Zachary Boger

Art Education in the virtual world

This is a thought based essay from a pondered moment about how to teach art students virtually. Often as a teacher, I reflect back on how I was taught in the classroom and the ways I was allowed to experiment and create new ideas. I find now that looking at the way students are taught today in the light of new restrictions with education many are struggling within their classes. This truly presents a problem for both parents, administrators, and teachers to make sure students are allowed to grow and develop as learners. One mixed concept that I have hybridized between 2 styles seems to be able to work, e.g. the concept of Scaffolding Assignments and the concept of TAB. Scaffolding assignments is something that many educators utilize within the face to face environment, but surprisingly after many hours writing lesson plans I found that scaffolding assignments online expands the students learning beyond what we are able to be giving them via zoom sessions. By allowing them to understand small chunks of information over a period of time they can grow and grasp larger assignments in turn. For instance I recently taught my students the power that black and white photography has in storytelling and capturing events. To help them first understand Value, I had them go online and pick out a black and white image online. They needed then to analyze and pick out certain black, whites, and greys and translate that into 5 different rectangles of similar color. I believe this allowed or taught students to look at the world around them in a new light. This thusly was reinstated in their next project in which students were required to go capture a black and white image and write a story about it. This scaffolding activity did more for students I found than what would need to occur over zooms sessions. This I think relates to being able to allow students to learn as independent learners. TAB is another concept that can be utilized in light of trying to educate our students in art. Teaching Artistic Behavior is a concept that deals with giving choice to students ,but at the same time fostering the kind of thinking that requires students to think like artists, and not only learn the artistic techniques. These truly help students grow as learners, but allows them to draw new conclusions about the art they are making. This has also allowed us as teachers to see how students grow and learn within the virtual art classroom. Overall, as art educators we have many tools at our disposal, but really learning how to use them is the key to teaching and letting students grow. Students need to grow at their own pace during this day and age, and more specifically thinking about how students learn is a key concept that all educators have on hand will hopefully allow education to remain as impactful for them as it was for us.