Abstract:
Making it "Click": Collaborative Perceptions ofCreative Practice in Art Education
examined the teaching practice of 6 art educators who conducted their work through the
Niagara Falls Art Gallery's (NFAG) in-schools and Children's Museum programmes.
These community resources service the elementary levels of participatory Public,
Catholic and French schools in the Niagara Peninsula.
The goal of this research was to find ways in which these teachers could explore
their creative potential as art educators. The "click," a term introduced by participants
indicating the coming together of all positive factors towards creativity, became the
central theme behind this study. Research revealed that the effective creative process was
not merely a singular phase, but rather a series of 4 processes: 1 , gathering knowledge; 2,
intuitive and experiential; 3, the informal presentation of information in which creativity
as a process was explored; and 4, formal presentation that took the analysis of
information to a deeper, holistic level.
To examine the ways in which experience and knowledge could be shared and
brought together through a collaborative process, this study employed data collection that
used literature research, interviews, focus group discussions, and personal journal entries.
Follow-up discussions that assessed the effectiveness of action research, took place VA
months after the initial meetings.
It is hoped that this study might assist in creative educational practices, for myself
as a member of the NFAG teaching team, for colleagues in the art programmes, art
educators, and other teachers in the broader disciplines of education.
