Aya Katagiri

Classroom practices in art education that foster collaborative skills and respond to students' individual orientation

Aya Katagiri – Joshibi University of Art and Design, Japan

Abstract:

Cooperative learning needs to play a central role in 21st century learning environments (Slavin, 2013). Cooperative learning is a method of learning in which students work in small groups or small teams to learn about material and is considered a solution to a range of educational problems. As a quality towards students’ learning, cooperative /collaborative forms of learning can be described as “understanding the ideas of diverse others and expanding one’s own ideas through dialogue and discussion while working with diverse people, and being able to explain one’s own ideas, etc., to others in an easy-to-understand manner with evidence” (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). The author has examined classes in which students in general public high schools, whose attitudes towards group adaptation are not sufficiently formed, can improve their communication skills and deepen their understanding of others through collaborative learning in art. The author has examined the effects of collaborative learning in art through visual media expression and obtained findings that are versatile for art learning (Katagiri, 2021). In this paper, the issues of collaborative production and individual orientation in art identified by the author can provide an opportunity for future art teachers to change their teaching methods. These perspectives are discussed from the viewpoint of ‘what cannot be changed’ and ‘what is fashionable’ in art learning, together with images showing the results of classroom practice.