Media Arts teaching & learning 

​pedagogies/strategies
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​CURRICULUM AND ALIGNING PEDAGOGY 
“Learning is a process and a product” 
 (et al. Churchill, 2019)
 
“The arts have the capacity to involve children as active participants in their own learning” 
(et al. Sinclair, 2009)

In the media arts, a student-centred approach in about embracing 21st century pedagogies, technologies and digital texts in order to achieve successful learning.  An effective teacher takes the learning style of each student and emerge it with theories to adapt to diverse teaching situations.

What theories can be applied?
It can be argued that socio-constructivist, humanistic, embodied and cognitive learning theories can be used to described how the learner can take ownership of their learning, through (responding and making media products), ​creative and practice means to gain the knowledge or skills they require.
This ability, in part is formed by their learning environment and learning context (the physical space), their past knowledge or skills, their cultural background, and previous education/social experiences. It requires and effective teacher to ‘design for learning’ (Betham, 2013) by taking the ‘whole child’ (Montessori) into account. The diagram below highlight the triangle that exists between the student as learner, the content in the curriculum, teaching and learning pedagogy/approaches and media arts industry practices and standards. This triangle is located within the ‘learning space’ (the learner is impacted by social, cultural and familial and technological factors).
This diagram represents how pedagogies in the media arts can be conceptualised – where there are political/economic factors , creative/artistic factors, industry factors.
​The media arts educator will have to navigate these spaces to create inclusive and diverse learning environments.
Teaching for real-life learning!

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Theories on Learning and Teaching

As identified by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualisation can only be achieved if the learner feels safe and secure and feels they belong to the community. These combined elements produce full realisation of individuals potential. This is a constructivist framework - described as “the process of learning as actively constructing knowledge, which interacts with previously gained knowledge, personal experiences, beliefs, and perceptions”. 

The four principles  derived by Cooperstein & Kocevar-Weidinger, (2004) explains:

• Learners construct their own meaningful and deep learning.
• New learning builds on prior knowledge and experiences.
• Learning is enhanced by social communications and interactions in collaborative team-based environments.
• Learning develops through open-ended authentic ill-defined problems and tasks.

Professor John Hattie (Melbourne Graduate School of education) identifies these principles into action that teachers can enact: to create structure, frameworks and expectations for students. This is by creating learning goals and success criteria, so the student can take ownership of their learning and share in the lesson objectives.  

Vygotsky developed socio-cultural framework – the zone of proximal development (ZPD) there is a required for cognitive development, how the student perceived and processes information - “metacognition”.

As Paiget's constructivist theory of knowledge (1970) reflect learners must construct meaning through concepts, personal experimentation and observation. 
The theories around play and the use of the body and mind in arts education is the emphasised with the embodied pedagogy by physically ‘doing’ (Dewey 1997a) you understand and process as a cognitive recognition. Embodied pedagogy curriculum approach spans discipline to make concrete its visions of creating spaces where learners create, the sensory tactical experience of practical in active learning. 
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Teaching Pedagogies in Media arts classroom

Pedagogy Theory into practice – 21 st Century strategies
Embracing 21st century pedagogies (technology and digital) is not simply about ICT but about a new relationship in education that includes the home and workplace, social contexts (Hargreaves, 2004).    
Therefore, teacher must use open strategies that engage digital tools/resources such as:

1. Teacher resource management software: google classroom or mac software – teacher can use who as logged in and monitor resource.
2. Learning and informal assessment tool : Kahoot software is a quiz game that can be used to gauge students’ knowledge.
3. Set up class blog or forum in order to share information and engage; – in-class and accessible at home
4. Using video as form of oral assessment not traditional in-class presentation. Mix up modes of assessment platforms.
5. Using e-portfolios in assessment. To document creative process ​​https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/practice/Pages/insight-feedback.aspx#link100

 
 
High Impact Teaching Strategies
 
This has been collated from in part by the high impact document , weblink attached https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/support/highimpactteachstrat.pdf and from Teaching Making A difference (Churchill, 2019).
 
Learning styles: student-centred

• Collaborative learning
• Cooperative learning 
• Expeditionary learning
• Inquiry-based learning
• game-based learning “play or role-play” – embodied learning

 
Benefits: provides opportunities for learners to negotiate learning through their issues, build their interests, reflect on their questions, develop communication skills by valuing both talking and listening, while contributing openly in a safe context (a ‘no blame’, ‘put-down-free’ zone).
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Learning styles: teacher led

• Explicit teaching
• Implicit teaching
• Flipped classroom structure
• Differentiated teaching
• Mega-cognition (such as self-assessment or reflection. guided by teacher questioning)
• Digital/technological tools to enhance learning
• Multiple exposure
• Instructional teaching, modelling and Gradual release of responsibility (GRP)
• Feedback: as interactive encounter where meaning is made as the students engage and elaborate of skills and knowledge

 
 
These strategies can be applied by the teacher:
The participation of all students and creative and higher-order thinking is encouraged by teachers’ interactions.
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Feedback and questions:
·       Why do you think that?
·       Did you mean …
·       Where are we at? [pause]
·       What have we decided so far?
·       [Student name], are you saying that …
·       What is the connection between … and … if any?
 
Cooperative learning and teaching
The five essential components for effective use of cooperative learning as applied by teacher;1.    Positive interdependence — each person’s efforts contribute to the group’s success.
2.    Face-to-face interaction — each person promotes each other’s success by helping, assisting, supporting, encouraging and praising each other’s efforts to learn.
3.    Individual accountability — each individual is assessed, but the results are given back to the group and individual; hitch-hikers and freeloaders make task completion impossible.
4.    Interpersonal and small group skills — group members must be taught the social skills for high-quality cooperation and be motivated to use them. Games of any sort, table or outdoor, are an ideal way to initiate and develop skills of leadership, decision making, trust building, communication and conflict management.
5.    Group processing — group members reflect on the group’s functioning ability and evaluate how well the group achieved their goals and maintained effective working relationships.

Inclusion and Equity - teaching practice

Inclusion and Equity 
The Australian institute of health and welfare 2014: identified the following groups in society as disadvantaged:

• Indigenous Australians
• People with disability
• People with low levels literacy and numeracy
• People who live in poor socioeconomic conditions

(UNIESCO, 2017, Framework, Churchill, 2019,  p. 155)
 
Standards to follow for teachers: 
https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards
 
Inclusion in education involves:

• putting inclusive values into action
• viewing every life and every death as of equal worth
• supporting everyone to feel that they belong
• increasing participation for children and adults in learning and teaching activities, relationships and communities of local schools
• reducing exclusion, discrimination, barriers to learning and participation
• restructuring cultures, policies and practices to respond to diversity in ways that value everyone equally
• linking education to local and global realities
• learning from the reduction of barriers for some children to benefit children more widely
• viewing differences between children and between adults as resources for learning
• acknowledging the right of children to an education of high quality in their locality
• improving schools for staff and parents/carers as well as children
• emphasising the development of school communities and values, as well as achievements
• fostering mutually sustaining relationships between schools and surrounding communities
• recognising that inclusion in education is one aspect of inclusion in society (Booth & Ainscow 2011). 

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Source: Adapted from UNESCO-IBE (2016).

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Indigenous Australians
The detailed below has been curated from et al. Churchill 2019, p. 430:
The right of Indigenous peoples to education is protected by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which in Article 14 states that ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.’ The framework shown was developed by the Community and Elders of Western NSW, the NSW Department of Education and Training, the Western NSW Regional Aboriginal Education Team, and Tyson Yunkaporta (Yunkaporta 2009; Yunkaporta & Kirby 2011). 
 
The eight interactive teaching and learning pedagogies include narrative-based learning, visual learning processes, hands-on/reflective techniques, use of symbols/metaphors, land-based learning, indirect/synergistic logic, modelling scaffolded genre mastery and connectedness to community. Godinho, Woolley, Webb and Winkel (2015) put these principles to work in a project to develop the English and Science literacy skills of Aboriginal students in Mannigrida, a remote community in the Northern Territory. Through cross-cultural exchanges and ‘on country’ visits, Aboriginal biocultural knowledge was integrated with Western scientific understanding to develop curriculum and literacy resources. The research points out that relationship-building, coupled with a sustained presence in the community, were critical to strengthening the partnership, and highlighted that establishing trust and credibility must precede any research initiatives.

Source: Yunkaporta (2009); Yunkaporta & Kirby (2011). Source Churchill, 2019, p.430

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