Exploring the development of formal and conceptual skills of Grade 10 Visual Art learners within an online environment

Abstract

Visual Arts, a specialist school subject, is taught in a limited amount of schools in South Africa and contain both practical and theoretical lessons. The lessons and curriculum for this secondary school subject are structured according to the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) Further Education and Training (FET) phase Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) document. Typically, schools hire Visual Arts specialists with extensive knowledge and skill as this subject focuses primarily on practical aspects. Consequently, learners should learn new formal skills to create aesthetic artworks and develop their artistic abilities. In addition, the subject also contains a conceptual component, where the learners need to create artworks that possess a cognitive visual message conveyed to the viewers. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a worldwide lockdown in 2020, closing schools and preventing these trained art specialists from teaching face-to-face while forcing learners to stay at home and learn online. These learners faced challenges in completing their Practical Assessment Tasks (PATs) and studying by themselves (Self-Actualization) without the supervision of a Visual Arts educator. This study explores the impact that COVID-19 had on the 2020 Grade 10 Visual Arts learners, who were new to the Visual Arts class when the lockdown occurred, regarding their formal and conceptual skills development. This dissertation aims to determine whether North Gauteng educators influenced the skills that their learners developed and focused on during the national lockdown period. In addition, the study determines whether the learners themselves selected and explored the skills that they developed. This is achieved through the analyses of selected PATs of Grade 10 Visual Arts learners and interviews with the respective Visual Arts educators of the selected schools. The study will show that most educators value formal skills over conceptual skills, as they prefer a simplified approach to teaching formal skills. All participating schools developed learning skills differently as revealed in my study, yet they had similar outcomes across the Visual Arts subject. Even though the CAPS specify what educators should focus on, it does not change how the Visual Arts educator will teach