Guide for teacher training programmes

Abstract

The purpose of Part Ι is to provide stakeholders, art educators and policy makers with some recommendations about implementing a teacher education programme in Visual Arts Education (VAE )informed by the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of ESD. This Guide is meant as a flexible framework that can be adapted to the social, cultural and environmental realities and curricular structures that exist in different countries.

The first section of the Guide explores significant overlaps between VAE, social issues and ESD. The next section gives an overview of key ESD principles that are relevant to the primary curriculum. This is followed by several examples of contemporary art and artists who work on themes related to different SDGs, divided into categories to facilitate application in teacher training programmes. Different models of art criticism that can be employed in curricula that combine VAE and ESD are also suggested. The fourth section goes into more detail about how the goals of VAE and ESD overlap with each other and can be integrated within the context of Initial Teacher Training (ITE) programmes, presenting objectives for a framework on ESD-enriched VAE. Six big ideas that are considered to be core components of such a programme for teachers are then described, followed by a section that briefly discusses modes and suggested duration of teaching such a framework. The final two sections of the Guide discuss professional learning communities, ways of developing collaborative strategies for VAE and offer some suggestions about assessing training programmes.