Teaching for Inquiry and Creative Thinking: Daring to Be A/R/Tography

• In Event: 47.098 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Eight - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 47.098-1 - Culture, Identity, and Reflective Artistic Practice in Education

Abstract

The purpose of this inquiry is to explore how the a/r/tographic model of shared inquiry led to deeper insights about learner-centered pedagogy. Invited to teach and redesign a very large undergraduate “Art and Society: Visual Arts” course, the researcher’s commitment as a constructivist teacher led to a more active, non-lecture, art-as-experience approach. The author also sought to understand how learner-centered practices enhance students’ balanced thinking and perceptions about their abilities as creative learners. Arts-based methods of inquiry highlighted students’ and researcher’s lived experiences, informed praxis, and resulted in new art forms. The author’s Mixed Parallaxic Praxis method emerged from this study. Key findings indicate students’ increased openness, engagement, creative and critical thinking, and a personal desire/thirst and confidence as artists.

Author

• Delane Ingalls Vanada, University of Florida & Boston University