Artful pedagogy: (En)visioning the unfinished whole

ABSTRACT

The hum of florescent lights still drone quietly in the background just as they did in the high school art classrooms of the authors, only now they are teaching research methods and educational theory and practice in the academy, not sculpture, ceramics, drawing, or painting¹

¹ Occasionally we refer to Sara's and Kelly's experiences as high school art teachers and assistant professors. We find it important to note that the third author, Nicole, is a graduate student enrolled in the Art Therapy program at Florida State University, which is nestled in the Art Education Department.

. Once high school art educators, drawn to teaching and learning with and through the arts, the vantage points of the authors have now shifted as they find themselves situated at two large research universities. In these higher education spaces the authors are once again finding ways to artfully engage in the reciprocal process of teaching and learning. Although the locations have changed, the authors still feel seduced by the world of art and all the possibilities therein.

Contributors

Sara Scott Shields, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at Florida State University. Sara currently serves as the editor of The Journal of Art for Life and as the director of the MS in Art Education program at FSU. She received her BFA in Ceramics and Art Education and MaED in Art Education from East Carolina University, later receiving her PhD in Art Education from The University of Georgia. Before working as an assistant professor, she worked for six years as a high school art teacher in Wilmington, North Carolina. Her current work explores the development of teacher/researcher/artist identity through arts informed methodologies. Sara sees her research agenda continuing toward a better understanding of the role of artmaking in the educational experience of preservice teachers, as well as exploring art as a mode of analysis in the research process. All of her research endeavors explore the question: How are the arts uniquely positioned to address the development of pedagogical and scholarly identities?

Kelly W. Guyotte is an Assistant Professor of Educational Research at the University of Alabama. Prior to moving into higher education, she worked as a high school visual arts educator in an Atlanta, Georgia suburb. As a qualitative methodologist, she strives to bridge these experiences in teaching and studying visual arts education with her research and pedagogy. Her current research interests include qualitative pedagogy, inter- and transdisciplinary education, STEAM education, arts and learning, and the study of qualitative methodology (including narrative and visual-verbal narrative inquiry, arts-informed research, and collaborative autoethnography). Guyotte has published in journals including the International Review of Qualitative Research and Education and presented at regional, national, and international conferences.

Nicole Weedo is an art therapy graduate student at The Florida State University. She received her BA in psychology and studio art with a minor in art history from Rollins College. She is currently working toward an MS in art therapy. While at Rollins College, her artwork was juried into an exhibition at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum. Nicole is currently serving as a graduate research assistant, and her research interests revolve around the use of art therapy in medical environments, with a focus on pediatric oncology and medical professionals' perceptions of art therapy.

Notes

¹ Occasionally we refer to Sara's and Kelly's experiences as high school art teachers and assistant professors. We find it important to note that the third author, Nicole, is a graduate student enrolled in the Art Therapy program at Florida State University, which is nestled in the Art Education Department.

² Art as a metaphorical tool refers to the findings in Sara's (Shields, 2014) dissertation. In it she found that students used art materials in metaphorical ways. Where paint, paper and other materials begin to metaphorically represent lived experiences. For example, she found students using paint as a form of erasure, weaving paper to represent the intermingling of concepts, and creating windows on their journal pages to show hidden and underlying assumptions.

³ Poem written by Sara Scott Shields

⁴ A visual/verbal journal (also called a visual journal) is a hybrid between an artist's sketchbook and a writer's journal that creates spaces for individuals to use multiple expressive modalities rather than being limited simply to written language (Guyotte, 2014). The visual/verbal journal offers students the opportunity to document and explore ideas through both image and text, with the eventual goal of creating evidence of understanding as a process based pursuit (Shields, in press).

⁵ The video used in Figure 8 was linked with permission from the artist/student/teacher and it can been viewed at https://youtu.be/MftONxk54Ks