Abstract:
Given the broad range of potential media, techniques, styles, artists, and ideas which could be
covered in an art class, how does a visual arts educator go about teaching content that will be
most relevant and valuable to their pupils? An obvious solution is to give students independent
choice when deciding their own learning outcomes. When pursuing this goal, however, teachers
soon recognize the tension which exists between ideals of student choice and the expectations
implicit in traditional educational settings. This paper proposes a model of art teaching which
attempts to “bridge the gap” between Discipline-Based and Choice-Based art education
philosophies. By making use of twenty-first century educational technology and the power of
multimedia instruction, a teacher may provide students choice in what content they learn while
still maintaining concrete learning objectives which can be observed and assessed. In this paper,
the benefits and limitations of current art education approaches are analyzed and the needs of
twenty-first century art learners are discussed before this new model is proposed and justified
with research in educational technology, various learning theories, and principles of nonlinear
learning. Two variants of this model, one optimized for building skills and the other for
promoting creativity, are presented and discussed. These two models were used to create and
teach art lessons in an actual high school art classroom, and the resultant projects, outcomes, and
experiences are assessed in order to determine conclusions and suggestions for refining their
application.
