Adapting to digital online art lessons

Hints and tips - five minute read

Karl Goodere-Dale, OCR Subject Advisor

It’s certain none of us thought this pandemic would have lasted this long, with individuals, groups or schools having to isolate. Art being the only subject where the entire assessment is made up of non-examined assessment, adapting to digital online art lessons creates some difficult challenges. As every minute counts, here are some suggestions I think are key for success.

Important regulations to understand

Most of you are aware that students can continue to progress with their NEA work outside of the supervised classroom environment. If you are unfamiliar with the current guidance check out section 4.1 on page 4 of the JCQ documentation.

Another important rule to remember is to make sure you have assessed all the risks associated with file sharing etc in the digital space. The JCQ notice to centres provides detailed guidance about sharing NEA material and candidates’ work.

Hybrid teaching and online art lessons

Hybrid teaching is where you have some students in the classroom and others studying at home.

A simple solution to this challenge is to teach everyone like they are all working from home, encouraging your students in the actual classroom to join the digital classroom too. Make sure people in the actual room have audio off or you might get feedback sound.

Demonstrating techniques can be difficult in the virtual world, so you have two options, either a pre-recording or live stream.

1. Pre-recording. It can often take more time to create but lets you iron out any mistakes you make, solve technical problems, frees up lesson time and allows students to replay your filmed demos as much as they like.
2. Live stream. Make a small check list before the lesson to ensure everything is set up correctly including the art materials you are planning to use and you’re ready to go.

There are a couple of tech gadgets you could look into buying including a Zumint bendable webcam or iPad tripod holder. These are a cheaper way of creating a digital visualiser experience, enabling you to demonstrate live online techniques easily.

Keeping students engaged can be a challenge during the lesson, in the classroom as well as the virtual sessions. I’m sure you are already interacting with as many students as you can in the lesson but maybe also try:

• Changing the group activity, use a refocusing task.
• Getting students to show their work or an artist’s work.
• Letting some students know they will be showing their work to the class during the next lesson.

Break away from the norm!

Digital meeting software allows you to create small teams that are great for group work as a refocusing task. There are instructional videos for Zoom, Google Classroom or Teams that explain how to set them up easily. In addition, you can monitor progression of the groups all at the same time by joining each one.

Collecting and assessing work

When you are in the classroom, you can easily see students work or chase them for it, however, in a digital classroom this becomes a challenge! Here are some tips to help:

Keep track in your planner of whose work you have seen and review their work live in PowerPoint or whatever tools your school or college is using. Ask students to upload their work and if they forget remind them you’ll chase them for it in line with the school or college policies.

To share work online your student needs to share access (read & write) to the folders and files they want you see. This is a great way to share portfolios for college, sixth form or university interviews, but keep the access read only! Then simply remove the access after the interview is over.

Teacher standardisation

I know lots of you in smaller-sized departments would normally partake in cross-centre standardisation with other local centres to help make sure marking is accurate.

If any of you are considering doing standardisation through online methods like Zoom, Teams or even Facebook groups, I strongly recommend that you don’t! If you do choose to engage at these type of events consider the risk you are taking, it breaches JCQ rules on sharing NEA material and candidates’ work. In addition, people who attend these types of events may be able to download your files and you no longer have control of them.

As an ex-teacher I completely understand the challenges you and your students are currently facing in this strange time. As always, we are here to support you.

Stay connected

If you have any queries or concerns or would like to share resources that we’ve not included just post in the comments below.

You can email us at art&design@ocr.org.uk or follow us on Twitter @OCR_ArtDesign. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive email information about resources and support.

About the author

Karl Goodere-Dale, OCR Subject Advisor

Before joining OCR in September 2019, Karl taught creative subjects in both art and design technology for 12 years. With experience with a variety of roles in secondary schools, including as a head of department, he has a wealth of knowledge and experience in teaching creative subjects at GCSE, A Level and BTEC. He has also previously worked as one of our examiners.