Teaching Strategies for Visual Arts

Brainstorming

Teachers can use brainstorming as a thinking strategy to help students generate questions, ideas, and
examples and to explore a central idea or topic. During brainstorming, students share ideas that come to
mind and record these ideas without making judgements about them.

When introducing a topic, teachers can use brainstorming

sessions to determine what students already know or wish to learn, and to provide direction for learning
and reflection. Brainstorming stimulates fluent and flexible thinking and can also be used to extend
problem-solving skills.

Conference

During a student–teacher conference, students can report on their progress, consider problems and
solutions, and note strengths and areas for improvement. Teachers can discuss students’ work with
pairs or small groups of students to facilitate learning. Conferences therefore require an inviting and
supportive atmosphere to encourage open discussion, as well as a high level of trust between
participants. Conferences provide teachers with an opportunity to guide and support learners and a
forum for students to demonstrate their learning through discussion, sketchbooks, or portfolios.

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative-learning techniques allow students to work as a team to accomplish a common learning

goal. For example, a group of students may work together to prepare a drama, dance, or music
performance, to create an art work, or to

complete a research project. In addition to the final product produced by the group, an important
aspect of the

cooperative-learning process is having each group member examine how the group functioned in its
task and evaluate his or her own contribution to the group process. Discussions, journal entries, and
self-evaluation checklists are some ways in which students can reflect on the group work process and
their part in it.

Discussion

Discussion is a cooperative strategy through which students explore their thinking, respond to ideas,
process information, and articulate their thoughts in exchanges with peers and the teacher. Discussion
can be used to clarify understanding of concepts, ideas, and information. Emphasis is placed on talking
and listening to each other. Through discussion, students can make connections between ideas and
experience, and reflect on a variety of meanings and interpretations of texts and experiences.

Experimenting

Experimenting is central to the arts, and is frequently used in making connections between the concrete
and the abstract. Experimenting requires that students investigate, test, explore, manipulate, solve
problems, make decisions, and organize information in hands-on ways. Experimenting also encourages
students to use cooperative skills effectively in interpreting and communicating findings. Experimenting
enhances student motivation, understanding, and active involvement and can be initiated by the
teacher or the student.

Focused Exploration

This is a method of instruction in which students use the materials and equipment available in the
classroom in ways of their choosing. The teacher observes and listens while students are exploring, and
provides guidance as needed, using information gathered from assessment. For example, the teacher
may pose a question, prompt deeper thinking, or introduce new vocabulary.

Free Exploration

This is a key instructional activity that is initiated by students, using the materials available in the
classroom in ways of their choosing. Teachers observe and listen as part of ongoing assessment while
students are exploring freely, but do not guide the exploration as they do during focused exploration.
Graphic or Visual Organizers

The use of visual supports is an especially powerful teaching strategy. Graphic organizers, often also
referred to as key visuals, allow students to understand and represent relationships visually rather than
just with language, providing helpful redundancy in making meaning from a text. Graphic organizers can
be used to record, organize, compare, analyse, and synthesize information and ideas. They can assist
students in accessing prior knowledge and connecting it to new concepts learned as well as
consolidating their understanding. Examples of common graphic organizers

include the following: timeline, cycle diagram, T-chart, Venn diagram, story map, flow chart, grid, web,
and problem-solution outline. The use of a graphic organizer is extremely helpful when carried out
initially as a class or group brainstorming activity. The graphic organizer provides a way of collecting and
visually presenting information about a topic that will make it more comprehensible for students.

When using different graphic organizers, teachers should point out and model for students the
usefulness of particular graphic organizers. For example, the T-chart provides an ideal framework for
visually representing comparison and contrast, while the flow chart is well suited to illustrating cause-
and-effect relationships.

Guided Activity

This is a key instructional activity that is initiated by the teacher. On the basis of assessment information,
the teacher may pose a series of questions, provide prompts to extend thinking, ask students to
demonstrate a familiar concept in a new way, encourage students to try a new activity, and so on.

Guided Exploration

The teacher models a concept or skill that is part of a larger set of skills or knowledge, and guides the
students as they practise this first step. The process is repeated until the students master the expected
knowledge and skills of the lesson. This strategy is particularly useful for introducing new skills that are
developed sequentially.

Jigsaw

Jigsaw is a cooperative group activity in which a different segment of a learning task is assigned to each
member of a small group (the “home” group). All home group members then work to become an
“expert” in their aspect of the task to teach the other group members. Jigsaw activities push all students
to take equal responsibility for the group’s learning goals. In the arts, jigsaw activities can be done in
creating/performing, listening, and reading formats.

In a jigsaw activity in creating/performing, each student becomes a member of an “expert” group, which
learns a particular arts skill. Experts then return to their home groups to share information and
demonstrate the skill. Each expert must ensure that all members of the home group understand the
information and the method of performing the skill. A similar procedure can be followed for a jigsaw
listening activity or a jigsaw reading activity.

Lateral Thinking

This is a thinking process first described by Edward di Bono, who recognized that the mind can perceive
issues from many angles and is thus able to generate many creative solutions, even unorthodox ones.
Lateral thinking involves

reviewing a problem or challenge from multiple perspectives, often breaking up the elements and
recombining them in different ways, even randomly. Use of lateral thinking methods develops skills in
bringing positive and negative aspects of a problem to the fore and evaluating the whole picture.

Media Analysis

Media analysis is a critical literacy strategy in which commercial media works are examined for the
purpose of “decoding” the work – that is, determining the purpose, intended audience, mood, and
message of the work, and the techniques used to create it. Through media analysis, students evaluate
everyday media, maintaining a critical distance and resisting manipulation by media producers, and they
learn about media techniques that they can then use to create or enhance their own works. Key
concepts of media analysis include recognition that media construct reality, have commercial
implications, contain ideological and value messages, and have social and political implications.

Modelling

Teachers can demonstration a task or strategy to students, and may “think aloud” while doing it to make
the process clearer. By imitating the model, students become aware of the procedures needed to
perform the task or use the strategy.

Multiple Points of View

Teachers can encourage students to adopt another point of view in order to develop their ability to
think critically and to look at issues from more than one perspective. In this activity, students identify
which person’s point of view is

being considered and the needs and concerns of the person. They also locate and analyse information
about the person and summarize the person’s position. They learn to examine issues and characters and
to form conclusions without letting personal bias interfere. This strategy can be used in both creating
and viewing activities in the arts.

Oral Explanation

Students may use oral explanation to clarify thinking, to justify reasoning, and to communicate their
understanding in any of the arts.

Panel Discussion

A panel discussion provides opportunities for students to examine controversial issues from different
perspectives. A moderator introduces the topic, and the panel members then each present to an
audience a prepared statement of three to five minutes that elucidates a particular viewpoint. The
moderator facilitates audience participation and allows panel members to clarify previous statements or
provide new information. After the discussion period, the moderator asks each panel member for some
general conclusions or summary statements. Topics chosen for a panel discussion should engage
students intellectually and emotionally, allowing them to use higher-order thinking skills as they make
reasoned and logical arguments.

Role Play

Role play allows students to simulate a variety of situations, using language for different purposes and
audiences. Through role plays, students can practice and explore alternative solutions to situations
outside the classroom. The role-play strategy also allows students to take different perspectives on a
situation, helping them to develop sensitivity and understanding by putting themselves in the shoes of
others. An important phase in any role-playing activity is the follow-up. Debriefing after a role play
allows students to analyze the role-play experience and the learning in the activity

Simulation

Through simulation, students can participate in a replication of real or hypothetical conditions and
respond and act as though the situation were real. Simulation is useful when students are learning about
complex processes, events, ideas, or issues, or when they are trying to understand the emotions and
feelings of others. Simulation requires the manipulation of a variety of factors and variables, allowing
students to explore alternatives and solve problems and to take values and attitudes into consideration
when making decisions and experiencing the results. Simulation can take a number of forms, including
role playing, dramatizations, and enactments of historical events.

Sketching to Learn

Through making quick sketches, students can represent ideas and their responses to them during or
immediately following a presentation or lesson. They can also take notes in pictorial or graphic form
while reading a story for a dance or drama project. Sketching to learn is often used during a listening or
viewing experience in order to help students understand new or complex concepts or techniques.
Think-Aloud

In the think-aloud strategy, the teacher models out loud a thinking or learning process while using it. It is
particularly useful when students are learning a difficult concept or reinforcing learning. Think-aloud can
also be done by students on their own as they learn a skill, with a peer, or with the teacher for
assessment purposes.

Think-Pair-Share

During a think-pair-share activity, students individually consider an issue or problem and then discuss
their ideas in pairs or in a small group. A few students are then called on by the teacher to share their
thoughts and ideas with the whole class.

Visualization

Visualization is a process of making an object, an event, or a situation visible in one’s imagination by

mentally constructing or recalling an image. Teachers can use visualization with students as an exercise
in image creation prior to creating an artwork. Visualization allows students to draw on their own prior
experience and extend their thinking creatively. Teachers can also make use of a variety of visual stimuli
(e.g., illustrations, photographs, reproductions, videos, real objects, graphics) to assist students in
generating ideas for various kinds of works in all the arts.