Dynamic learning: A learner-centered paradigm in art and design

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

There is a critical need for training students to think critically, creatively, and practi-cally. Traditional art and design education classrooms, more focused on end prod-ucts, do not foster students’ abilities for inquiry and connection making and are miss-ing opportunities to develop the capacities of tomorrow’s change makers and prob-lem solvers. From a systems-thinking approach, this article discusses the importance of teacher pedagogy and process skills as important underlying drivers in developing’ learning power. Fostering students’ integrated, self-directed, and dynamic learning requires a more learner-centered paradigm. It reports on a mixed model research study conducted in middle school art and design classrooms with findings indicating that more learner-centered visual art classrooms increase students’ balanced think-ing and self-perceptions as learners. An emerging theory and design thinking model are presented, along with an action research project in university art education class-rooms that provides new models for “designing thinking” in art and design class-rooms.