https://doi.org/10.53656/ped2024-8.04

Резюме. This research was based on the premise that in-service preschool teachers lack necessary knowledge and confidence in discussing works of art with preschool children most probably as a result of insufficient formal education within the early art education domain. Therefore we developed an experimental educational program for our students – future preschool teachers, with hypothesis that it could provide them with basic knowledge, skills, and self-confidence to implement art-viewing and art appreciation activities in preschool education. Results indicate that proposed approach to future preschool teachers’ training in developing and implementing meaningful art-viewing activities with preschool children can effectively influence their knowledge, skills and confidence. However, it was also concluded, that in order to make it a regular element of preschool teachers’ education program, it should be adjusted more efficiently in context of already existing syllabus.

Ключови думи: future preschool teacher education; meaningful art-viewing activities; experimental education program; practical training; early art education

1. Educational and developmental relevance of art-viewing activities in early art education and appropriate pedagogical approaches

Art in early childhood education is usually understood as time for children to engage in creative art-making activities and these are, without a doubt, present in every-day preschool activities. But this is not the whole aspect of early art education. As Epstein notes, producing their own artworks is just one of the ways for children to construct meaning in their lives while other way is to discover this meaning in art created by others (Epstein 2001, p. 38). There are three components of early art education including: creating art, looking at art and talking about art, and becoming aware of art in one’s everyday life (Colbert and Taunton 1992 according to Epstein, 2001, p. 40). Hence, besides introducing art as an art-making activity in everyday preschool curricula, there is another relevance that art has on the children’s development which is development of their esthetic sense and art appreciation (Eglinton 2003, according to Eckhoff 2017, p. 14). In order to develop these values, activities of making art are not enough. In fact, Barret explains that with this aim, more valuable than learning to make art is learning to talk thoughtfully about art (Barret 2004, p. 87).

In order to talk about art, preschool children should be regularly introduced and encountered with works of art. Art experiences for young children should include activities designed to introduce children to works of art that are high quality and developmentally appropriate in both content and presentation (Eckhoff 2007, p. 463). Whether through encounter with original works of art or through quality reproductions, such experiences can have a positive effect on children’s motivation for learning about art and artists, can promote their own creative work, can inspire them to independently explore art materials, their possible combinations and to look for new, exciting solutions in their art activities, leading to children developing visual language and their cognitive and emotional abilities as well (Đorđević 2021, p. 430). Learning through works of visual art can enrich children’s cognitive, emotional, social and physical dimensions, it can help them understand the world, social traditions and to develop respect for the work of artists and it helps children develop abilities to transform their own ideas and feelings into an art form (Gibson & Larson 2007, p. 30; Eckhoff 2017, p. 18). Perkins explains how looking at art “invites, rewards, and encourages a thoughtful disposition, because works of art demand thoughtful attention to discover what they have to show and say” and that “works of art connect to social, personal, and other dimensions of life with strong affective overtones” (Perkins 1994, p. 19). Author lists number of contributions that thoughtful looking at art makes, such are: sensory anchoring by offering an physical object to be look at and talk about and learn; instant access through permitting instant checking any point of argument or seeking a new idea by looking, or looking closer, or looking from another angle; wide spectrum cognition as looking at art thoughtfully recruits many kinds and styles of cognition like visual processing, analytical thinking, posing questions, testing hypotheses, verbal reasoning, and more; and multi-connectedness as art can allow rich connection-making with social themes, philosophical conundrums, features of formal structure, personal anxieties and insights, and historical patterns (Perkins 1994, p. 20). We can understand that learning to observe works of art is not only critical to understanding art but it is an ability that can be applied to number of other areas as well (Eckhoff 2017, p. 18).

For this development to be achieved, preschool teachers need to properly introduce children to the relevant works of art and enable communication of children with artworks that enable meaningful experiences. Different pedagogical strategies in discussing works of art with children have been researched and developed by numerous authors. Widely known and cited, Visual Thinking strategy (VTS), suggests that teachers should start with open-ended questions, leading to more directive ones in order to keep the process active. Developer of this strategy, Philip Yenawine explains that teachers act as facilitators throughout the process, encouraging participation by all and making it clear that all responses are valuable, they also need to make links between students’ comments, making their interactions obvious and showing how listening and responding to others enriches the conversation and thus the examination of the work itself (Yenawine 1999, p. 7). Author shares insights that in working with beginners (which we can say young children are), it is expected that the process will start with the personal viewpoints based on the fact that viewers observe few salient details. Teacher should further expand examination with questions in order to encourage extended viewing and numbers of observations (Yenawine 1999, p. 9). According to author’s explanation: “Early growth comes from additional and ongoing exposure to art, letting the challenges emerge from visual encounter rather than increasingly complex assignments.” (Yenawine 1999, p. 9). Other art educators and researchers also base their strategies of analyzing art with students on dialogs and discussions encouraged with and guided by thoughtfully posed questions (Wilson; Clark 2000). Terry Barret, too, considers teacher’s role the most significant in students’ learning to talk about art. Not only is teacher the one to choose the artwork to be talked about and to create a suitable physical environment, but they also need to prompt this dialogue (Barret 2004). Author gives and explains steps that should be followed in order for constructive dialogue to be enabled, and the first two steps of the process are quite appropriate for working with the preschool age children - description and interpretation of art. At the very beginning, teacher should act as facilitator, selecting the work and starting asking questions, making sure to encourage a multiplicity of voices within the group so that no one is left behind (Barret 2004). The same as Barret, Eckhoff agrees about the importance of questioning - open and close-ended questions initiated by teachers (Eckhoff 2007, p. 468). Other strategies teachers can apply in order to motivate young children to participate in this process are storytelling and game play (Eckhoff 2007, p. 468). Eckhoff also acknowledges guided exploration approach explained by Bresler in 1993 (Eckhoff 2017, p. 17). Schiller advises teachers to listen to children as it is how we can learn and then respond with understanding. Author emphasizes that listening depends on the opportunities given to children to look and talk about art and artists which is why teachers first need to provide opportunities for discussions and then listen to gain understanding of what children talk, therefore be able to respond with knowledge on how to assist children in their understanding of art and artists (Schiller 1995, p. 33).

2. Research problem

Most of authors consider teachers as crucial factors in the quality of the process of art-viewing activities with responsibility to select appropriate work of art and use appropriate educational strategies, techniques and instructions, create motivational learning environment to inspire children to participate in the communication with that particular work of art, leading to their constructive experience, (Hurwitz & Madeja 1977; Eckhoff 2017; Barret 2004; Perkins 1994). On the other hand, it has also been observed that there is a lack of such pedagogical practice in preschool environments. While working directly with future preschool teachers and cooperating with in-service preschool teachers, we observed the same situation in our sample of local preschools. We noticed that even in rare situations when teachers do introduce children to some artworks, they hardly ever go beyond the basic descriptive approach. What contributes to this state of practice is early educators’ lack of training and experience in looking and talking about art with children, having received minimal academic instruction related to visual arts education (Eckhoff 2007, pp. 463, 471). This results with preschool teachers not having idea that young children are actually capable of and enjoy talking and learning about works of art (Schiller 1995, p. 27) as well as with an incomplete understanding of the arts on the side of preschool teachers and unawareness of what aspects of learning, development, or expression to assess or how to assess them (Wright 1994, p. 28). Therefore, classroom practices of early childhood art education continue to demonstrate lack of knowledge and confidence in preschool teachers which makes it clear that preschool teachers’ education needs to prepare them more adequately in the domain of providing art education to preschool children (Bae 2004, p. 247).

Another fact is that for a long time there has been less emphasis on research into young children’s understanding of art compared to those oriented to children’s artistic expression (Schiller 1995, p. 25), resulting with lack of literature base in this area (Eckhoff 2007, p. 471). With positive tendency in exploring teaching strategies involved in engaging young students in art-viewing and art-discussion activities, we suggest that inclusion of these strategies in the preschool teacher’s education curricula could effectively contribute to teachers’ competences to include art appreciation experiences in regular educational activities with children. The important question is: How to effectively approach preschool teachers’ education and training in order to provide them with necessary knowledge and understanding to efficiently incorporate works of art in their curriculum?

Preschool teacher education programs combine two modes – theoretical and practical and encompass a wide range of pedagogical approaches where students are involved with different training models. We can notice that it is the practical component being highlighted in many papers dealing with the quality of teachers’ and preschool teachers’ education: “Practice-based teacher education programs include multiple opportunities and experiences for candidates to begin understanding the complexities of teaching and integrate knowledge from the learning and developmental theories into practice” (Waddell and Vartuli 2015, p. 11). Grossman expands common definitions of practice to a broad understanding of practice as one that incorporates both intellectual and technical activities and that encompasses both the individual practitioner and the professional community (Grossman et al. 2009, p. 2059). Teaching practice or field experiences are usually required within the methods courses, conjoined with aim to integrate recommended teaching practice with actual teaching practice (Clift and Brady 2005, p. 312).

Assuming that in order for preschool teachers to be able to apply appropriate pedagogic strategies in the activities of art-viewing with preschool children, we agree it is important they receive appropriate education in this domain, most recommended through well designed and implemented practical training. Therefore we decided to develop an experimental educational program in order to approach this problem in the context of our preschool teacher initial education program at the Faculty of Education in Jagodina, Serbia and conduct a research on its pedagogical effectiveness and efficiency.

3. Research methodology

The subject of this research is practical education of students, future preschool teachers, for efficient and good quality development and implementation of meaningful art-viewing and art appreciation activities with preschool age children through experimental educational program conceptualized in a form of theoretical lectures and practical training. The goal of the research was to investigate if we can successfully actualize an effective and efficient educational program within our regular subject Practicum in methods of teaching visual arts in preschool education (further in text also referred to as Practicum) at the Faculty of Education in Jagodina, which would enable students to construct new knowledge, understanding and practical skills in developing and implementing meaningful art-viewing and art appreciation activities with preschool age children.

The main hypothesis of this research implies that our experimental educational program provides students with basic knowledge, skills, and self-confidence to implement art-viewing and art appreciation activities in preschool education.

The goal was operationalized through following research tasks: 1) To examine if existing syllabus of the Practicum can be efficiently expanded by additional, topic-specific, practice-oriented experimental educational program; 2) To examine if students can adopt to and accept new proposed approach to their practical training, by actively participating in the process of learning and developing new knowledge and skills, as well as successfully conducting their assignments given by this experimental educational program; 3) To examine if students can construct new knowledge, understanding, practical skills and confidence in the domain of conceptualizing and implementing meaningful art-viewing activities and art appreciation experience activities through active participation in this Program.

In order to examine the first two research tasks, we used teacher evaluation form specifically designed for this purpose, and in order to examine the third task, we created a questionnaire, answered at the end of the Program by participated students. Research sample consisted of 52 final year students, attending the program for Preschool teachers at the Faculty of Education in Jagodina in Serbia. Timeframe of the research was the first semester of the 2022/2023 school year.

4. Description of the Experimental educational program

The Program consisted of theoretical lessons and students’ practical training. Theoretical framework firstly considered theories relevant to the topic of the educational program, methodically systematized for students to study. Secondly it included lesson plans of art-viewing activities developed on the topic of 16 selected artworks from art history, each approached to in 4 differently developed pedagogic strategies to implement art-viewing activities in accordance with the developmental characteristics of children in 4 preschool groups aged 3 to 6. There were totally 64 lesson plans presented by the Program. Each student was expected to implement one pre-elaborated lesson plan with one group of preschool children, which was the main aspect of their practical training.

The Program was carried out through 6 phases: Introductory lectures; Group discussions; Assignment distribution; Individual consultative meetings; Activity implementation; Group activity evaluation. The Program was conceptualized to introduce students to theoretical framework, pre-developed lesson plans with in detail elaborated teaching models, strategies, tools and lesson flow and scenarios of meaningful art-viewing and art appreciation experience activities, leaving students one assignment which is to enact one of these lesson plans in direct interaction with preschool children. The whole Program was designed to be carried out in authentic preschool setting in direct interaction with children in order to provide opportunities for students to practice appropriate teaching strategies in art-viewing activities following steps that were previously defined and discussed, to experience new approach to dialogue with children, to test their own abilities to follow unpredictable pats of children’s ideas while being confident that they can get teacher’s support or assistance at any time of the process and finally to get constructive feedback on their performance. Our starting point was the assumption that such an approach can create positive and stress released learning atmosphere, where students will feel safe in conducting teaching scenarios that have been pre-prepared by the teacher.

5. Interpretation of research results

There were 52 regular students attending Practicum of methods in teaching visual arts in preschool education in the school year 2022/2023, when the Program was actualized. Out of this number, 44 students implemented lessons in preschool setting. The rest of the students, 8 of them, did not answer to this assignment due to different reasons.

All Program’s activities were implemented according to the plan, encompassing all determined phases. Students demonstrated high motivation in the subject of the Program and participated in discussions on the presented theories and teaching strategies. The most evident was students’ contentment with the pre-prepared lesson plans, which eliminated nervousness and pressure of having to prepare lessons by themselves. Instead, they were able to focus on their own enactment, on practicing their role of guiding children through the process of communication with artwork, preparing required teaching tools and environment, all along learning through this process. While students completely understood why conversation should start with some particular questions and why we do not ask some other questions or do not give definite answers ourselves, the insecurity raised in context of unpredictability of children’s’ responses. Therefore we took more time exploring teacher’s possible reactions and acceptable solutions to the situations when they might feel insecure.

Regarding the first research task, having successfully implemented Experimental educational program within the regular program of the Practicum, we concluded that even though it is possible to expand original subject syllabus with new approach to students’ education, it cannot be considered a final solution. Even though this approach improved the overall quality of students’ participation in the Practicum, it was evident that this particular kind of subject expansion really does require an entire semester of the two-semester teaching subject, postponing the other topics of the subject program for the second semester.

In a matter of the second research task, we concluded that students adapted very well and easily to proposed model of learning and practicing which gives very positive evaluation of the Program’s concept. The level of successfulness was measured by teacher evaluation form designed to check aspects of students’ performance: 1) In presenting artwork to children and following order of predetermined questions; 2) In guiding children’s conversation about the artwork by methodically appropriately demonstrating defined aspects of the artwork; 3) In responding to children’s insights, questions and inspiration by showing good listening skills and ability to adapt to unpredicted flow of the interaction with children without losing focus on the predefined goals of the lesson/activity; 4) In methodically appropriately applying defined teaching tools and teaching strategies; 5) In motivating children to participate in the art-viewing activity and including all children in the conversation; 6) In enabling natural transition from art-viewing activity to children’s creative art-making activity, and showing understanding of the links between inspiration and creation. Each of these aspects of the students’ performance were evaluated with the grade ranging from 0 to 5, where 0 is for „not successful“ and 5 stands for “highly successful“. Therefore, the highest grade on the implementation of the overall activity was 30 points. We considered as satisfactory all results where students were graded with at least 3 points for each aspect, therefore gaining total of 18 points. Grades from 18 to 25 were considered very successful and from 25 to 30 highly successful. Results show that 68% of students performed highly successfully in implementing art-viewing activities, 25% very successfully and 7% showed less quality performance even though they achieved a positive grade.

In regard to the third research task, we conducted a survey through a questionnaire. After all phases of the Program were completed, we examined how students evaluate the level of knowledge, understanding, practical skills and confidence in the domain of conceptualizing and implementing meaningful art-viewing activities and art appreciation experience activities they gained through the Program. The questionnaire consisted of 2 categories of questions. The first category was aimed at evaluating knowledge and understanding students can demonstrate after participating in the Program. The other category requested students to evaluate understanding, knowledge, skills and confidence they gained through the Program as well as the Program itself as a specific addition and approach to the Practicum of methods in teaching visual arts in preschool education through self-evaluation. The questionnaire was answered by total of 51 student, including 7 of those who did not implement art-viewing activities but participated as observers in activities of the Program.

With the first category of 17 test-like questions separated in tree cathegories, we tended to check which principles regarding the process of planning and developing art-viewing activities, elaborated and applied in the Program, students were able to comprehend. The first group of questions examined whether students comprehended if, when and with what purpose works of art can be incorporated in pedagogical work with preschool children. The results indicate most of students (more than 80%) fully understood that works of art can be both used as learning resources and incentive for creative work and critical thinking, as well as the fact that young age is not an obstacle to introduce art-viewing activities in preschool education. Small number of students still believes that it would not be productive to talk about art with 3 and 4 year olds and there is also some misunderstanding left on the topic of potentials artworks have as a learning resource in other educational areas besides art. The second group of questions was aimed at testing if students were able to comprehend the responsibility a preschool teacher has in the process of implementing meaningful art-viewing activities, and which segments of that process are most important. We received high percentage of correct answers to all the questions. Students were able to point out the crucial principles a preschool teacher should follow in this process and were aware of how important a guidance of a teacher is during children’s thinking and discussions about works of art. The third group of questions served as a test of students’ gained knowledge about precise strategies and steps a preschool teacher should implement during a meaningful art-viewing activity. Results indicate that students can select correctly among given choices of strategies and methods to be used in an art-viewing activity. Students tend to struggle more when asked to explain the exact logic of recommended strategies and methods or even when asked to apply some of them in a given abstract situation.

The second category of questions of this questionnaire was designed for Students’ evaluation of the Program in regard to the Program’s characteristics and their self-evaluation of acquired competencies, knowledge and self-confidence. Through a group of close-ended and open-ended questions, we collected a positive evaluation of the Program’s conception and organization. All students agree that Program presented optimal learning environment with opportunity for all students to participate equally. Students agree that program presented a good theoretical framework for understanding the principles of the subject matter and did not have any complaint on the Program content. When it comes to students’ self-evaluation, results show that they mostly feel uncertain in regard to the aspects of independent development of art-viewing activities, even though they feel confident about understanding the theoretical part. We can see through collected answers that the educational value of art-viewing activities in preschool age and relevance of pedagogical strategies that should be applied during those activities with children was clear enough for students to comprehend. Most of students would accept a challenge of implementing an art-viewing activity independently but would prefer having a professional assistance in the process of planning the activity. This is a direct result of students not being involved in the process of conceptualization of lesson plans, which in this context, turns to be a disadvantage of the Program’ approach.

The last question was aimed at students’ opinion on the phase of the Program that was most effective in developing new knowledge about art-viewing activities in preschool education. The smallest percentage of effectiveness went to theoretical phases of Program, more to students’ experience of activity implementation and group activity evaluation, while phase of other students’ activities observation was graded as most effective one.

Finally, we received high commendation of the Project concept and its realization. Students were mostly satisfied with and grateful for the new approach to their own education which was distinct in comparison to their prior studying experience. The main critique of the Program referred to the time limit activities had which dictated tempo of each activity with no regard to the individual situation. There were no negative comments on the Program’s concept or Program’s realization itself.

6. Conclusion

First of all, we concluded that it is possible to introduce a new approach to existing syllabus of teaching subject devoted to methods teaching in the visual art domain in the context of our institution. Results showed that this new, practice oriented model, was well accepted and praised by students. However, we also recognized that time consumption is a problem, since developed approach took the whole one semester leaving all other subject topics to be explored in the second semester. Regarding the second research task, our conclusion is that students react very positively to the proposed approach and they welcomed more practical experience being used as a learning method.

When it comes to the quality of Program’s outcomes, in a form of students’ knowledge, understanding and self-confidence, we concluded that positive sides of proposed approach include students’: understanding of the subject matter; comprehension of the preschool teacher’s role in the process of art-viewing activities; substantial knowledge about relevant pedagogical strategies and methods; self-confidence in implementing art-viewing activities with preschool children. On the other side, we concluded that students would need more practice in the process of conceptualizing and preparing all the aspects of the art-viewing activity which was not the case in this Program. Even though students had a chance to enact and gain confidence in performing predetermined strategies and activities, they feel insecure in their own ability to prepare lessons themselves. More practical experience would also contribute to deeper understanding of the pedagogical and methodical principles relevant to this issue, since direct contact with children and regular activities bring situations where theory meets practice and thus makes abstract ideas tangible.

Finally we can conclude that this implemented experimental educational program can serve as an example of good practice in preschool teacher initial education but should be modified in order to fit specific formal syllabuses. For example, in our case, where one teacher works with big number of students (50 in average) it cannot be considered feasible to introduce such program on a regular basis each school year. There are many other topics and issues of early art education that need to be equally and thoroughly elaborated, which leaves no space for program like this to be incorporated into already existing teaching subject such as Practicum of methods in teaching visual arts in preschool education. Given all positive outcomes of the Program it should not be decided to give up on such an approach, either. A long-term solution in our case could be reevaluation and revision of the whole educational program, expanding it either with additional subject/s or with more time/semesters given to this particular Practicum. Until then, we can implement tested Program’s activities on a smaller scale. This approach would consider having less students enacting activities while all of them equally participating in theoretical lectures, process of preparing and observing activities’ realization. Justification for this specific modification of the Program can be found in the results of students’ evaluation in which the phase of observation of other colleagues’ activity implementation was evaluated as most effective in developing new knowledge about art-viewing activities in preschool education compared to all other Program’s phases. In addition to this recommendation, we also see opportunity of introducing Program in a form of extracurricular activities with students.

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