Building Teacher Capacity to Work With Artists and Gallery Spaces

• In Event: 65.042 - Arts partnerships and innovative projects to promote cultural awareness in education

Abstract

The National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne Now exhibition was designed to showcase over 300 artists, architects, designers and creative practitioners to reflect the complex cultural landscape of the city Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Education programs that paralleled this exhibition included education festivals that supported teachers in their professional learning. A three-day professional learning program was designed that invited primary and secondary school teachers to work together in partnership with curators, artists, and gallery educators to explore contemporary art. This paper will focus on the teachers involved in this professional development and how they integrated the skills, ideas and concepts connected to contemporary art and Melbourne Now beyond the professional development to engage with young people.

This paper shares case studies that identify effect, sustainability and impact of integrating the arts into the school classrooms with young people. Specifically the narratives uncover the visions, tensions, challenges and celebrations for the teacher (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) upon undertaking gallery-based professional development. Data collected included a pre professional development survey, observation of professional learning, artifacts produced by the teacher in their integration of contemporary art inspired by the Melbourne Now exhibition, and interviews undertaken 6 month post integration of working in partnership with gallery educators, artists, and curators. Focus on the impact of the professional development on four teachers whom six months post working with the gallery share the impact on their pedagogical decisions and the students they work with is presented. The interviews were analysed using a narrative approach to keep the text as an entirety for meaning and authenticity guided by Bamford and Glinkowski’s (2010) Effect and Impact Tracking Matrix (EITM) to reveal nine domains of impact. This construct assists in identifying a number of domains (personal, social, cultural, educational, ethical, economic, innovation, catalytic, and negative loss) that have been identified through international research in arts education that are consistently associated with high levels of impact.

The arts in education are not only about the students, but also the educators who advocate and provide the opportunities (Lemon, et al., 2014). Without networking, collaborations and partnerships that support professional development, the fostering of ongoing learning for the educators becomes an issue. The cases shared give insight into how a community of learners over the three days was formed that supported capacity to initiate curriculum innovations to impact young people’s engagement with cultural meaning making. Significance is explored in how teachers’ working in partnership with artists, curators and gallery educators’ can enhance cultural, social and emotional awareness and the gaining of different perspectives. Little research exists that looks at the impact of teacher capacity to develop skills and build self-efficacy from targeted professional developed specifically attached to an exhibition over time. Through this study insights are gained in understanding the effect and impact of teacher confidence to engage with contemporary art from curriculum perspectives, valuing cultural organisation engagement, and understanding the needs of teachers professional development and how to utilise the gallery space, artists and gallery educators to extend understanding of cultural awareness.

Author

• Narelle Suzanne Lemon, La Trobe University