Everything Into One Place: Beginning Teachers and the K-12 Art Room Taskscape

Abstract

Art rooms are dynamic and multifaceted, determined by our everyday engagement with them. K-12 art rooms are also an underemphasized element in beginning art teacher pedagogy. Drawing on qualitative research using ethnographic maps of place as an elicitation tool during interviews, I discuss the importance of understanding the art room as a taskscape, a place of pedagogy. I present the experiences of four beginning K-12 art teachers in the United States as they detect and make sense of this taskscape. I argue that beginning art teachers approach the art room as a dynamic taskscape, one in which they attempt to layer various studio engagements into one place. I discuss possibilities for support of learning and engagement with the taskscape; I advocate for support of beginning art teachers in their efforts to think actively about art rooms as a place of pedagogy; and I consider next steps in research.

Notes

¹ In this article, I adopt teacher induction researcher Sharon Feiman-Nemser’s (2010) use of the term “beginning teacher” to denote newly certified teachers during their first three years of teaching in a school after their “preservice” training in a teacher education program.

² This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of The Pennsylvania State University. All participants in this study selected a pseudonym for use in the reporting of this research.