This chapter is designed to provoke critical thought about how learning is planned for in school.
Curriculum as Journey
A curriculum is not a static object, but a journey towards some end.
The etymology of the word shows the Latin Curr(ere) here corresponds to the prefixing 'curr', which means to run or to race. The curriculum can be understood as an organic structure experienced in movement (McConnell et al. 2020). (1-2)
It is common in art and design to produce 'curriculum maps' in response to OFSTED's stated intention to inspect the adequacy of school's ability to ensure that their enforced curriculum is '...coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment'. (2022)
Curriculum maps - A winding path which lays out key concepts, skills and artists, that students will learn about on their journey through the school from year 7 to year 13.
Curricula point students towards a particular kind of future. As Eisner explores (2002). it creates in students a 'model of mind', a way of seeing and interacting with the world. (2).
-Application to Art and Design (A&D) - An A&D curriculum oriented around the end
point of students of providing students with the skills required to work in the creative
industries may look very different to one designed around social reform and protest.
- It may be a useful question when enterring a school or placement to ask what
standard the curriculum the school enforces would like to encourage students to
achieve or conform to. - How their curriculum varies in its application.
Three types of Curricula
Eisner (2002) Suggests that there are three kinds of curricula at play in the classroom:
1 - The explicit curriculum - the stated curriculum that teachers would say that their students are learning. i.e. Skills, processes, concepts and contextual knowledge that populate the curriculum map.
2 - The Implicit curriculum (Also referred to as the hidden curriculum) - The messages communicated by and not necessarily acknowledged through 'Classroom abiance, school norms and modes of assessment'. - messages about who is able to be an artist or designer, what constitutes worthy art and design practice and the relevance of art and design to the world that the students inhabit. This kind of curriculum may also encompass shared beliefs between teachers and the prinicples of the school which contextualises studentship.
3 - The Null curriculum - 'What students never have the opportunity to learn'. Some schools limit the experiences of students by means of access to processes, information, or diverse thought (such as artists from diverse backgrounds. Each of these omissions represent a path that is closed to that child. These can be for a number of reasons, such as school-budget or risks involved and the understanding of the teacher of what 'good' art is. However, it is up to the teacher to make these conscious decisions about what to present to students to form their knowledge and practice of art.
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Perhaps I can use this as a conceptual framework to construct my essay? - before examining and comparing the didactic and heuristic paradigms of the lesson's deliverance and how they affected my learning?
Curriculum as story
Understanding curricula from Eisner's perspective sees art as not just one curriculum road map, but multiple curriculum journeys that intersect and entwine with one another.
As the experience of a curriculum is also dependent on the unique experience of each child, perhaps we can even understand that there is a number of 'curricula' relative to the number of students that actively participate in the lessons.
Computationalism vs Culturalism
Bruner discusses these terms as opposing approaches to proliferate effective learning.
One one hand, computationalism can be understood as the behaviouralist reinforcement of surface level learning through input, response and repetition.
On the other hand, Culturalism (also known as constructivism) contrasts to this monotony of teaching practice, as it is ‘the mode of thinking and feeling that helps children... create a version of the world in which, psychologically, they can envisage a place for themselves – a personal world’ (Bruner 1996 p.39). In this alternative system, although the learning material may be the same for all students, the meaning retrieved from them will be unique to each student.
Note: The only way to know what has been learnt from the experience is to engage in
dialogue and trace the narrative path of learning that has actually been taken
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- The job of a teacher from a cultural perspective, is to create a curriculum that enables students to create a narrative about their place in the world of art and design. - Learning then enforces their own narrative and its application justifies the child's 'deep learning'.
These two types of learning do not always clash, but together they create learning encounters that last.
Although as STs we might take a more computational approach to planning, it is always important to consider whether what you are planning will enable your students to construct anything meaningful with what you are teaching them.
'As teachers we don't teach content; we teach students.' (McConnell 2006).
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Art and Design's place in the school curriculum
The subject can feel marginalised and, to an extent, vulnerable (especially considering funding from schools) and the feeling that it is not taken seriously within education.
Atkinson (2005) claims that any 'ready-made' art curriculum is likely to be out of date before it is implemented.
A number of factors inform the Art and Design's context:
Externally set accountability measures
School curriculum model and policies
The National Curriculum
Examination syllabi
The Art and Design department’s explicit curriculum aims, schemes of work and lesson plans.
The physical space and resourcing of the department
The shared history and expertise of department members
Archives and displays of resources and student work within the department.
It might be useful to ask my placement school, how their curriculum compares to this list above.
Problem with curricular freedom
For all the freedom provided by the national curriculum, it can appear to be the case that the curriculum simply tells the same old elitist, colonial, exclusive story, in which only certain kinds of practice and certain kinds of artists are given value.
Contextualising knowledge in contemporary secondary education
In the last decade the turn to a ‘knowledge-rich’ approach to the curriculum in England, combined with a reduction in curriculum time and resources may also have contributed to a narrowing of what is taught in some schools (Wild 2022)
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Further problems with the wide scope of the National curriculum
Teachers feel that they have to cover the whole of art and design practice and history, but this is not so. In fact there may be good reasons for limiting the range of skills, and processes that you make available to your students to ensure depth as well as breadth in your student’s learning journey.
Approach 1 - Some departments specialise in enabling students to reproduce highly skilled outcomes using specific techniques and processes through well honed schemes of learning. This can serve some students well, but exclude others and leave students unprepared for taking responsibility for developing their own ideas.
Approach 2 - Other departments provide students with the experience of experimenting with a range of media and processes. This leads to a diverse range of outcomes that are driven by students themselves. Many students produce successful, meaningful work, but some may be left floundering without careful support.
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Whichever approach you decide to endorse, it is essential that you consider the ways your curriculum might.....:
- Introduce all students to artists and designers who are working class, from diverse communities etc.
- Use respectful ethical language to describe the artists that you include
- Involve the cultural insights of your students and their own families and communities
- Bring contemporary arts practice in relation to historical practice to understand how works of the past are problematised and made new by artists and designers working today.
- Give students the opportunity to develop their vocabulary so as to be able to confidently articulate their unique response to others' work and their own work in progress
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Additionally, you could further consider how your curriculum might...:
- enable students to use digital processes to record their observations of phenomena in the world to develop their ideas.
- Provides opportunities for students to engage with the world three-dimensionally through tactile work.
- Builds understanding of drawing, beyond 'copying' photographs.
A scheme of learning (often referred to as a scheme of work/ SoW) is a plan that makes concrete how a particular section of the curriculum map is translated and ordered into specific objectives, learning activities and assessment practices.
Both Thomson and Hall (2021) and Baxter (2019), identify the creative project as the beating heart of art and design education. In Key Stage 3 (KS3) the curriculum is often divided into 3-6 schemes of learning which is formed around the completion of a creative project.
The value of the creative project can be described here in this quote, which chmapions its format even within the knowledge-focussed shift within recent years.
"The organisational structure underpinning the individual creative project requires teachers to focus on: the systematic teaching of techniques; student engagement with a range of tools and materials; building understandings of the work of artists and art traditions; the use of sketchbooks; the systematic development of observation and drawing; and developing student bespoke capacity to evaluate their own and others’ work." (Thomson and Hall 2021 p.608).
Learning Goals
Creative projects are frequently constructed around a theme or a period within the history of art. However do not fall into the pitfall of choosing a theme without identifying the key learning opportunities that it affords its students or some will lose motivation or fall short.
An overarching learning goal (Overall Aim) for each lesson/ project will establish a clear description for how students can achieve the summit of the creative project.
These are some ways to conceive overarching learning goals:
1- Big Questions/ propositions - i.e. "Is all art and design just imitation?" or "Photography is the capturing of light; a camera is optional"
2- Problem Solving - Eisner suggests that learning goals be framed as a problem solving process: 'In which the criteria to be met are specified, but the form the solution is to take is not' (2002). - This encourages a design-centric and critically reflective project.
3- Affective Experiences - O'Sullivan states that art functions to change our perspectives and reawaken us to the world around us, by switching our 'Spatio-temporal register' (2001). Pallasmaa employs a similar definition of meaningful art. Affective goals employ such practices to engage the whole body in encountering and responding to the world.
When deliberating on Overarching learning goals, some objectives will be what Lindström calls 'convergent objectives' by which the end point of all students meets or converges at the same outcome. However, as OFSTED (2023) points out as the first aim on the national curriculum for A&D, the requirement of students is that they should ‘produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences’. Therefore you might want to consider ways of producing more divergent outcomes.
The encouragement towards divergent outcomes can be reflected in your planning of lessons in the following ways:
You can't write Lesson without a CURVED L:
Connect to students prior learning and interests.
Use dynamic changes of grouping, pace, pedagogy and materials to maintain your students’ interest and motivation.
Reinforce subject-specific vocabulary through modelling in paired, group and whole class discussion.
Vary the kinds of homework set.
Expand students’ perspectives beyond their own context through the subject matter chosen and conversations with them about the progress of their work.
Develop students’ technical skill through instruction.
Link to a range of contextual sources across traditions, continents and times, including contemporary practice.
What to do if you are unsure of what to plan
It is natural to feel overwhelmed, especially if you feel your subject knowledge is patchy/ struggle to identify the questions, concepts, problems or experiences that will connect with your students.
It's best to overcome this by understanding that planning is often most effective when it is done in partnership with others. _ rely on and create support groups within the course and with teachers in online communities such as NSEAD.
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Homework
Across placement schools you are likely to encounter very different approaches to homework. Some schools don't set homework at all at KS3. It's important to consider the limited access to materials students have at home. When you set homework, it is worth completing the task yourself first, so you are aware of its boundaries.
You might consider the following:
● Collecting resources to use in class. ● Researching an issue, or artist. ● Making observations on a given theme. ● Applying and practicing skills developed in lessons.
Always relate the homework task in relation to overarching objectives.
Planning a lesson
Every effective lesson plan considers/ answers the following three questions:
How will I begin the lesson in a way that sparks interest, hooks them in and communicates a clear purpose?
How can I compose the elements of the lesson to best facilitate learning?
How will I bring resolution to what students have learnt and set them up for what is to come next?
McConnell et al outline five approaches to Lesson planning: The behaviorist, constructivist, aesthetic, ecological, and integrated social-emotional.
Below we will compare the behaviourist to the aesthetic approaches:
Behaviourist Approach - marked by clear structure
1- The hook - A brief task that gathers the attention of the class and connects learning goals to previous learning
2- Objective and purpose - stated clearly and perhaps application expressed
3- Input/ direct instruction - Clarity on how to meet learning goals
4- Modelling - teacher demonstrates the use of the material, process or technique, predicting likely mistakes and suggesting ways to avoid or overcome them
5- Check for understanding - questioning students throughout modelling
6- Guided practice - with supervision, using questions to check and extend understanding
7- independent practice - students can continue their work independently, this may take place as homework
Aesthetic Approach - marked by sensory stimuli
In contrast, the aesthetic lesson does not have a distinct sequence, but rather particular qualities that seek to enliven students through their senses:
1- Connections - social/ analytical/ sensory
2- Risk-taking - The use of novelty to change students' perspective
3- Imagination - The exploration of divergent ideas and aesthetic qualities, which could be
- Intuitive - A student has an unexpected insightful understanding or outcome.
- Fanciful - A student juxtaposes surprising components
- Interactive - A student works responsively and experimentally with materials to create an
outcome.
- Mimetic - A student replicates another's work process
4- Sensory experience - the student participates in a sensory rich environment
5- Perceptivity - An absorbing sensory encounter, involving close attention to the complex aesthetic qualities of an object or environment
6- Active Engagement - Students control their own learning through physical and intellectual engagement. They make choices about how to respond to the learning and how to present their learning
Pirate Pedagogy
In the gaps between the three types of curricula as detailed above 'Explicit, implicit and null' resides the pirate pedagogy.
Called piracy as - pirates occupied anomalous spaces, exist only temporarily and they were self determining, establishing their own rules of engagement for the duration of their existence.
Within a school context, 'seeks out and creates spaces that exist alongside and outside of the ‘official’ explicit curriculum, and introduces temporary initiatives that may operate with different values and expectations to the learning objectives set by the explicit curriculum.' (Wild 2011)
This may include:
introducing novel/out-of-place objects to the classroom space, adapting schemes of learning to embrace more diverse types of art or creating projects to be completed outside of the classroom. It may even simply involve rearranging the classroom or paying attention to the displays on the wall. It can make a bigger impact through temporarily interrupting the routines and spaces of the classroom and lend itself to affective, aesthetic ways of learning.
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