PD8 - THE ART OF TEACHING FINE ARTS ONLINE

The Art of Teaching Fine Arts Online

Panelists:

1. Monika Bijlani , School of Design, Presidency University, Bengaluru.

2. Rishi Barua , Department Sculpture, Visva Bharati.

3. Anuradha Jonnalagadda , Department of Dance, University of Hyderabad.

4. M Macha Chaoreikanba , Department of Dance, Manipur University.

5. V Premalatha , Department of Music, Central University of Tamil Nadu

6. Prateek Chaudhuri , Department of Music, Delhi University.

Chair: : Ram Ramaswamy, IIT Delhi

Moderator : V Madhurima, CUTN

Major Points Shared:

1. Sourcing materials for teaching plastic arts was a humungous task. Materials found at home and in the local hard-ware shop had to be used, which required a change in pedagogy and/or the form of art.

2. Learning outcomes had to be focussed upon; not the syllabus.

3. The students of fine arts have lost the chance to observe and interact with nature - a crucial element of their learning process.

4. Teaching of all art forms required the lessons to be broken down to smaller units.

5. Since paying individual attention to students and correcting them is not possible in larger groups, the same classes had to be conducted for smaller groups. Sometimes, the timing of the class had to be changed for a single student to enable them to get some semblance of free space to perform dance.

6. This translates to the work-load of the teachers rising four-fold in online teaching.

7. Not only students, but their families had to be talked to - about giving space to the students to sing and practice, about camera angles when helping the students to record their dance etc.

8. Not all digital platforms are equally amenable to teaching art forms, especially instrumental music. Platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom, which are convinient for plastic arts and dance respectively, seem to truncate the higher-frequency notes of the stringed instruments.

9. It is better to use the tanpura/tambura app from the teachers side when recording for an exam to avoid overlap/delay in the signal propagation.

10. Teaching of musical instruments had to be deffered since many students do not have musical instruments at home.

11. Thus, there is a need for inter-disciplinary interactions between sciences and arts. Science can try and provide solutions to technological problems of teaching arts.