»ÆƬ¿´Æ¬ÉñÆ÷

Arts experiences play an important role in the development of human creativity, imagination, inquiry, aesthetic appreciation, meaning-making and cultural enrichment. The skills developed through this course will assist pre-service educators to further develop students’ cognitive thinking, imagination, and critical reflection in conceptual and practical ways through a range of viewpoints such as personal, social, cultural and historical. This is the first of two Arts courses situated in the primary program and as such provides an important foundation to develop the confidence, skills and expertise for pre-service educators to teach this key learning area.

This foundation course explores how the five arts subjects of The Australian Curriculum - The Arts: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts can be planned, taught, and experienced by a diverse range of learners. To effectively engage diverse learners in arts- based learning activities teachers must develop arts-specific knowledge including the skills and pedagogy to assist a range of learners. Through this course pre-service educators will develop understanding about the unique nature of the arts and develop their skills to encourage and guide learners to explore and represent their ideas, develop skills and techniques in a range of arts forms, share artworks through performance, presentation or display and respond to and interpret artworks. Although the five arts forms have close relationships and are often used in interrelated ways this course will also focus on their individual practices, terminology and unique contribution to society. The multiple roles of teachers including how to access specialist services such as visiting performances and teacher professional development will also be included to emphasise the importance of engaging in professional learning and with the school and wider community.

The course objectives define the student learning outcomes for a course in accordance with the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s (AITSL) Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST). On successful completion of this course pre-service educators should be able to:

1. apply knowledge and understanding of strategies to teach content of the five Arts forms and meet the learning needs of students (APST 2.1);
2. identify strategies to support inclusive student participation and engagement (APST 4.1);
3. identify strategies to plan for and implement effective arts-based methods to provide curriculum learning opportunities for students (APST 3.3);
4. demonstrate understanding of assessment strategies used in the Arts including formative and summative approaches to assess student learning (APST 5.1);
5. access relevant and appropriate sources of professional learning for teaching the Arts (APST 6.2);
6. use specialised arts expertise including research, associations and organisations, to broaden professional knowledge and practice and to enhance engagement with the arts in the school community (APST 7.4).