Research Cafe: Art as Constructivist Learning / Constructivist Learning as Art – ETEC 530: Constructivism Strategies for E-Learning

Welcome

Welcome to my Research Café: Art as Constructivist Learning / Constructivist Learning as Art. Below, I’ve covered a few housekeeping related topics to get you started.

Navigation:

The easiest way to navigate through this Café is using the links listed in the top-left side of this screen. If you can’t see them, just click the three lines hamburger button ☰ and they will display.

Pages:

I have broken out the content of the Café into separate Pages. Navigate to the Pages link to see a list of the three subtopic pages:

Introduction & Overview

An introduction and overview that provides insight and sets the groundwork for what this Research Café is all about.

Reading(s) & Resources

Here you will find a list of the various readings I’ve collected and reviewed in preparation of this Resource Café. The readings are split up into different categories, with requirements indicated. I’ve also included a brief description of each to help you navigate through them.

Activities

On the Activities page, you will find a clear list detailing what is required of you in this Research Café.

Discussion Forum:

All participation in the Café will be shared/documented as posts and responses within the Discussion forum. There is only one Discussion forum for the Café, but as you will see, there are multiple ways to participate within it.

Questions / Comments / Contact:

If you have any questions or comments for me, you can either send me a private message through Canvas, or, feel free to post it in the Discussion forum if you feel comfortable doing so and think the answer would benefit everyone. I will be monitoring Canvas and the Discussion forum multiple times per day throughout the week and will respond as quickly as I can. I will also be participating regularly in the Discussion forum.

Etiquette:

Keep it casual. The design of this Café was intended to be fun and participatory, both within the Discussion forum in Canvas, and with the participants and their creative activity outside of the digital realm/Canvas. I am a social person, social constructivism is a key theme of this Café, and learning socially can make for a fun time. So feel free to use the Discussion forum in ways that are both academic in nature, as well as casual or conversational. That doesn’t mean that some posts must be academic, and some conversational (though if that’s what you want to do, that’s okay too), but do feel free to explore more open and relaxed forms of communication, shorter conversational responses as appropriate, or stream of consciousness styles of response.

Introduction & Overview

Key Words / Themes:

Participation / Participatory Art
Collaboration
Social Constructivism
Situated Learning
Conceptual Art
Relational Aesthetics

Art as Constructivist Learning / Constructivist Learning as Art:

This Research Café serves as an exploration in creative and experimental ways of teaching that are participatory in nature and informed by both cognitive and social constructivist principles. In this Café, we will look at examples of how studio arts education lends itself to constructivism (see the Pre-Readings listed on the Reading(s) & Resources page) but we will also see how constructivist-informed pedagogical practices themselves can be art. When I say this, I don’t mean that teaching is an art, I mean that a social project/activity/event of participants working together can itself be an artwork. A teacher may act as the facilitator, the students may participate at different levels, but the whole of the experience can be a collaborative work of art. Although it may often be the case, there is no requirement that art making results in an object. In fact, the most important element of conceptual art is the idea. Art can be ephemeral – it can be an experience, a process, or an event.

Art as an Idea

To help shift your thinking toward conceptual art, specifically, conceptual art that instigates action and provokes participation, I’ve listed just a couple examples of famous artworks where the core of the work is rooted in its concept. It is true that for each of these examples, something physical remains (e.g., a by-product, an instruction, documentation), but the part that most people might point to as the ‘art,’ either does not remain as its existence was ephemeral, or takes different forms depending on the participants involved.

Sol Lewitt – Drawing Instructions

Lewitt is known for his giant, colourful and geometric wall murals – but did you know that many of these murals are actually by-products of Lewitt’s work? The actual ‘art’ is a set of instructions for the ‘drawings’. To display the work, galleries must first to create it by following Lewitt’s instructions.

Image of a wall drawing instruction for Boston Museum from: https://improvisedlife.com/2015/08/10/learning-stealing-sol-lewitt/

Allan Kaprow – Happenings

Happenings were ephemeral events facilitated by Allan Kaprow. People could not attend to view the artwork, instead they were required to attend to participate in the work. The participants were seen as key elements in the creation of the artwork. Without them the artwork would not take form – it would not exist.

Image of one of Kaprow’s Happenings titled Fluids from: https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/happening-happenings-performance-art

Pedagogy as Art

In this Research Café we will be taking a closer look at the work of Portland, OR based artist Harrell Fletcher. Much of Fletcher’s work as an artist is social in nature, and may be described as being part of relational aesthetics, an art movement that has the “tendency to make art based on, or inspired by, human relations and their social context” (Tate). Fletcher also founded and heads the Art + Social Practice, Master of Fine Arts Program at Portland State University.

The required reading (see the Reading(s) & Resources page) is a transcribed conversation between Fletcher and collaborator artist Lisa Jarrett about their project, KSMoCA (King School Museum of Contemporary Art). KSMoCA is an ongoing contemporary art museum that exists within Martin Luther King Jr. Public School in Portland, OR. The students of the school have the option to participate in running KSMoCA, and Fletcher and Jarrett’s under-grad and graduate students at PSU also participate, along with visiting and exhibiting professional artists. KSMoCA is an example of a situated learning, where the situation is brought to the students, providing access to specialized kinds of learning experiences that students may not be exposed to otherwise.

Image of KSMoCA inside of Martin Luther King Jr School, from: https://www.pps.net/domain/5197

As part of the Activities in this Café (see the Activities page), you are asked to check out another artwork of Fletcher’s with collaborator Miranda July, called Learning to Love You More (LTLYM). This now concluded project ran from 2002-2009 as invitations to the public (anyone) to participate in and document their completion of regularly posted ‘Assignments’. The documentation of these Assignments is available on the LTLYM website, and resulting objects and documentation were also shown in major galleries where participants were formally credited as artists.

Screenshot of the LTLYM Website: http://learningtoloveyoumore.com/

Creative Practices in Education

The intention of sharing these examples through reading, exploration and participatory experience is to inspire education facilitators in different environments, serving varying age groups, to view their practice more creatively. To look at art education as a model for how education in other subjects and realms can be more socially constructive, and to reframe one’s teaching practice to see it as a collaborative work of art that is reliant on active participation to exist.

References

Tate. (n.d.). Relational aesthetics. Tate. Retrieved February 25, 2023, from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/r/relational-aesthetics

Reading(s) & Resources

So, the reading list below looks extensive, but don’t worry! I have categorized the readings associated with this Research Café and how to approach them. For example: the pre-readings are sufficiently addressed with a quick scan, there is only one required reading and it is fun, easy and consequently, a quick read, and the optional/future supplemental readings are there for you to check out only if you want to. I’ve included descriptions for all to help provide direction as needed.

Suggested Pre-Readings:

(See the descriptions provided for each for further guidance).

Teaching Creativity in Art and Design Studio Classes: A Systematic Literature Review – R. Keith Sawyer

Sawyer, R. K. (2017). Teaching creativity in art and design studio classes: A systematic literature review. Educational research review, 22, 99-113. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X17300271

This paper provides a literature review of creative practices in arts education that point to constructivist learning. An overview scan is all that is required, with more focused attention to the findings identified on pp. 106 -111 that highlight the educational themes evident in arts education. This paper provides insight to the constructivist nature of studio-based arts education, yet through further reading/exploration in this Café, it becomes evident that studio practice is only one aspect of arts education.

Constructivism and Connection Making in Art Education – Judith Simpson

Simpson, J. (1996). Constructivism and connection making in art education. Art Education, 49(1), 53-59. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00043125.1996.11651424?journalCode=uare20

In this short article, Simpson relays how a constructivist approach lends itself well to arts education by allowing opportunities for the learner to connect with art history and art making through their own experiences and reflection of self. With this approach, art education can also be used as a tool to initiate connections to other subjects within a curriculum. This article is short, and can be scanned, yet the content is richer than the previously listed pre-reading and you may wish to give it more attention.

Required Reading:

Let’s Start with Kindergarten – Harrell Fletcher & Lisa Jarrett

Fletcher, H., & Jarrett, L. (2019). Let’s start with kindergarten. In H. Fletcher, & M. Sherman (Eds.), Shaped by the People: Conversations on Participatory Education (pp. 8–18). Pdxscholar. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/shaped_people/1

This chapter, found within the book, Shaped by the People: Conversations on Participatory Education (2019) is in the form of a conversation between Harrell Fletcher and Lisa Jarrett. The conversational format makes for an engaging and quick read. Although Fletcher and Jarrett do not explicitly discuss constructivism, their ‘art project’, the King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) represents an exciting and experimental method of education that is inherently constructivist in nature. KSMoCA is a contemporary art museum that exists within an operational public school. Students at the school have the option to participate in activities associated with the museum. Fletcher and Jarrett teach at Portland State University, and their undergrad and graduate students also participate in running the museum. This dynamic (and ongoing) project takes a social constructivist approach to engage with experimental and participatory situated learning that serves students and the community at various levels.

Optional Supplemental/Future Readings:

The Creative Act

Duchamp, M., & Dachy, M. (1994). The creative act. Sub rosa. https://monoskop.org/images/7/7c/Duchamp_Marcel_1957_1975_The_Creative_Act.pdf

The notion that the completion of an artwork happens when it is perceived by the viewer is prevalent in art theory. An artwork itself may be what the artist intended, but the artist only has so much control in how it is perceived – it’s an idea that lends itself well to the constructivist notion that individuals each construct their own perception of the world. Marcel Duchamp, the artist often credited for initiating conceptual art, is also credited for popularizing this idea in his lecture, The Creative Act.

A Pedagogical Turn: Brief Notes on Education as Art

Podesva, K. L. (2007). A pedagogical turn: Brief notes on education as art. Filip, 6. https://fillip.ca/content/a-pedagogical-turn

Podesva provides various key examples in modern art history of art taking the form of education itself. Each example presents art as something beyond a material object, but instead a social process, and presents education as something creative, and more than basic instruction – education itself is art. This article shows how relativist ways of thinking influenced art practices through modern history.

Chapter 7 – A Constructivist Perspective on Teaching and Learning in the Arts (from the Fosnot text)

Greene, M. (2013). A Constructivist Perspective on Teaching and Learning in the Arts. In Fosnot, C. T. (Eds.), Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed., pp. 110-131). Teachers College Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/detail.action?docID=3545062

With this chapter, I was surprised to find that unlike with Simpson’s article (see above, in the Pre-Reading section) Greene took a more theoretical approach that manages to touch on many of the key aspects covered in a fine arts higher education such as semiotics, coded imagery connected to time and place, art as a language, rejection of binary opposition, inherent subjectivity/bias of the maker/viewer, and others.

Chapter 12 – The Project Approach in Reggio Emilia (from the Fosnot text)

Forman, G. (2013). The Project Approach in Reggio Emilia. In Fosnot, C. T. (Eds.), Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed., pp. 212-221). Teachers College Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/detail.action?docID=3545062

I first read about Reggio Emilia in Fletcher’s (2019) book, Shaped by the People: Conversations on Participatory Education (see the Required Reading), so I was interested to learn more through Forman’s chapter in Fosnot’s (2013) text. The similarities between the example illustrated in this chapter and what Fletcher and Jarrett are doing with KSMoCA are evident, but pre-school children are the focus of this example. This chapter is a very short read, and could be covered in one of this course’s future assigned readings. If you were charmed and intrigued by KSMoCA, this chapter might be for you.

Activities

Listed below are the activities required for participation in this Research Café. Review this section in full before deciding which options to proceed with. The purpose of this engagement is to introduce you to thinking about Art as Constructivist Learning and/or Constructivist Learning as Art to inspire you to design creative pedagogies that are guided by constructivist principles and are participatory in nature.

After reading the Welcome!announcement, visit, read and explore the Introduction & Overview page to get an idea of what this Café is all about.
Visit the Reading(s) & Resources page. Lightly scan the suggested pre-reading and closely read the required text. Check out the optional supplemental/future reading if you have time, or just review the descriptions I provided.
Explore Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July’s (2002-2009) web-based project Learning to Love You More (LTLYM): http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/index.php
Watch this 2019 interview (approx. 26 min.) about LTLYM between Fletcher and July and SF MOMA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYMwcFpCFhI
Complete one of the following activities and post your response in the Café discussion:

(Aim to complete this activity by Friday, March 10)

Activity A:

Complete any of the 70 Assignments from LTLYM

(Of note: The attention and time required for each of the Assignments varies wildly. Some could be completed in 15 min.-1 hr., others may take longer. Choose one that works with the time you have available).

Post documentation of your completed Assignment and provide a short reflection on your experience that connects back to the Café content, required reading, and/or any other content in the course to date. You may refer to the Guiding Questions (below) to help guide your reflection.

– or –

Activity B:

In consideration of the Café content, required reading and LTLYM, design a short learning activity (or ‘Assignment’) that is constructivist and participatory in nature. The learning activity should be something that could be completed relatively quickly by a classmate. It could be artistic, similar to those in LTLYM or could be creative in a non-artistic way and focused on a particular area of interest.
Include a brief rationale for your activity design and pull from the Café content, required reading, and/or any other content in the course to date. Post the activity instructions and rationale – use diagrams, images or external links as necessary. You may refer to the Guiding Questions (below) to help guide your rationale.

In the discussion, respond to at least one of the posts using either of the options listed below:

(Aim to complete this activity by Sunday, March 12)

Respond to a classmates post by providing a brief yet thoughtful art critique (or ‘crit’)of one of the LTLYM assignments posted by a classmate. How do you connect with what they’ve posted? Does it relate back to the course content or this Research Café? Or does it make you think of something totally outside this course?