Tussle with a Research Question
Figuring out a better way to teach.
I have chosen to continue my research into the ability of digital practices and tools to bolster students' feelings of success in the creative process. I am in my third year of teaching and I have had the liberty to sculpt the curriculum for my second-tier digital art classes. With no real focus to the curriculum (other than more digital art) that was in place, and in the notion of improving student engagement and experience, I moved the class towards a focus on character design and storytelling. My students are extremely interested in the art that they see around them involving characters in movies, video games, and comics and show an enthusiasm for the course. However, despite the eagerness to be successful in digital character design, the students I have encountered overwhelming express a perceived lack of ability in artistic skill and ultimately succumb to that perception, causing their effort and participation to trail off. This is the problem that led me to explore better ways to give students the tools and processes to accomplish their goals in the class.
The courses I have taken in this Masters of Art in Education, especially Universal Design for Learning (UDL) have impacted my research as well as my teaching, including that of the course in this research subject. I am eager to analyze my data and see if employed teaching practices based upon UDL and removing barriers has impacted student artists’ feelings of success. The whole point, of course, is to become a better educator and support student learning through employing more effective teaching strategies. By simplifying some of the digital processes, providing different avenues for learning and creating characters, and better defining the framework necessary for success I am removing barriers to learning that I was not addressing previously in my teaching. Additionally, having previously researched this subject in my Art Education Research Studies class, studies indicate that an integrated and balanced art curriculum that includes [digital] art as a complement to traditional media is the most effective way for introducing [digital] art, (Wang 2018). Thus, I have sought a more balanced teaching practice, utilizing sketchbooks and the creation of idea boards with more weight to assignments, which appears to be having a positive effect.
My Research question is:
In what ways does technology improve students’ feelings of success in the visual arts? Is it possible to employ processes and technology to raise students’ feelings of success in the visual arts?
From my previous research I have uncovered three themes that I feel are relevant to understanding student relationship with digital art:
Bolstering Creativity Utilizing Digital Methods
Does Digital Interaction bolster creativity in artistic endeavors?
Digital vs Traditional
What do Comparative studies of Digital art making to traditional methods reveal?
Permissions in Art Making
Seek to understand how students make creative decisions especially as it relates to the use of digital media
I will use a combination of Action Research and Art-Based Research (ABR) to pursue this inquiry. Using observation of digital drawing, questionnaires, drawing/journaling and artistic artifacts I will seek data and evidence of students and their feelings of success in their utilization of digital medias in artistic endeavors. Action Research allows the researcher to involve the students being observed and puts them in the role of co-researchers, putting them in better position to express results and data on the subject being studied. It seeks to improve practices in teaching and can draw upon previous data from the classes to identify patterns. ABR analyzes processes used to create, and the artifacts created in art-making as data to understand and improve upon those processes. ABR causes researchers to “carve” new research tools and ways to see rather than to discover them (Leavy, 2015).
Methodology A: Art-Based Action Research
Can introducing a varied set of techniques based in technology (hardware and software) help students to feel higher rates of success in the visual arts?
Collect Data: create and employ digital techniques in the creation of character design and allow students to choose what works best for them to create
Photoshop, Illustrator and Wacom tablet procedures
Group led sketching practice on digital media
Informal group critique sessions
Sketchbook/journals looking for evidence of work
Recording processes
Giving equal weight to the process and the product
Collecting art artifacts as evidence
Student exit assignment reflections: Questionnaires on successful practices and processes
What made this successful or unsuccessful and why?
What role did the technology play in that success?
Interpret & Analyze: Distill data to look for evidence of patterns of failure or feelings of unsuccessfulness
Implement change: Reroute lesson plans and practices to focus on methods that reflect success and avoid practices that lead to sense of failure or are wasted movements
Reflect: Does the teacher and the student feel that they are involved in a quality class that is representative of a second-tier digital art course that is meeting state requirements and the needs of the students’ creative outlets.
Considerations:
Proper institutional considerations for ethical responsibility
Reinforcement of student choice is key to
Constant attention to the relationship between student and teacher is necessary to avoid any power issues and corrupting of the data.
This research plan will be implemented over the course of the fall semester in my Digital Art II: Character Design and Storytelling. I am currently in the process of collecting artifacts and allowing students to complete exit tickets on assignments, engaging how they feel about their artistic progression and what they feel best supported their practices on each lesson. I have reflected upon my past performances teaching the class, and adjusted the weight of the projects to reflect a 50/50 spread of digital to traditional. I also continue to implement the Artist of the Week assignment to expose students to current practicing careers in the arts. I will still need to produce a collection of artistic artifacts of final illustrations and sketching data to analyze. I have limited my focus on research articles to the most recent...hoping to encompass the current state of education as affected by the pandemic. The following are some annotated articles that I am utilizing for my research:
Wang, T. W. (2018). Empowering Art Teaching and Learning With iPads. Art Education, 71(3), 51–55. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1080/00043125.2018.1436353
Since the launch of the iPad in 2010, the author of the study cites multiple studies toting the benefits of the device as a multimedia learning tool. Coupled with multiple available art programs, it can be a powerful digital art tool. She explores strengths and weaknesses of the tool in art education through interviews with 15 art educators in k-8 schools.
The versatility of apps and medias that react to pressure and sensitivity help to mimic the fluidity and reactions of media. Use of layers and transparency in multiple uses helps to problem solve and increase trial and error learning. The interface is so user friendly, it expedites the experience of art making while keeping art educators current and proactive to recent technologies.
“Also because of iPads’ mobility, easy access to the
system, touch screen, variety of resources and Applications, and
the feature of forgiveness that allows trial and error, they offered
ideal platforms to learn digital art (Wang, 2015)
Not only did this allow versatility, but students also created co-learning and co-teaching environments along with the teachers. This allows struggling students to utilize the entire class to catch up and carry out tasks.
rather than solely depending on the teacher’s
help, students themselves would support each other with trouble
shooting, thus creating collaborative teamwork (Wang 2018).
Some downfalls to the device as a learning tool included the overwhelming amount of programs currently available to the iPad platform. Teaching with a software requires teachers to be familiar with the product. Classroom management, especially for younger students is also a huge hurdle as they try to keep students on task.
There is also the idea that digital art somehow devalues traditional methods. This pertains to my research directly.
An integrated and balanced art curriculum that includes
iPad art as a complement to traditional media is the most effective
way for introducing iPad art, they said. iPad art can be the final
product, or it can be just part of meaningful artmaking processes (Wang 2018).
Meeken, L. (2020). System Error: Versatility and Facility as Empowering Values for the Digital Arts Classroom. Art Education, 73(3), 22–28. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1080/00043125.2020.1717816
This article, written by an actual high school digital arts instructor, discussed the ways that teachers and students can fail at enabling the learning environment for successful art-making and creativity. Cycles of self-blame for designed and complicated devices and software are common place and need to be addressed so students stop internalizing barriers as a fault of their own.
“Students have blamed themselves for "breaking the computer" or even "making the computer mad"
Putting the idea of being a programmer or coder into the student’s control, allows for the software to be the moveable item, rather than the student. One size fits all programs should not be acceptable for learning and we must seek ways to empower students.
Smith, T. J. (2020). Critically Reframing Post-Internet Art Toward the Future of Art Education Curriculum. Art Education, 73(3), 38–44. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1080/00043125.2020.1717821
This article, by a former teacher, the author expresses the need to lean in and embrace modern modes of art making and art sharing to better understand our students and tap into the resource rather than oppose it.
“As art educators, we must be conscious to avoid positioning art and technology only as a utility or as another artistic medium.”
Giving the artist media a voice, as well as the art, better positions the student to embrace the context, allowing for digital medias to have more impact and relevance. This is current and timely topic for my research.
References
Leavy, P. (2015). Method Meets Art, Second Edition: Arts-Based Research Practice: Vol. 2nd ed. The Guilford Press.