teachers’ expertise, their creativity and attitude to teaching. In execution of teaching processes it is necessary to provide the conditions for development of potential students’ abilities, acquisition of art knowledge, skills and positive attitudes. The students’ active participation should also be stressed, as well as the use of modern teaching strategies, i.e. efficient teaching methods, different learning and teaching styles and respect of students’ developmental capacities- individual differences in adaptation, understanding and interpretation of teaching content. Past evaluation studies on adequacy of art education in primary schools have pointed to the fact that the majority of teachers do not sufficiently apply methodical pluralism and creative approach to learning and teaching. Their passive attitude is reflected in the use of set ways of teaching. Art education is still perceived as “non- cognitive” activity in which it is sufficient to direct the students’ activity towards practical work or, towards introduction of and work with art material and accessories, i.e. acquisition of motoric aptitude. The execution of art teaching, particularly in lower grades of primary school, often shows certain passivity and non- critical approach of the teachers, which is seen in use of set teaching methods and procedures and in lack of freedom and openness for use of more efficient ways of learning and teaching (Tacol, Tomšič Čerkez, 2004). udThe subject of research is modernization of the way of learning and teaching art in schools, i.e. testing of successfulness of interactive approach to learning and teaching with the use of combination of general and specific (art) teaching methods. Interactive style of learning and teaching should ensure quality realization of curriculum and developmental abilities of each individual student, in accordance with his/her individual features. This approach also includes the use of modern teaching strategies such as active, empiric, independent, investigative learning and learning through problem solving. udIn order to check the artistic abilities and skills of students in managing of art techniques, their level of knowledge and understanding of art terms and artistic creativity of students, two different ways of execution of teaching process were included in the research. The first one used approaches to learning and teaching in line with the modern pedagogical concepts resulting from cognitivist and constructivist theories. The second way of teaching was realized through use of usual, set approaches to teaching and learning. Quantitative and qualitative analysis on the basis of results achieved by the pedagogical experiment was used in the research. In the first part of research a questionnaire for teachers in lower grades of primary school was used, together with the knowledge test for students. In the second part, for testing of development of art ability in managing of art material and techniques, understanding of art terms and determination of the level of artistic creativity, a five- degree evaluation scale of Likert type was used (evaluation was done by three independent evaluators). Creativity of art objects was evaluated in reference to six categories: sensitivity for art problem, elaboration (organization and use of art elements), flexibility (solving art problems in a new way), fluency (abundance of ideas), originality (unusualness of ideas) and redefinition (connection of previous art experiences into a new art content) (Karlavaris, 1991). Characteristics of measuring instruments were checked by factorial analysis and hypotheses by Mann-Whitney’s U-test and Spearman’s correlation test. udResults of research confirmed the set hypotheses on the positive impact of the use of interactive approach to learning and teaching and the use of combination of general teaching methods and specific art methods on the artistic abilities and skills of students while using the art techniques within the frame of planned painting tasks, on understanding and knowledge of art terms and on creativity of students in solving art problems. Results of research should help to form models for planning and introduction of art education as well as guidelines for planning of expert training and further professional education of teachers, in order to make the art education and teaching in primary schools efficient. udud