Within the scope of the research project in art education, “The (Un)predictable in Visual Arts Education: A Combination of Planned and Unplanned Actions”, one of whose objectives is to explore experiences of emancipatory educational practices in visual arts education, we propose, for ECER, the presentation of the results of fieldwork currently being carried out with students and teachers of visual arts education across different areas such as painting, sculpture, design, photography, architecture, among others.

Existing standardised educational models, oriented towards outcomes, competencies, and predictability, tend to be restrictive for both students and teachers. For students, these models often translate into the assessment of their skills. For teachers, they imply limitations on pedagogical action in response to closed and prescriptive curricula. Faced with this scenario, it becomes urgent to rethink visual arts education through practices that introduce disruptions, suspensions, and forms of pedagogical transgression in relation to dominant educational logics. In this sense, this proposal emerges from the need to create moments of pedagogical interruption, understood not as rupture, but as a possibility to temporarily suspend habitual ways of teaching, learning, and assessing. These moments of pedagogical interruption make it possible to open up space for speculation, activating educational processes that combine curricular planning with actions deliberately left open, aligning with process-oriented and experiential understandings of learning in the arts (Dewey, 1934; Eisner, 2002). The aim is to create spatial, embodied, and affective conditions in which visual arts education can embrace the unexpected, chance, and uncertainty as constitutive elements of learning processes.

Speculation thus emerges as a pedagogical and artistic mode of operation that develops within these intervals of suspension, where learning outcomes are not predetermined. Within this framework, learning involves engaging with the unknown and with what is still emerging, recognising the creative project as a field of ongoing construction, traversed by deviations, negotiations, and continuous reconfigurations. This approach moves away from a transmission-based logic or the production of predefined outcomes, instead valuing indeterminacy as a way of knowing, understanding, and producing educational meaning that is necessary for a continuous process of decision-making within open and emergent learning contexts (Biesta, 2013; Eisner, 2002).

Within this framework, unpredictability is understood as a pedagogical condition, indeterminacy as a structural feature of learning processes, and chance as an operative element that activates speculative engagement within creative practices.

The pedagogical model under development is conceived as a space of productive uncertainty, where error is accepted and recontextualised, chance is welcomed, and the unexpected becomes sensitive material for learning and reflection. The proposal highlights the importance of allowing students to experience moments of creative vulnerability, understood as opportunities to open speculative spaces that enable new interpretations, relationships, and ways of engaging with art. In this context, the act of creating or developing an artistic project is configured as a learning trajectory marked by sensitivity and imagination, assuming itself as an ongoing process, as referred to by Ostrower (2007), and resonating with reflective and experiential perspectives on artistic learning (Dewey, 1934; Schön, 1983).

The pedagogical model under development is grounded in a play-based, exploratory approach to experiential learning and arts-based education. It integrates unpredictability and randomness as intentional pedagogical strategies that function as moments of interruption, fostering speculative engagement in the creative process. Here, play is understood not as a recreational activity but as a device that enables experimentation, risk-taking, and meaning-making, activating creativity and graphic expression while supporting resilience, the acceptance of error, and problem-solving capacities intrinsic to creative project development (Dewey, 1934; Huizinga, 1955; Kolb, 1984; Eisner, 2002). The research adopts a qualitative, exploratory design with an interpretative orientation and is structured into two complementary phases. The first phase consists of workshop-based fieldwork with students, while the second involves collaborative co-creation workshops with teachers who were present as observers during the student workshops. The workshops were conducted in Portuguese public schools and involved students from artistic education. This phase aimed to observe and analyse how students engage with open-ended pedagogical proposals characterised by chance, indeterminacy, and the absence of predefined learning outcomes, aligning with process-oriented and open pedagogical approaches (Biesta, 2013; Eisner, 2002). The second phase, centred on co-creation workshops with teachers, is conceived as a space for collective reflection and dialogical inquiry into contemporary practices in visual arts education. These workshops draw on reflective and participatory research approaches, valuing teachers’ experiential knowledge (Schön, 1983; Kemmis, McTaggart, & Nixon, 2014). The discussions problematise key challenges in contemporary visual arts teaching, including the pedagogical role of technique, tensions between contemporary practice and formal curricula, expectations surrounding students’ futures, notions of artistic identity in school contexts, and the teacher’s role as a cultural producer. Within this framework, the recognition that teachers do not hold all knowledge positions students as active contributors to knowledge production within co-learning processes (Vygotsky, 1978). Within this methodological framework, unpredictability is approached as a pedagogical condition that frames learning contexts, indeterminacy as a structural characteristic of open-ended creative processes, and chance as an operative element that generates situated responses within teaching and learning encounters. The focus is placed on the creative process as a relational and situated learning space, in which students and teachers engage in moments of co-learning and co-creation. These moments involve situated responses to unforeseen impulses shaped by contextual contingencies and, although challenging, generate shifts and transformations that contribute to understanding arts education as an emergent, continuously evolving educational process (Eisner, 2002; Schön, 1983).

The pedagogical model for visual arts education emerges from the need to rethink educational practices within contexts characterised by standardised, predictable, and results-oriented models. By problematising unpredictability as a pedagogical condition, the study highlights practices that introduce moments of pedagogical interruption and suspension of habitual logics of teaching, learning, and assessment. These practices open space for alternative ways of thinking and acting in arts education, aligning with process-oriented and non-instrumental conceptions that value openness and emergence over predefined results (Biesta, 2013; Eisner, 2002). The fieldwork results identify speculation as a pedagogical and artistic mode activated in moments of openness where learning outcomes are not predetermined. In these contexts, learning is understood as an emergent, relational process shaped by chance, indeterminacy, and the negotiation of meaning. From this perspective, the creative project is framed as an ongoing process in which error, vulnerability, and the unexpected are recognised as valuable resources for learning, aligning with experiential and constructivist approaches to education (Dewey, 1934; Vygotsky, 1978). In synthesising these results, unpredictability is reaffirmed as a pedagogical condition, indeterminacy as a structural dimension of creative learning processes, and chance as an operative force that enables transformation within situated educational practices. The research indicates that the proposed pedagogical model reconfigures pedagogical relationships by creating conditions that support speculation, co-learning, and co-creation. The model emphasises pedagogical practices attentive to contexts and processes, questioning traditional hierarchies and supporting emancipatory approaches in visual arts education (Schön, 1983; Kemmis, McTaggart, & Nixon, 2014). This proposal is conceived as a work in progress, open to adaptation and reformulation across educational contexts. By embracing unpredictability and speculation as constitutive dimensions of art education, it contributes to contemporary debates by proposing pedagogical alternatives that value uncertainty, imagination, and collective knowledge construction.

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