Teaching art in a multi-age elementary environment

This study was an exploration into the qualities that characterize visual art teaching in selected school sites containing multi-age models of elementary instruction within public school districts from the State of Florida. Multi-age learning environments at the elementary level are defined as the purposive grouping of students from two or more traditional grade levels in order to form a classroom community of learners. During the past 40 years, multi-age education has been examined in literature and research in many different ways and contexts. In the subject area of visual art, however, little literature can be found that addresses the practice of multi-age art instruction. This study begins to rectify that situation through the use of qualitative research methods that incorporate survey, observation, and interview techniques.;A written survey was mailed to all of the elementary level multi-age art educators in Florida's public school systems that were located through the use of a snowball sampling technique. The surveys were used as a way to collect broad contextual information on the practices and perceptions of the identified art teachers. From the survey results, a single multi-age art teacher was selected for qualitative observations in order to study the situation in depth. The selected art teacher was observed for approximately 25 hours as she delivered art instruction to mixed-age groups of students at her school. Three interviews were also conducted with the art teacher in order to collect data from the participant's own words and to better understand the meaning that multi-age art instruction held for her. The data collected from the close-ended survey questions was carefully tabulated before being transferred into descriptive statistics, frequency tables, and bar graphs. The data from the open-ended survey questions, observations, and interviews underwent careful content analysis, coding, and structural corroboration before findings were presented in the form of qualitative narratives and descriptive statistics.;The results of data analysis showed that most multi-age art classes consisted of two or three consecutive grade level combinations that were primarily taught by teams of teachers. Overall, the art teachers did not play a large role in the organizational structure of their multi-age art classes in comparison to the decisions of homeroom teachers. The surveyed art teachers were shown to be very diverse in terms of their descriptive backgrounds. The art teachers' most common characteristics included that most of them had not received multi-age training and almost none of them had been given a choice as to their willingness to participate in nongraded art instruction. In spite of the lack of training and the lack of professional autonomy offered to the art educators, the majority of them tended to support the use of multi-age groupings in their art rooms. The use of thematic instruction and scaffolding techniques resonated equally well in the art room as it did in multi-age homerooms and in multi-age literature. An emerging pattern in the survey responses and in qualitative data indicated that multi-age art instruction, on a functional level, may not have to be that different from art instruction in traditional graded programs. The most frequently expressed advantage of multi-age art instruction related to the model's use of scaffolding techniques, such as peer tutoring, peer assistance, and cooperative grouping. The most frequently expressed disadvantage related to the presence of differing developmental levels in the art room that were difficult to reach because the levels varied too greatly.;The findings of this study were used to develop nine recommendations for fostering multi-age models of art education in Florida schools that may be interested in refining or organizing nongraded structures. The recommendations included suggestions for art teachers, homeroom teachers, and also organizers of multi-age education as mutual stakeholders in creating equitable models of mixed-age instruction. The research project concluded that multi-age art education does not have to operate that differently from traditional models of art instruction on a functional level. On a conceptual level, however, multi-age art education can be quite different. The study concluded with the introduction of a proposed continuum of development for multi-age art educators. The continuum presents options for nongraded art teachers to explore that range from functional possibilities to a fully formed conceptual model of multi-age art education. While art teachers can enter into the continuum at any point that they feel comfortable, the overall appropriate goal for organizers of multi-age education should be to encourage art teachers to eventually adopt the conceptual model presented at the far end of the developmental continuum.