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Our proposed curriculum design, broken down into 4 units, would effectively guide students through the augmented reality art creation process while also supporting them as they simultaneously challenge oppressive narratives and reclaim institutional spaces, namely museums, for themselves and their communities.
Image by Olga Oginskaya | Pixabay
Access the FREE Curriculum Timetable document with outlines for all 4 units:
Access individual unit overview pages and learn more about the curriculum design rationale and intended class setting in the sections below.
Unit 1: Contextualization
Unit 1 aims to provide students with an introduction to and a foundational understanding of the role that art plays in activism.
Unit 2: Rethinking the Museum
Unit 2 invites students to think about the history and purpose of museums critically.
Unit 3: Media Making & Artifact Construction
In Unit 3, students integrate their critical analysis of museum narratives and incorporate poignant generative themes they have identified for themselves into a final digital AR piece.
Unit 4: Exhibition
In Unit 4, students showcase their work at a designated partner museum and exhibition site.
curriculum design rationale
We draw heavily from Paulo Freire’s seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 2005)3 in the development of our proposed curriculum to encourage and challenge students to view education as a practice of freedom and to actively participate in the world not as a static reality, but one that is constantly shifting alongside their sense of place and identity (Freire, 2005; Thanapornsangsuth & Holbert, 2020)3,8. We specifically integrate AR as a storytelling instrument through which students are empowered to implement their transformation of self and surroundings by way of making (Blikstein, 2008; Papert, 1988; Srikanth, 2021)1,5,7.
We consider AR creation to align with Papert’s theory of constructionism in that learners develop their understanding of the world by creating an artifact outside of themselves (Papert, 1988)5. Through AR construction, students are purposely positioned as critical designers (Bower et al., 2014; Holbert et al., 2020)2,4 who bring their own ideas, beliefs, and critiques of the world into reality through the use of technology. In line with Freire’s notion of generative themes (Freire, 2005)3, our proposed curriculum takes students through researching social justice issues based on their lived experiences and ultimately creating their AR interventions through construction and media-making as a means of critique.
References
- Blikstein, P. (2008). Travels in Troy with Freire: Technology as an agent for emancipation. In P. Noguera & C.A. Torres (Eds.), Social Justice Education for Teachers: Paulo Freire and the possible dream (pp. 205-244). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789460911446_015
- Bower, M., Howe, C., McCredie, N., Robinson, A. & Grover, D. (2014). Augmented Reality in education – cases, places and potentials. Educational Media International, 51(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2014.889400
- Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed (MB Ramos, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1970)
- Holbert, N., Dando, M., & Correa, I. (2020). Afrofuturism as critical constructionist design: building futures from the past and present. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(4), 328–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1754237
- Papert, S. (1988). A critique of technocentrism in thinking about the school of the future. Children in the Information Age (pp. 3-18). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-036464-3.50006-5
- Ng, W., Ware, S. M., & Greenberg, A. (2017). Activating Diversity and Inclusion: A Blueprint for Museum Educators as Allies and Change Makers. Journal of Museum Education, 42(2), 142-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/10598650.2017.1306664
- Srikanth, A. (2021, February 4). How AR is bringing Black history to life for middle schoolers across America. The Hill. Retrieved April 24, 2021, from https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/536562-how-vr-is-bringing-black-history-to-life-for-middle
- Thanapornsangsuth, S., & Holbert, N. (2020). Culturally relevant constructionist design: exploring the role of community in identity development. Journal of Information and Learning Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-02-2020-0024
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