Acquiring the Volume Concept at Primary School
Author(s):
Rubèn Pineda Ricart (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2014
Network:
29. Research on Arts Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

29 SES 11, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:
2014-09-04
17:15-18:45
Room:
B120 Sala de Aulas
Chair:
Henrique Vaz

Contribution

This paper developes initial research questions and continuous the pedagogical aims that serve as the foundation for the author's doctoral dissertation. The research is developed in an integrated school (students from 3 to 18 years) in Barcelona, which has developed an innovative learning environment. This is an intra-curricular space that, based on trans-disciplinary and artistic practices and multi-grade learners (6 to 12 years old), is a complement to the formal curriculum that remains stuck in the fragmentation of learning subjects (Crahay, 2006). Within this framework for an innovative learning environment, the author developed and is now implementing an ongoing workshop that focuses on mathematical concepts, by using the notion of volume as a basis for experimentation and contextualization. This activity seeks to localize new ways for introducing drawing, and other exercises involving space and volume, in learning situations that precede student development (Vygotsky, 1996).

Through the design and implementation of this project, the research asks: how can we intervene in an innovative educational context to improve students' intelligences (Gardner, 2003), skills and diverse abilities (spatial, logical, abstract, and mathematic), in order to generate deep understanding and construct, collaboratively, alternative epistemologies of space and thought?

The project (ongoing each year) involves students (6 to 12 years old) working in a collaborative space, throughout the entire academic year. Every day, three multi-aged groups (6-8; 9-10; 11-12) comprising 18 students each participated in the workshop. Their participation lasted six weeks, at which point another three groups became incorporated into the project. The total number of participants during every academic year is over 300 primary school students.

To address this question, the workshop is developed as a transversal teaching-learning framework where, for example, drawing and applied arts acquire a more valued role in education (Arnheim, 1993) and where mathematics are explained, through experiments and practice, in a contextualized manner. Geometry and volume, as the activity content, play a key role in this study of relationships. Through the implementation of the workshop, the project aims to: 1) foster a critical awareness of spaces, and how they affect us, how we perceive them, and how we live in them, in terms of an emancipatory educational process (Freire, 1972; Giroux, 1985, 1999) and, 2) activate a continuous inquiry into liquid pedagogies (Bauman, 2005), invisible learning (Cobo & Morevec, 2011), and innovative learning environments (Istance, 2009).


Method

In the first year of implementation, the workshop engaged students in the construction of a scaled model of the school and surrounding campus, in a cooperative, collaborative and accumulative manner. This process invited students to observe the centre, and then develop and activate resources and skills in order to analyze, measure, define, represent, deconstruct and, finally, recreate it volumetrically. In the second year, the author and the students, configurated as an Action Research group (Carr & Kemmis, 1974) started a praxis (Freire, 2005; Marx, 1941) that hopes to understand what processes occur while students begin to comprehend the volume concept. The approaching methodology contains a/r/t/ographic (Springgay et al., 2007) elements thanks to the multiple roles existing in the case study (here interpreted as: ‘Architect’, Researcher and Teacher.) In this third academic year, we have focused the line of research to look at what processes occur while 6-8 years old students acquire the volume concept. Usually it’s well accepted in the field that the volume concept acquired at Primary School occurs through a madurative process (Piaget, 1964, 1970; Piaget & Inhelder, 1973) in 10-12 year olds, a theory that has been under looked within Art Education. By understanding the process of children‘s acquiring, understanding and expressing modes to visualize reality, the author is trying to articulate new alternative pedagogies and exercises, including explaining drawing methods near perspective laws and technical design for helping 6-8 year old chidren to develop the volume concept. Narrative Inquiry (Lieblich et al., 1998; McAdams, 1993) and Longitudinal Study (Menard, 2002) are used to build a subjective and objective account for the doctoral dissertation. Arts-Based Research (Haywood, 2010; Riddett-Moore & Siegesmund, 2012) is the method used to analyze the produced data (interviews, talks and drawings) from the fieldwork. Combining ABR with Actor-Network Theory (Fenwich & Edwards, 2010), the author is trying to seek Delocalized Evidences, searching for the point we weren’t looking at.

Expected Outcomes

In the preliminary stage of the doctoral research process, this study hopes to explore and contribute to understanding ways in which art practice can be used as a tool for promoting trans-disciplinary learning. By sharing the progress and initial results of this workshop, the author provides insight into how, art can be introduced in the school not only as content, but as a creative practice that contributes to the development of alternative pedagogies. Some data evidences obtained in the 6-8 year old’s fieldwork reveal there is no difference in the visuality comprehension of the volumetrical drawings between adults although there is a tendency to assimilate that drawing production in aerial view. The childen explain that they see like adults but don’t have the visual tools to express what they could see when are confronted to a volume exercise. In other cases, children produce and explain in their ‘flat’ drawing using 3 concepts: earth, sky and air. This third element (air) could be seen as the key to deeply understanding children modes to deconstruct the seen reality and offers clues for how to intervene by offering visual drawing tools.

References

Arnheim, R. (1993). Consideraciones sobre la educación artística. Barcelona: Paidós. Bauman, Z. (2005). Liquid life. Cambridge: Polity press. Carr, W. & Kemmis S. (1974). Teoria crítica de la enseñanza. La investigación-acción en la formación del profesorado. Barcelona: Martínez Roca. Cobo, C. & Moravec, J. W. (2011). Aprendizaje invisible. Hacia una nueva ecología de la educación. Barcelona: Laboratori de Mitjans Interactius (UB - eBook) Crahay, M. (2006). Dangers, incertitudes, et incomplétude de la logique de la compétence en éducation. Revue Française de Pédagogie, 154: 97-110. Fenwich, T. & Edwards, R. (2010). Actor-Network Theory in Education. Nova York: Routledge. Freire, P. (1972). Cultural action for freedom.Harmondsworth, Londres: Penguin education. Freire, P. (2005), Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gardner, H. (2003). La inteligencia reformulada. Las inteligencias múltiples en el siglo XXI. Barcelona: Paidós. Giroux, H. (1985). Teorías de la reproducción y la resistencia en la nueva sociología de la educación: un análisis crítico. A Cuadernos Políticos, 44: 36-65. México, DF: Era. Giroux, H. (1999). Pedagogía crítica como proyecto de profecía ejemplar: cultura y política en el nuevo milenio. A Imbernón (coord.) La educación en el siglo XXI. Los retos del futuro inmediato. Barcelona: Graó. Haywood, J. R. (2010). Paradigm Analysis of Arts-Based Research. Studies in Art Education, 51 (2): 102-114. Istance, D. (2009). Education Today. The OECD Perspective. Paris: OECD Publishing. Riddett-Moore, K., & Siegesmund, R. (2012). Arts-based Research: Data Are Constructed, Not Found. In S. Klein (Ed.), Action research: Plain and simple: 105-132. New York, NY: Palgrave. Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R. & Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative Research. Reading, Analysis and Interpretation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. McAdams, D. P. (1993). The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self. Michigan: W. Morrow and Company. Marx K. (1941). Theses on Feuerbach. A F. Engels (recop.). Nova York: International publishers. Menard, S. (2002). Longitudinal Research (2a ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Piaget, J. (1964). Development and learning. A R. E. Ripple i V. N. Rockcastle (Eds.), Piaget Rediscovered. A report on the conference on cognitive studies and curriculum development (pp. 228-237). Boston: Little, Brown & Company. Piaget, J. (1970). A conversation with Jean Piaget. Psychology Today, 3(12): 25-32. Piaget, J. i Inhelder, B. (1973). Psicología del niño. Madrid: Morata. Springgay, S., Leggo, C., Irwin, R. L. & Gouzouasis, P. (2007). Being with artography. Sense Publishers Vygotsky, L. S. (1996). El desarrollo de los procesos psicológicos superiores. Barcelona: Crítica.

Author Information

Rubèn Pineda Ricart (presenting / submitting)
University of Barcelona
'Arts & Education' Doctoral Programm
BARCELONA

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