Enacting the signature pedagogies of arts education in the online learning environment for primary teacher education

ABSTRACT

In Australia, where initial teacher education is offered both on-campus and in a fully online mode, future primary-school generalist teachers study teaching across the school curriculum. This includes the arts curriculum where opportunities for future teachers to engage in authentic arts learning themselves are generally seen as essential for developing their arts teaching capabilities. However, a number of university educators have reservations about being able to do this effectively in the online environment because of the practical, experiential, and performative nature of arts learning. This study reviews the learning design of two compulsory arts education units in a fully online Bachelor of Education (Primary). It uses the “signature pedagogies” conceptualisation of the distinctive, durable, and pervasive pedagogical features of a discipline and explores whether arts education’s signature pedagogies can be sustained in the online environment. Using qualitative content analysis methodology, the study shows that the learning design preserves arts education’s signature pedagogies in the online context, though the expression of these is re-imagined for this learning environment. Augmented by survey data from students’ unit evaluations, the study shows that online teacher education can offer meaningful arts learning in units designed for future primary-school teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Online arts education
• online teacher education
• arts education’s signature pedagogies
• primary school arts teaching

Introduction

In Australia, fully online initial teacher education (ITE) courses have been available for over a decade. By 2015, 25% of ITE students were studying in the online mode (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2018), and this percentage has continued to grow. Australian research has revealed how the provision of online teacher education addresses a number of equity and social justice issues associated with access to higher education (Pelliccione et al., 2019) and also supports the staffing of hard-to-staff schools (AITSL, 2018). Research also shows no distinguishable difference between the classroom-readiness of online and on-campus cohorts of ITE graduates (Pelliccione et al., 2019); however, some teacher-educators have reservations about the merits of offering teacher education courses in the fully online mode. An identifiable group (Dyment & Downing, 2020) comprises educators who teach in disciplines, such as the arts, that have experiential, embodied, and collaborative learning at their core. In these practice-orientated disciplines, skills, and meaning-making come “not before or after but within the practice of making” (Gauntlett, 2011, p. 25). The expressed concerns of this group of teacher-educators relate to sustaining the experiential and social pedagogical practices central to learning and teaching in their discipline.

Shulman (2005) observes that disciplines have distinctive, durable, and pervasive pedagogical practices, which he calls “signature pedagogies.” He characterises signature pedagogies as having surface, deep, and implicit structures: the visible teaching routines; underlying assumptions about the best way to develop students’ discipline knowledge, skills, and capabilities; and implied beliefs about what constitutes being a professional in the discipline area. Shulman (2005) posits that through these signature pedagogies, university educators across institutions inculcate their students into the profession by developing students’ dispositions “to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (p. 52) in the discipline.

Given the continued growth of online learning and reservations about teaching arts education online, this study seeks to ascertain whether arts education’s signature pedagogies can be sustained in the online teaching environment. Using qualitative content analysis methodology, it reviews the learning design of two compulsory arts education units offered by an Australian university in an online Bachelor of Education (Primary) course. This analysis is supplemented by secondary data from unit evaluations completed by students over 3 years to answer the following research question: Can the essential nature of arts teaching and learning be sustained in online arts education units designed for pre-service primary-school teachers?

Background

In Australia, primary-school teachers are generalist teachers and therefore require content knowledge across the breadth of the school curriculum. The Arts is one of the eight learning areas in the Australian Curriculum, and it is mandated that all primary-school children have learning experiences across the five arts subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music, and Visual Arts. Therefore, initial teacher education courses for generalist primary-school teachers include unit/s about arts education.

Arts learning experiences

Most pre-service primary-school teachers have minimal experience of the arts (Alter et al., 2009), so it is seen as critical that arts education units include opportunities for future teachers to gain first-hand experience of authentic arts learning (Alter et al., 2009; Cutcher & Cook, 2016; Pavlou, 2021). Consequently, units are generally designed to develop students’ arts capabilities and content knowledge, along with understandings about curriculum and teaching practices. By experiencing “what it is to make art as artists in the first instance” (Cutcher & Cook, 2016, p. 3), it is intended that pre-service teachers develop their understanding of the nature of arts learning and hence the aims of arts education.

Incorporating first-hand embodied, practical, and collaborative learning practices that characterise arts learning is easily achieved in on-campus classes but has been considered more challenging in the virtual, dispersed, and largely asynchronous online learning environment. Limited technological attention to the learning design needs of online arts education and modest professional learning support offered to university arts educators transitioning to online education (Barton et al., 2013; Cutcher & Cook, 2016) has exacerbated the situation. These circumstances have contributed to the view, held by a number of university arts educators that online education is inferior (Baker et al., 2016; Burke, 2021).

Signature pedagogies

Shulman’s (2005) concept of signature pedagogies is founded on the observation that in each discipline there is a distinctive and widely agreed understanding about how meaningful learning manifests in that discipline. Hence, “What it means to think, create, demonstrate, know, and evaluate in the biology classroom is different from the meaning of these activities in the creative writing classroom” (Chick et al., 2009, p. 3). Importantly, signature pedagogies are more than recognisable teaching procedures, such as laboratory experiments for science students, and teaching practicums for pre-service teachers. Rather, signature pedagogies are the sum of beliefs, values, and actions that shape the way students in the discipline – across programmes and institutions – are educated into the profession. Therefore, signature pedagogies “implicitly define what counts as knowledge in a field and how things become known. They define how knowledge is analysed, criticized, accepted, or discarded. They define the functions of expertise in a field” (Shulman, 2005, p. 54).

Importantly, the identification of signature pedagogies creates a pedagogical language that supports discourse about what constitutes learning in the discipline, and how best to facilitate that learning. Teaching practices can be examined and evaluated to determine if they achieve intended learning goals. For example, when Tytler and Hubber (2010) examined the relationship between the intended goals of secondary science education and science teaching practices, they observed a misalignment with too much focus on knowledge assimilation and not enough on scientific practices and values. Articulating signature pedagogies can also help explain the necessity of certain learning provisions such as purpose-built laboratories and studios (Shreeve et al., 2010). In the case of online learning, examining the signature pedagogies of a discipline can facilitate the adoption of the type of online teaching practices that sustain them.

The research about signature pedagogies in the arts is limited and generally relates to specific arts subjects such as visual arts (Cohen, 2013), dance (Kearns, 2017), or music (Love & Barrett, 2019). Never-the-less, across this research, there are consistent pedagogical themes, including the centrality of learning through “making” or practice (Chamorro-Koc & Kumarasuriyar, 2020; Sims & Shreeve, 2012); the pedagogical routine of critical review and reflection (Hastings, 2017; Klebesadel & Kornetsky, 2009); and the principle of students having agency as creators who function in a community of practice that sits within a social and cultural milieu (Shreeve et al., 2010; Thomson et al., 2012). In one case, where the arts are viewed collectively (Dinham, 2022), the signature pedagogies are contextualised by the learning expectations expressed in the Australian Curriculum (see Table 1). Given the purpose of arts curriculum units in ITE courses is to prepare generalist primary-school teachers to teach the five arts subjects in the Australian Curriculum, this model of arts education’s signature pedagogies offers a framework for examining whether online arts education can sustain the signature pedagogies of arts learning in order to prepare future primary-school teachers to teach the arts curriculum.

Table 1. Signature pedagogies of arts education through the lens of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (Dinham, 2022, p. 20).

1.	An artistic inquiry approach to meaning-making that actively promotes the significance of students’ own experiences, ideas, interpretations, and imaginative inventions.
2.	Open-ended learning experiences that promote students’ agency in the processes of creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, critical reflection, and creation.
3.	Individual and collaborative arts-making experiences designed to develop students:’ arts literacy and craft; and communication of ideas in an arts’ medium, to an audience, through display, media screening, and/or performance.
4.	Ethical engagement with the diverse worlds of artistic expressions, traditions, and practices to situate students’ creative practices within socio-cultural contexts.
5.	Dialogic processes that support students’ creative practices through reflection and critical review of arts-making experiences, expressions, traditions, motivations, and contexts.
6.	The educator engaging with students as a co-constructor or facilitator of learning, to develop students’ independence as creative practitioners in communities of practice.

The study

This study is of two compulsory arts education units in a Bachelor of Education for primary teaching offered in the fully online mode. The units were designed by the researcher, reviewed through course review and accreditation processes, and taught by a number of university-educators. The study was approved by Curtin University’s Human Research Ethics Office (HRE2023–0695).

The online context for the study

The learning design of an online course is shaped by a range of educational, demographic, and technological factors. In this case, the course is available across Australia and draws students from three time zones (four in summer); the majority of students are mature-aged with family and work commitments (Pelliccione et al., 2019); they are geographically dispersed across urban, regional, and remote locations and have varied access to reliable internet, community resources such as art galleries, and options for purchasing art materials. This combination of factors constrains the types of learning experiences that can be functionally effective. For example, synchronous online meetings of the group are difficult to orchestrate.

Student enrolment is self-paced within the formal constraints of the course. Whereas the typical experience for on-campus students is to progress through the course in the full-time mode, attending a two-hour class at a set time each week with the same familiar group of students, this is not the case for online students. Instead, the composition of students in each online unit is unique, and each student’s study time is self-determined. This means that the formation of study and social bonds is more individualised and fragmented, which makes organising and engaging in group work an additional challenge for these students – and has to be factored into the learning design.

While the range and sophistication of online educational tools continue to improve, the demographics of the student cohort mean that a number of students are “novice adult learners” (Yoo & Huang, 2013, p. 160) who are likely to have limited experience working with the digital technology used in education. In designing the units, a balance has to be struck to ensure students have the benefits of sophisticated learning tools and digital presentation formats, but at the same time, are not overwhelmed by having to learn and navigate a broad range of digital resources. Additionally, the poor quality of some students’ internet connections has to be considered, since this can make it difficult for students to participate in specific online activities or to submit large data files, such as videos, for assessment.

As part of an accredited four-year course, the arts education units in this study have set start, end, and assessment dates, and are presented as 13 topics – equivalent to the 13 weeks the unit runs. They conform to the expectation that all the learning resources and assessment tasks that shape the learning pathway for the unit are available on the University’s online Learning Management System, known as Blackboard, from the start, with interactions overlaid as the unit progresses. The first unit covers the arts subjects of Dance, Drama, and Music and addresses foundational concepts about arts education. The second unit covers the remaining two arts subjects, Visual Arts and Media Arts, and explicitly addresses curriculum programming and teaching.

Methodology

The study was a directed content analysis (DCA) whereby textual data were analysed deductively using an existing framework (Bingham & Witkowsky, 2022; Patton, 2002). As a form of qualitative content analysis methodology, DCA is recommended when the aim is to extend an existing theory or framework into a new context (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).

In this case, arts education’s signature pedagogies (Dinham, 2022) were examined in the context of online learning.

The data were drawn from textual information on the arts education units’ Blackboard sites where the learning instruction and resources were presented in detail. Since the signature pedagogies used in the categorisation matrix represented high levels of abstraction, Assarroudi et al. (2018) recommended comprehensive 16-step data analysis method was adopted to ensure reliability and transparency. In broad summary, these data analysis steps are organised into three phases: the Preparation phase (steps 1–7) that involves deciding on sampling and analysis strategies, assembling data, being immersed in the data, and deciding on the units of analysis; the Organisation phase (steps 8–15) that involves developing the formative categorisation matrix, theoretically defining the main categories and subcategories, determining coding rules, pre-testing the categorisation matrix, choosing anchor samples, performing the main analysis, inductive abstraction of main categories from preliminary codes, and establishing links between generic and main categories; and the Reporting phase that includes the steps of the process and findings (step 16).

For this study, DCA functioned to ascertain whether arts education’s signature pedagogies were evident in the learning design of the two online arts education units, where the stated learning outcomes included building understandings about the arts as meaning-making and cultural enterprises, and developing arts literacy through personal engagement in arts making and responding activities. Additionally, reports generated from the routine, online, and voluntary student evaluation surveys across 3 years were reviewed to gain a degree of insight into students’ reception of the online arts learning experience and signature pedagogies in action. The evaluation instrument for these surveys, which gathers quantitative and qualitative data, has been used at the University for over a decade and provides a consistent secondary data source.

Data collection

The content analysis began with an immersion in the data to establish the character of the units’ learning design. This process revealed that in the first unit, students were engaged in personal arts learning experiences in 11 of the 13 topics/weeks. Both assessments in this unit required the submission of personal arts-making and arts-responding activities. In the second unit, topics one to five included personal arts learning experiences, and the first assessment required the submission of visual and media arts creations reviewed through the lens of classroom application. The remainder of the unit extended the focus on the school arts curriculum and teaching.

The arts learning activities in the units comprised: preparatory activities such as brainstorming; skill development such as singing practice led by teaching videos; arts-making activities supported by inspirational/illustrative/demonstration videos or a PowerPoint that guided students through the stages; arts appreciation and responding activities guided by a worksheet or PowerPoint; and reflection, review, analysis, and/or evaluation activities based on student discussion or completion of worksheets.

The assessment tasks were primarily centred on students’ own artistic engagement. For example, for the performing arts unit, students devised and video recorded their performances of a drama piece, dance, and song and completed arts responding activities such as a guided listening for the music component. When assessments were focused on the principles and pedagogical practices of arts education, connections to students’ own arts learning were required.

Provisions were made in both units for students to interact with the tutor and each other in a combination of synchronous and asynchronous forums. These included a Discussion Board, a portal for students to submit work to the tutor for one-to-one formative feedback, and a weekly Blackboard Collaborate (BbC) video conferencing session that was also recorded for students unable to attend the live session. Additionally, peer-to-peer interactions were supported by open video chat provisions on the Blackboard platform (Arts Mates) for student study groups to use; and in the second unit, the Trello Board served as a virtual gallery for students to post their artworks and respond to each other’s work.

For this study, the initial immersion in the data, which revealed the general features of the learning design, facilitated the emergence of the units-of-analysis – “those identifiable and discrete elements of the sample of the population materials to be analysed” (Kibiswa, 2019, p. 2063). After several trials, the chosen units-of-analysis were ones that reflected the type of action, such as a reading activity, that students were required to undertake. For coding purposes, these were labelled as Learning Experience Type (LET) (see Table 2). Following a process of testing and re-testing, a final formative categorisation matrix based on six signature pedagogies (SPs) and seven units-of-analysis was created. The coding matrix was sub-divided by learning topics (13 topics/weeks) (see sample in Table 3). For each of the units-of-analysis, typical examples were chosen as “anchor samples” (Mayring, 2015, p. 377), and coding rules were established to support consistent coding. A modified version of this approach was adopted for the analysis of the assessment tasks.

Table 2. The nominated units-of-analysis were learning experience types (LET). Anchor samples of these are included.

	Learning Experience Type (LET)	Anchor examples for coding
LET1	It is a reading/guided reading activity that may/may not be illustrated	Read Chapter xx on Foundations of Drama literacy.
		Read the following three articles as the basis for discussing the nature of dance education during your Arts Mates session.
LET2	It is a viewing/guided viewing activity that may/may not be narrated	View video of the oral storytelling performance using the viewing guide to focus your attention on features that could inform your own oral storytelling.
		View video of teachers at a singing workshop and list the music teaching strategies you identify.
LET3	It is a reflection, review, analysis, appraisal and/or evaluation activity	Listen to the music recording and respond by following the guided listening and review prompts in the worksheet.
		Appraise your experience of creating a rondo and explain how it aligns to what you have learned about creativity.
LET4	It is a preparatory creative thinking, practice, exploration or design activity	Choose an Aesop’s Fable and, using the storyboard template, plan a comic strip version of your story.
		Click on the “Hearing Music” link and practise your aural skills by playing the “Pitch Game” and the “Comparing Game.”
LET5	It is an activity that resolves as a completed artwork	Develop and perform an oral storytelling based on a personal journey experience.
		Compose a rondo. Do this using the video Primary music – creating a rondo as your guide.
LET6	It is a presentation activity	Post your completed artwork in the gallery on Trello.
		Share your dance review with your tutor using the provided link.
LET7	It is an activity that involves creating a teaching philosophy, plan, program or resource for teaching	Describe a lesson with children that begins with a review of the video clip (of a drama) you have chosen.
		Use the provided resources to plan a guided viewing activity with Year 5 students based on the arts practice of a First Nations Australian artist (or group of artists).

Table 3. Sample of the formative categorisation matrix.

Topic	Activity	LET#	SP 1	SP 2	SP 3	SP 4	SP 5	SP 6	Other	Summary of activity
9	1	1				X			X	Read: Foundations of Dance literacy and Dance praxis
	2	2				X			X	Watch these videos using the provided viewing guides: Dancing a story; Dance: Moving like magnets; KS1/2 Dance – What is high quality dance?; Grammar dance; The Black Swan, Meryl Tankard.
	3	5	X	X	X	X		X		Elaborate on your readings and video viewings by dancing a story using a children’s book of your choice. Do this using the video Dancing a story as your guide.
	4	3				X	X		X	Discuss how this is a scaffolded learning experience and outline its educational value.
	5	3				X	X		X	Appraise your experience of creating a dance and explain how it aligns to what you have learned about kinaesthetic knowing, choreographing and performing. Also outline and discuss a strategy or process you would use to support children’s choreography of their own dances.

The quantitative and qualitative data about students’ perceptions of the design of the unit and their learning experience were gathered from the University’s unit evaluation reports. The survey instrument comprised questions on a 5-point Likert scale along with the option to add free text about the most helpful aspects of the unit and possible improvements.

Findings

The aim of this study was to determine whether the essential nature of arts learning and teaching could be sustained in online units for pre-service primary-school teachers. Since the directed content analysis was based on the model of arts education’s signature pedagogies (SP), the findings are organised accordingly (Kibiswa, 2019). Qualitative data from the unit evaluations have been included to illustrate how the signature pedagogies were apparent to students – even though they would not necessarily have categorised them in these terms. These statements are coded such that “Unit 1.2” means the first arts education unit and the second year of the three-year sample period.

SP1: an artistic inquiry approach to meaning-making that actively promotes the significance of students’ own experiences, ideas, interpretations and imaginative inventions

For coding purposes, this SP was interpreted as learning activities that explicitly involved students undertaking preparatory research and idea generation activities to support their development of creative interpretations. For example, in the first unit, the “journey” theme united the major artistic creations (drama, music, and dance performances) completed for assessment. To advance students’ interpretations of their own journey experiences, they were given research and brainstorming activities in the initial sessions of the unit. Additionally, each of the artistic creations was the culmination of a module of work, where students were shown processes for developing ideas – such as how to compose a song – and video clips of artists’ performances that presented possibilities for interpreting the artistic challenge. Similar support for developing visual and media artworks in the second unit was provided. For example, Wallas (1926) stages of the creative process (preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification) were manifested as a series of procedural steps that led to students’ unique designs of imaginary creatures for a visual arts creation.

• [The unit] helped me understand what creativity is and the different ways to support students’ creativity in an arts class without restricting them too much or on the other hand, leaving them to themselves. (Unit 1.1)

• It has been fantastic extending and developing my own creativity, and learning how this will translate into the classroom. (Unit 2.1)

SP2: open-ended learning experiences that promote students’ agency in the processes of creative thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, critical reflection, and creation

For coding purposes this SP was checked only when the open-ended learning activity required students’ artistic responses. In both units, all artistic challenges were presented as open-ended provocations for learning and expression. While being open-ended, criteria of greater or lesser specificity was given. For example, “create a dance where you are blindfolded or sitting down. The theme of the dance is ‘Caught in a spider’s web.’ Use choreographic strategies to develop your ideas, and aim to use the elements of dance expressively.” The open-ended nature of the projects was understood and often valued by the students:

• I valued being able to experiment freely and develop my own ideas. (Unit 1.1)

• I learned a lot from creating my own digital storybook. I put a lot of time and effort into it because it was my story and my creation. (Unit 2.3)

SP3: Individual and collaborative arts-making experiences designed to develop students’ arts literacy and craft; and communication of ideas in an arts’ medium, to an audience, through display, media screening, and/or performance.

For coding purposes this SP was checked when the experience involved learning through making an artwork or practicing in an art medium. In the first unit, arts learning was shaped around developing students’ understanding and application of the arts languages (elements and conventions). For example, students’ choreographed a dance and video recorded their performance. This was for assessment and in the recording, students were required to include a commentary explaining the relationship between the elements of dance (e.g., tempo, body shape, level) and the ideas being represented. In the second unit, students’ own arts-making in topics one to five was the foundation for programming and micro-teaching activities in the second half. For assessment, they were required to submit three of their own visual art pieces accompanied by written documentation.

• The “doing” part where I had to do storytelling, singing, and dancing seemed a very scary prospect initially. However, after completing these tasks, I found I enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot more about The Arts while doing them. (Unit 1.1)

• The most helpful aspect [of the unit] was that there were many praxis-based activities, as we learn best through doing and I could really feel it. (Unit 1.1)

Students created artworks individually, however, the online self-run study groups facilitated a degree of collaborative learning.

• The most helpful aspect [of the unit] was being asked to form a study group within the groups. In this study group, I was able to brain storm ideas. (Unit 1.2)

Presentation of artworks to an audience was primarily through the submission of artworks for assessment; however, students could share their work with their peers in their online study group meetings. In the second unit, they could display their visual artworks in the virtual gallery created using Trello.

SP4: ethical engagement with the diverse worlds of artistic expressions, traditions and practices to situate students’ creative practices within socio-cultural contexts

This SP was represented comprehensively across both units where videos or images of artworks by artists were used extensively to provide a combination of inspiration, information, and instruction. Collectively, the videos introduced students to the diverse world of the arts. For example, the video of the Thousand Hand Bodhisattva (a dance performed by The China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe at the closing ceremony of the 2004 Athens Summer Paralympic Games) and a selection of other videos of dance performed by dancers living with disability served to present a diversity of dance expression, and dispelled some narrow interpretations of “dance.”

• All videos and links provided have been very important in seeing various ways of experiencing very different dances, songs, instrumental ensembles, music, and viewing other peoples’ points of view. (Unit 1.3)

Both units also included specific arts-responding activities centred on reviewing artworks by artists.

• The music guided appreciation activity was a highlight for me. I had never considered that a music piece like the Moldau could have so much meaning. I also loved watching Jay O’Callahan telling the moon landing story. What an inspiration for our own oral storytelling. (Unit 1.1)

SP5: dialogic processes that support students’ creative practices through reflection and critical review of arts-making experiences, expressions, traditions, motivations and contexts

For coding purposes, this SP was checked when students were asked to “discuss” or “explain” or to participate in other arts responding activities that required interaction with peers and/or the tutor. For example, “Appraise the oral storytelling plans of one of your peers. Offer advice and feedback to them that is informed by your learning from readings/video viewings.”

In both Units 1 and 2, Arts Mates online study groups facilitated peer-to-peer interactions. Activities were suggested for these sessions, but it was up to the students to take advantage of these. In Unit 2 the Trello Board used for the virtual gallery also enabled students to provide constructive feedback to their peers about their artwork.

• The Arts Mates groups was probably the most helpful of all the resources for this unit. This allowed us to connect and work with other students and encouraged critical self-reflection. (Unit 1.3)

• I enjoyed seeing everyone‘s interpretations of the art tasks [on the Trello board] and the variety. It was good to receive feedback from other students and I tried to do this too. (Unit 2.2)

There were incidental opportunities in the weekly BbC video conferencing sessions for students to discuss artworks. In both units, one session was specifically devoted to students’ participation in the critical review of artworks. This included learning how they could conduct a guided viewing or listening session using a framework to structure the process.

SP6: the educator engaging with students as a co-constructor or facilitator of learning, to develop students’ independence as creative practitioners in communities of practice

The engagement with students by the educator is interwoven throughout the units. When coding the unit’s learning resources, this SP was checked in instances where there was pre-loaded guidance, inspiration, and skills instruction, to assist students’ development of their own responses to the nominated artistic challenge. Generally, this was provided by way of videos, illustrated PowerPoints and worksheets. The weekly readings and video viewings for the topic were excluded unless they were directly related to preparing students to undertake a creative arts process.

The units’ learning design incorporated provisions for the educator to engage as a facilitator of arts learning. These were the group Discussion Board and BbC sessions, as well as an online channel for one-to-one communication between each student and the tutor so that individual, formative feedback about the student’s ideas and artistic responses could be provided.

• [The tutor] promoted a real sense of community on the DB. (Unit 1.1)

• Our tutor was very invested in our art learning and gave lots of support to us individually. (Unit 2.3)

Discussion

Whether arts educators teaching in ITE courses embrace online education, are resigned to the inevitability of it, or decline participating, a key concern for them has been preserving the fundamental nature of arts learning, which at its core is embodied and enacted through practical and performative forms of artistic engagement, in communities of practice (Sims & Shreeve, 2012; Thomson et al., 2012). The significance of this is that a teacher’s first-hand experience of arts learning is seen as necessary for effective teaching in the arts (Burke, 2021; Cutcher & Cook, 2016); and overall, ITE Primary students bring limited arts experience to their studies.

Arts educators express concerns about being able to present experiential arts learning opportunities in the online context. Even when ways of doing this are found, some educators are troubled by the difficulty they see in ensuring students engage in these (Burke, 2021). A further concern relates to capturing dynamic and dialogic ways of engaging with students in a shared space. This is regarded as being necessary for guiding students’ learning, as it emerges in the process of “making,” or engaging groups of students in critical reflection about artworks and processes (Burke, 2021).

At this juncture, it is important to reiterate that learning and teaching in the online space is distinctive and necessarily different from the on-campus experience in terms of learning design, the role of the educator and the nature of student engagement (Davey et al., 2019; Martin & Borup, 2022; Ni She et al., 2019). For example, in online education, the educator is more firmly positioned in the role of a facilitator – rather than an orchestrator – of learning. Additionally, research highlighting how students’ engagement online is different also states that it is often misunderstood or misinterpreted (Martin & Borup, 2022). A study of “online silence,” for example, reveals that silence is not necessarily a sign of disengagement and that online learners use complex engagement strategies that may not always be apparent to the educator who is used to the dynamics of on-campus teaching (Duran, 2020).

The fact that the online experience is different does not mean that the deeper educational purpose is not being addressed. By nominating the signature pedagogies of the discipline, a pedagogical language is created for examining how the deeper educational purpose already embedded in traditional teaching practices can be effectively achieved in the online educational space. The study reveals, for example, that the pivotal focus on “making” and embodied learning can be preserved in the online context by adopting strategies that work within the parameters of the digital affordances, such as using a video demonstration of an art process instead of doing this live in the class.

Overall, the directed content analysis shows that arts education’s six signature pedagogies are evident in the learning design of the two online arts education units. These pedagogies are well represented throughout the weekly learning activities, the assessment tasks, and forums for interaction, to the extent that the signature pedagogies of arts education predominate in the units. The qualitative data from students’ unit evaluation reports indicate that the signature pedagogies are apprehended by students, even though they may not identify them as such. The quantitative data from the unit evaluation reports incorporated in the study are from those items that relate to unit content, learning resources, assessments, feedback, and overall satisfaction (see Tables 4 and 5). The reports show overall satisfaction with the learning provisions of the units, in which the signature pedagogies of arts learning have been enacted.

Table 4. Unit 1 results over 3 years from relevant items in the unit evaluation reports.

Unit 1	Unit 1 delivery 1	Unit 1 delivery 2	Unit 1 delivery 3
Unit enrolment number	584	507	407
Evaluation responses/percentage	187/32%	91/18%	125/31%
	Percentage agreement with the statement
The learning experiences helped me achieve the learning outcomes	85	92	98
The learning resources helped me achieve the learning outcomes	86	91	94
The assessments evaluated my achievement of the learning outcomes	78	90	93
Feedback helped me achieve the learning outcomes	71	92	86
Satisfaction overall	80	88	90

Table 5. Unit 2 results over 3 years from relevant items in the unit evaluation reports.

Unit 2	Unit 2 delivery 1	Unit 2 delivery 2	Unit 2 delivery 3
Enrolment number	131	142	118
Evaluation responses/percentage	42/32%	39/27%	27/23%
	Percentage agreement with the statement
The learning experiences helped me achieve the learning outcomes	96	87	96
The learning resources helped me achieve the learning outcomes	96	88	96
The assessments evaluated my achievement of the learning outcomes	88	88	88
Feedback helped me achieve the learning outcomes	84	84	85
Satisfaction overall	84	92	81

Student engagement “plays a central role in determining the extent and nature of development and learning” (Krause & Coates, 2008, p. 494). Higher education institutions make learning possible through creating environments that afford the opportunity to learn; however, students, as agentic adult learners (Martin & Borup, 2022), take responsibility for managing their own learning according to their own educational goals and priorities. In this regard, the inclination of students across higher education to eschew learning experiences they see as non-essential and not related to assessments is well-established (Taylor, 2008). This is borne out in one study where only 17% of ITE students surveyed responded that they were “very likely” to complete any practical arts learning experiences that were not being assessed (Burke et al., 2023, p. 220). Assessment requirements, therefore, are a strong determinant for how students allocate their study time (Allen et al., 2014; Conrad & Openo, 2018). Since the majority of online ITE students are mature-aged and often juggling study around family commitments and work (Pelliccione et al., 2019), this rationalising of learning engagement is likely to be amplified. Never-the-less, the learning design of units can help propel students’ participation in meaningful learning. In the ITE units in this study, personal arts-making and responding tasks are incorporated into the assessment requirements, thereby obligating students’ engagement in arts learning experiences. Similarly, weekly arts learning activities are incorporated into the assessments, which encourages participation in a scaffolded learning process: We were required to create artworks and complete analysis worksheets about the process and implications for teaching. Because these were part of our first assessment I worked through them each week. In the unit evaluations the quantitative data shows an overall agreement with the statement that “the learning resources helped me achieve the learning outcomes” and that “the assessments evaluated my achievement of the learning outcomes.”

In the on-campus learning environment, the studio is the locus of arts learning-through-doing, and a recognised feature of arts education. Replicating the studio online is a challenge; however, Shreeve et al. (2010) posit that the essential educational characteristic of the physical studio space is the way it supports informal and formal exchanges that are centred on arts-making – what they call its “dialogicality” (p. 136). So while the studio space may not be present online, the study’s content analysis shows that the significant dialogic processes for reflection and critical review specified in SP5, the opportunity for collaborative arts-making identified in SP3, and the conversations implied in SP6 are never-the-less incorporated in the units.

In the studio, meaningful dialogue and collaboration are often whole-group activities where everyone is present at the same time. In some online educational contexts, where class groups are small and localised, arts educators have been able to ensure the whole group is in attendance, and have imaginatively employed synchronous meeting strategies for interactive arts learning (Pavlou, 2022). In the online units of this study, orchestrating synchronous meetings with the whole student group is constrained by having large numbers of students (up to 75 in a group) spread across several time zones. The diverse nature of online learners’ circumstances, study arrangements, and educational goals are further complications. Therefore, dialogic processes are regularly asynchronous in nature. Never-the-less, Duran (2020) reports that asynchronous, text-based conversations can be “natural, even spirited and playful” (p. 91) when the learning community is working well.

One way of addressing the asynchronous, individualised, self-determined, and uncoordinated nature of students’ engagement in the online space is to offer a menu of options for participation in dialogic processes and collaborative arts-making. This study illustrates several ways of doing this, and other research shows that imaginative learning design and use of digital affordances such as breakout rooms, hover cam, and VoiceThread (Burke, 2021) are other options that do not require students to participate in synchronised whole group activities to achieve the desired outcomes.

Limitations and future research

The claim that arts education’s signature pedagogies can be successfully enacted in the online learning space is made within the context of arts education units in an initial teacher education course for generalist primary teachers. In these courses, there is very limited time for arts education studies (Burke, 2021; Pavlou, 2021) and this constrains the amount of personal arts learning that can be incorporated. Therefore, the findings of this study may not be generalisable across the diversity of arts-related courses, especially when the development of advanced arts skills and performance capabilities is required. That said, the pandemic has led to circumstances where, for example, an improvised dance course for dance professionals was conducted online, and proved so successful that it is regarded as having opened up productive approaches to teaching and learning in this discipline (Zeitner, 2023).

What has been made clear in this study is that the signature pedagogies of arts education can be sustained in the online environment for ITE Primary students as long as learning experiences are moulded to suit the unique character of the online environment; however, there is room for improvement. While the ever-expanding range of technological resources supporting more dynamic and immersive forms of engagement and interaction will contribute to improvements in online arts education (Davey et al., 2019), research attention still needs to be given to the particular character and role of interactivity in the experiential processes of arts learning, as well as the nature of learner behaviours in relation to online learning in the arts.

Conclusion

Previous research has shown that teacher-educators have concerns about the efficacy of arts learning in the online space (Baker et al., 2016; Burke, 2021; King, 2018). This study shows that the concept of signature pedagogies facilitates an examination of these perceptions. It is the case that on-campus, the university-educator regularly fulfils the roles of experienced arts practitioner, orchestrator of collaborative learning in the social dynamic studio or classroom space, and demonstrator of arts practices. The study shows that while familiar roles and practices cannot readily be performed in the usual way in the virtual, dispersed, and asynchronous online environment, the deep educational purpose of arts education, captured in its signature pedagogies, can be sustained through different learning provisions.

The analysis of the two online arts education units shows that the six signature pedagogies are prominent in the learning design of the units. In fact, students’ personal investment in arts learning provides the backbone for the units and facilitates the development of essential pedagogical understandings and capabilities needed for their future careers. The data from unit evaluations over 3 years show a consistent level of student satisfaction with the learning experiences, resources, assessments, and feedback provided.

The study is illustrative, serving to demonstrate that the essential nature of learning and teaching in the arts – the signature pedagogies – can be sustained within the context of online arts education units in a BEd (Primary) course. The steady advances in technological affordances, coupled with specific attention to the needs of online arts education in the context of understanding the online learner and the pedagogical distinctiveness of the online mode will contribute to ongoing improvement in the quality of the online arts education experience.

Ethics statement

The study was approved by Curtin University’s Human Research Ethics Office (HRE2023-0695).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judith Dinham

Judith Dinham is Associate Professor in the School of Education, Curtin University. Her research interests are arts education and teacher education with a focus on online education.