Mapping and supporting transition in learning through Contemporary Art

Helen Burns and Kate Wall, Newcastle University and Durham University, UK

helen.burns@newcastle.ac.uk, kate.wall@durham.ac.uk

Overview

This paper discusses the use of contemporary art-based pedagogy to support transition within children’s thinking, in order to then support them in school transition and beyond.  Exploration of the specific, educational potential of contemporary art, or art of our time, is in its infancy, despite its potential to stimulate thought about contemporary life and ‘raise issues pertaining to our values and our aspirations.’ (Wilson, 2003).   The potential to change our beliefs can extend to those we hold about learning, providing potential for transforming learning (Dweck 2008).  Potential for transformation also lies in the typical lack of imposed narrative, permitting the referencing of personal life-worlds (Adams et al. 2005) which we apply in using works of art as ‘keys to understanding’ (Efland 2002). Dealing with metaphor, art necessitates ‘cognitive breakthroughs’, going ‘beyond the given and compelling our own thinking to go beyond the given.’ (Lipman, 2003).   Considering this, does individual learning benefit from manipulating and creating art metaphors to describe learning and result in developing related knowledge and skill? This would constitute metacognition (Flavell 1979), or ‘reflective and strategic thinking about learning’ (Mosely et al. 2005).  Metacognition is most likely to develop through the articulation of thinking in a community of enquiry (Wall 2012).  Within a gallery-based community of enquiry, contemporary art stimulates thought and discussion.  The nature of the context allows ideas to be shared visually, overcoming barriers imposed by prose and supporting the ‘voice’ (Rudduck 2006) of young children.  Using contemporary- art- metaphor to generate discussion should increase metacognition, aspiration and support the transition towards self-directed learning. A map of this process is valuable in a range of contexts.

The context for the research was an art gallery: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK.  BALTIC is committed to ‘transforming learning’ and while gallery educators were confident that this takes place, there was no clear evidence.  The research subjects were 10 Year 4 children from one First School. Soon to undergo transition to Middle School, we supposed they might be better equipped for change should the project nurture their self-directed learning.  The research objectives were:toexplore the potential of using contemporary art as metaphor for learning in order to increase metacognition; to attempt to map the process of transforming learning , (should this process occur);toexplore the potential of contemporary art in raising aspiration; and toexplore how such pedagogy might support self-directed learning.

At Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, the children worked with an artist, gallery staff, teachers and Durham University staff, to use art to support them in thinking about their learning.  They went on to each make a sculpture which was a visual metaphor for their own learning.  Using art in the galleries and artistic methods with an artist, the children were able to think and talk about their learning, arriving at the point where they had learned about their own learning and expressed this visually.  Through this process, children became increasingly enquiring and able to take responsibility for and direct their own learning.  Evidence suggests that all of the children understood their own learning more by the end of the project and had undergone a transition within their thinking. 

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