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Research Questions
- How to use Constructivism in making art education effective?
- What is the relevance of technology in using Constructivism while teaching art to adult students?
- What are the advantages of using Information Technology in teaching art?
- Using information technology and Constructivism together, would it make the traditional methods of teaching art defunct?
- Should Constructivism be used along with technology in teaching art education, especially in a country like Saudi Arabia?
Constructivism is a teaching and learning philosophy which states that humans acquire knowledge from their experiences. Using constructivist as a tool in education helps the students to develop and explore their views and ideas.
Education Technology
The educational technology needs to be developed which impacts both teaching and learning process. Educational technology is project based learning. Technologies are used as productivity tools to distribute knowledge among the teachers, lecturers and instructors. The usage of technology doesn’t give quality education, the concept of how technology is being used is important when compared to whether it is used or not. The involvement of students in the class rooms helps them to interpret the world in which they are living.
Few authors proposed a model called “Learning for Use” in order to encourage the students in developing useful knowledge at the same time to train the instructors in designing of learning activities that are easily understandable. Computer applications and software helps the students to develop skills and help them to respond to their problems.
A curriculum unit is developed based on the principles of constructivist learning model for measurement and evaluation in health and physical education. Curriculum unit is a unit study which consists of set of courses or plan of study. This consists of 3 phases: 1. Planning and Preparation 2. Tasks and Action 3. Presentation of results.
Constructivist Teaching:
Constructivist teaching helps in motivating students and developing them into independent learners. It is characterized by active participation of students in the classroom.
The main characteristics of the constructivist teaching are: learners are actively involved, the teaching offers a democratic environment, all activities are interactive and student centered, and lastly, the students are encouraged to be responsible and autonomous. These main characteristics of constructivist teaching are important because it allows for critical thinking to occur amongst the students and motivates them to become independent learners.
In constructivist learning the three major roles of the teacher to support the students are: Modelling, Coaching, and Scaffolding. A number of studies compared teacher centered approach and constructivist approach. Foley found that a teacher centered approach is a control group in which the views and ideas of the students are neglected whereas constructivist approach is an experimental approach.
Brooks and Brooks suggested four principles on constructivist teaching. They are: posing problems relevant to students, structuring concepts from a whole to part, giving value to the views of students, and assessing student learning context.
The knowledge gained by the student can be tested by putting questions about the discussed topic. Other methods include taking class field trips and doing research projects. The method that seems most important is class discussion, that allows the student to gain perspectives from their peers.
Constructivist teaching provides elaborative processing of material as the participants are asked to participate in the discussion. The views of the participants are taken into consideration by discussing amongst others and allowing the views to evolve.
In teacher centered teaching more material is covered in less time but students may not recollect all the material that is taught whereas in the constructivist teaching participants can easily recollect the material taught as they are involved in the topic discussion.
The Constructivist Learning Environment
The constructivist learning environment along with computer technologies will be a useful method for the students. By using the computer technology, the students can develop knowledge by observing the real world experience. Using the internet facility students can gather the information research for the tasks and construct their knowledge. Computer technology enhanced the learning process. In constructivism learning is the result of reflections, interactions, and experience (Drew, 1996).
The different approaches of teaching and learning have their advantages and disadvantages, the teachers need to be aware of the method they are choosing and the consequences that result out. Approaches may be different, but the way of learning should be a structured learning which results in better outcomes.
In constructivist teaching, computer plays an important role as a traditional education system is developed into a system based education. Computers are widely used for professional support which is well experienced with computer usage.
“Student’s opinion forum” is used as a data collection tool where the feedback and the opinions of the students are collected regarding computer technologies in a constructivist learning environment. Based on the feedback, an analysis is carried out to know the importance of the computer technologies. Teachers need to be trained to garner the skills on the internet environment so they can dispense those skills on the students so they can perform research in the internet. In order to make the students better understand the subject, instructive programs and information sharing areas need to be increased and developed.
Most of the teachers use computers as a support for education practice few of them consider it as a supporting and teaching tool. Teachers are more inclined to use technology to support their educational practices. They act as change agents to the technology. The usage of technology by teachers is affected by many factors these factors may arise from an external environment or internal environment. Both the external and internal conditions effects the technology use in class rooms. Although there is an improvement in the environmental conditions in terms of technological infrastructure but teacher’s beliefs need to be resolved. Teachers use technology in different ways, one way is to attain the same traditional goals under same conditions without any changes to the classroom activities, and second is to expand classroom boundaries and connect students to the real world events and guide them to become independent learners.
Role of Teachers with technology
Pierce's article named Valdez as presenting another model of three stages. They are namely: automation, expansion, and data driven virtual learning.
These three stages define the way the teachers structure instructions and engagement of students in problem based learning, when teachers become comfortable with the technology, they can integrate it more effectively. The principles of effective teaching are not changed by the presence or absence of the technology.
Many researchers focused on measures of computer attitudes and experience, it was found that computer experience is positively related to the computer attitude. An individual who has more experience with a computer will have more favorable attitude towards the computer and other technology. Researchers began to develop the instruments to measure the effectiveness of the presence of the computer in education since the importance of computers in education is shifting from information towards communicating tasks.
Innovation
As technology is changing, there is a place for innovation in many business organizations. Innovation is nothing but willingness to change and adapting new ideas--a new methodology. Technological innovativeness is a measure that is used to assess the individual attitude towards the need to introduce the technology in education.
Many variables are needed to be considered for explaining the adoption of computers in the education. Organizational factors like time constraints, resources, team work, and training need to be identified along with the personal factors. When all the personal factors are taken into consideration technological innovativeness is the strongest predictor of class use of computers.
There are two types of computer use, the supportive computer use, and class use. Supportive computer use is affected by general computer attitudes whereas class use computer is affected by technological innovativeness and attitude towards computer in education. Constructivism is sometimes seen as a learning theory rather than a description of teaching while others see constructivism as a new idea of education and educational technology (Waleed, 2011).
Constructivist Practice Approach
Most of the constructivists believe that the knowledge is constructed by an individual rather than transmitted to an individual. Instructional technology was developed to meet the needs of the classrooms, teachers and students. Constructivist instructional approach is more learners centered and interactive by understanding relationships and invention.
Walker (2007) says that one’s views of knowledge are correlated with one’s views of instruction. He suggested that if knowledge is to be transmitted then instruction is a product that needs to be delivered. Constructivist learning is compared with other type of model called Transmissionist model of learning (Waleed, 2011). In this model, teachers are considered as the source of the knowledge and the students as the recipients of the knowledge. Transmissionist model highlights the process of learning by receiving information, the main function of the teacher is to source for knowledge and transmit it to the students. Teachers should consider whether students can understand the knowledge that is provided by the technology or not and if the students cannot, they should acknowledge the needs of their students and tailor the lesson to fit the needs while still integrating technology (Waleed, 2011).
Constructivist teaching is correlated with constructivist use of technology that is correlated with the traditional use of technology. If constructivist use of technology is sanctioned, then teachers need to be guided with the principles of the constructivist use of technology. Technology acts a catalyst for transforming teacher’s instructional teaching into constructivist way of teaching. The relationship between the technology and the constructivist practice is complex.
Hawkridge, Laworske, and McMahon identified four main reasons for using technology in schools.Social: Students should know how to use technology, Vocational: students need to learn technology, Pedagogic: Students can learn better from a computer, and Computers can be a catalyst for systematic change in education.
Constructivist Learning Environment
Walker (2007) defined constructivist learning environment as a platform where many individuals work together and support each other by using tools and information through technology for achieving goals and problem-solving activities. The students work together to determine their learning goals and monitor their progress. On the other hand, Hau (2006) believed that constructivist learning environments are designed to provide the learners with meaningful and interesting problems to solve. He proposed five components that need to be incorporated while designing constructivist learning environment. They are, Conception of the problem: First a problem needs to be formulated, Interpretation: students need to interpret solutions to the problem, Information sources to support the understanding of the problem, Cognitive tools: learners interpret the aspects of the problem through the World Wide Web as a cognitive tool, and Conversation and collaboration tools: Students need a platform to share and exchange their ideas to form a community and solve the problems collaboratively and foster the communities of learners.
Constructivism in Multimedia approach Education
Constructivist learning environment helps students with the experience of problem solving, creative skills, communication, and creativity skills. Infusion of multimedia technology into the education lead to the development of new concepts, innovative teaching and mostly changed the way teachers teach and the way students learn. It mainly focuses on learning rather than on instructions and teaching.
Multimedia technology mostly affected the student’s motivation and self-esteem levels and made them creative and self-directed thinkers. The students became active learners by this method. Multimedia learning environment helped students to experience a constructivist based approach in active participation and construction of their knowledge.
Worldwide research revealed that using constructivism and multimedia technology in education became important to promote and enhance the teaching and learning process.
Constructivism in Art Education
Constructivism in art education mainly focuses on how people interpret information and how they create knowledge from observances and interactions. According to the educational theorist Heidi Mays, in Bain (2006), the main idea of the constructivism is to allow the teachers and the students to be involved in a lateral hierarchy. In art education, the teaching process needs to be more practical approach than the theoretical application.
Art work influence the individuals in our visual culture by two ways. They are by content and by manner, it was created. Social issues are researched and considered through art to adapt as a form for advertising. The experiences of the students are essential whether it be a social, emotional, cognitive as a part of the learning process.
Art education should allow the relations to ideas outside the world of fine art so that information can transfer across academic disciplines. This helps students to practically apply skills they learnt to everyday life. Teachers are suggested to choose singular artist and work from where big ideas form (Leithwood, 2003).
Encouraging students to become involved in reading the paintings helps them to understand an artwork about personal identification rather than surface outlook. Art education has a history of child centered thinking. In an art room, an environment needs to be created where children are encouraged through verbal and visual explorations to relate artists work to their world of art. Teachers also need to be prepared for strong organizational collaboration with interdisciplinary teams. An art teacher needs to know how to work cooperatively and how to make connections between art and other disciplines. It is necessary for a teacher to become a researcher to find the best media and (Waleed, 2011) appropriate activities to satisfy the objectives within the conceptual unit. Art educators need to have a content data base to make choices.
Constructivist in Art Education Technology
The level of education we are referring to in the present case is the college level of education. The students at the college level of education have certain amount of knowledge and experience base with them already. This will help in the use of constructivist technology that can be aligned with the principles of Malcolm Knowles. Experiential and constructivist learning are self-directed and the learning is on a different sphere. The learning is far more permanent. When it is clubbed with using technology in Art education like drawing and painting many of the digital technologies and tools are used. Some of the professional tools like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw and others. There are so many software that can do master rendering and painting.
What really happens is that the ability to express, capture emotions and art forms becomes much faster and rapid. This allows students to experiment freely and explore things unlike in the conventional sense of art with colors, pastels, drawing sheets and boars. Another angle that can develop is that these students, is that they can even create newer tools for art and drawing. Apps like Photofunia, Cinemagraph, Picture Sketch Camera can also be developed and deployed getting art closer to commoners. These tools mentioned above are all tools contributed by art students.
Graphic design is a very important offshoot of the digital computing era. What used to be painstakingly done with little or no possibility of change in the earlier age is now possible with a click of a button and has become important part of commercial and non-commercial art. Constructivism is a tool for teaching graphic design. The creative ability and the knowledge of IT tools allows students to experiment widely even in this area. As the adage goes, mind is the limit using digital tools in doing graphic design. Teachers in the universities in advanced countries are using the constructivism aided with computer technology to effectively teach Graphic Design. The learner are going beyond the classroom in using technology to constantly experiment their on their work and in conquering newer frontiers.
The approach to education is different in the developed countries and developing countries. In a specific comparison between Art Education in Saudi Arabia and United States, there are many start differences that are glaring. In the United States there is a lot difference to the methods and tools used. In the United States there is an intense reliance on use of technology especially digital technology in teaching Art and its various branches including graphic design. The teachers encourage the learners to explore and rely on their own creativity to come up with designs and art forms. This gives a great latitude to the learners and allows them to mature faster. While the digital tools are just one aspect of the art education the limit again as said earlier is the learner’s creativity. While in Saudi Arabia, there is no dearth of creative talent the reliance on digital technology is much less and still older conventional practices are being relied on. This approach allows lesser experimentation on part of the learner. The teachers tend to be far more mature and measuring up to the teachers will take a much longer time unlike in the United States where, due to the experimentation, they tend to learn and mature in the subject much faster (Bull, 2006).
Benefits and Disadvantages of Constructivism in Art Education Technology:
Constructivist teaching replaced the traditional way of teaching where students use to sit and write what teacher taught in the class room, instead constructivist teaching brought the ideas of the students together so that they are capable of solving their problems by considering their own experiences. The students need to be encouraged to carry out the challenging ideas (Campbell, 2010).
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of constructivism is the lack of structure where few students require a highly structured environment. Some students simply copy what others are doing, so they fall back learning process (Meryem Nur Aydede, 2010). As there is no proper grading and evaluating system, teachers cannot personally know the problems faced by the students and improvements to be made. Students need more structure and evaluation system to succeed in the learning process.
Advantages
The main advantage of constructivism is the computer integrated learning process. With the use of technology, students are given a multitude of sources to use when researching and working on projects. The addition of expansive discussions in the classroom also allows the student's perspective to evolve with the discussion and possible garner a new perspective than what was originally thought out.
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