Background: In primary school art education, it is crucial to foster innovative thinking, encourage hands-on creativity, and nurture an awareness of fundamental artistic aesthetics. Thus, the curriculum should emphasize art literacy development, and it should be supplemented with practical activities and promote humanistic values. Objectives: This…

Integrated arts education (IAE) promotes authentic interdisciplinary connections, linking the arts with other subjects in meaningful ways. In this intrinsic case study, we explored perspectives of teacher-educators and non-arts student-teacher interns regarding the ways pre-service K-8 classroom teachers are prepared to incorporate IAE into their…

This article presents a project, Shapes of Water, funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, which gave music education students the opportunity to compose children's songs about climate change with the help of artists from two fields (contemporary circus and music) and a scientist (chemistry). The article outlines the ways in which the composing…

In recent years, the presence of the acronym STEAM has been growing in the educational field. All around the world we are faced with a growing demand for professional STEM skills, however, who has the responsibility to train future STEAM teachers? In this article, we explain the results of an investigation with university students pursuing a…

Virtual reality (VR) is no longer a surprisingly novel technology. Most art educators have heard about VR, although they may not have a detailed knowledge of or experience with it. However, as VR has become commercialized, education researchers have also looked at using VR for teaching, and they have discussed its effects on students' learning.…

This case study investigates the factors that challenge and support preservice teachers' (PST) arts integration beliefs and practices. The participants include a total of 74 PSTs enrolled in a mandatory university arts course at a large Southern university across three consecutive semesters. Concurrent with arts class enrollment, PSTs are also…

Our pedagogic developing project, ImproStory, addresses improvisation and storytelling. We study how these two concepts could be applied in arts and crafts education for both primary and Kindergarten (daycare) teachers. The majority of our data consists of digital questionnaires in basic arts and crafts studies of primary pre-service teachers (N =…

This article reports on an exploratory study that addressed the low confidence levels of 80 generalist primary student teachers enrolled in a mandatory visual arts course. Previous studies in this area have found that a cycle of neglect exists in Australia, as a result of educators' lack of confidence in their ability to teach visual arts. This is…

This article focuses on ways of building preservice primary teachers' confidence in teaching art with artworks and, in particular, on how to develop their pedagogical content knowing. It is suggested that through opportunities offered for engaging in observational and reflective practices with artworks an initial groundwork is set that can…

Annual fieldtrip visits offer an excellent opportunity to engage teachers and students in learning opportunities that may not otherwise be available in their classrooms. Here we describe a collaborative project designed to support teacher engagement before, during, and after a classroom fieldtrip to a children's museum. We found that providing a…

Media arts develop students? digital literacies so they can critically engage in the media-rich Australian lifeworld. However, pre-service teacher education courses often marginalise The Arts subjects, including media arts. In 2014, a pilot study was undertaken to determine first-year Bachelor of Education (Primary) pre-service teachers'…

With the impending introduction of the Australian Curriculum in the arts, there is cause to reflect on primary pre-service teacher education courses, and how effectively they prepare graduates to facilitate the curriculum. Reflecting on pre-service teachers' experiences in the arts, at both entry and graduation of their degree, may afford insight…

The shift in teacher education from face-to-face delivery to Distance Education mode means that the current landscape for the preparation of specialist and generalist Arts teachers is both complex and challenging, particularly since there is almost no guiding literature in the field of teacher education that attends specifically to this curriculum…

Arts education research over the years has highlighted the situation of non-specialist preservice primary arts teachers as having little confidence in their own artistic ability and their ability to teach the arts to children. Added to this, problems such a lack of resources, confidence, priority, time, knowledge and experience appear to inhibit…

Research about K-6 generalists, elementary, preservice majors in teacher education programs often emphasizes students who are resistant to art methods courses, although Galbraith (1991) and Gibson (2003) found some elementary majors held positive views about art methods courses. In addition, instructors who are frustrated by students who respond…