Examining the impact of teaching instructions on young children's visual and creative thinking: A Vygotskian perspective

Creating artwork is incorporated in early childhood classrooms through activities, and its underlying theoretical mechanism and assumed potential to promote creativity is often assumed with little research and supporting evidence. According to Vygotsky, creative activities can promote imagination as they encourage children to go beyond the boundaries of memory recall and the act of mimicking experiences as the reproductive activity does. Furthermore, the social constructivist theory makes assumptions that social interactions with peers and adults provide richer opportunities in facilitating learning in comparison to exploring by oneself, therefore suggesting that group activities could promote creativity. In regards to art activities, McKim theorised visual thinking as a development process of generating visual imageries that we see, imagine, and create. Hence, emphasising on visual sensory and perception as a key contributor to one's creative thinking potential, and thus, the role of an educator becomes crucial in providing stimulating visual materials and quality instructions to young learners in the classroom. Accordingly, experiments are designed to test the relative benefits of teacher instruction and social peer conditions in promoting creative and visual thinking through mixed media art activities. Consensus evaluations will be used to measure the artworks produced by the children from each activity to gauge their involvement and skill in the experiment activities. Further measures on children's social orientation and peer-play behaviours are also collected to explore their potential influences. The results will contribute to the learning mechanism of art and the dilemma of teacher instruction in teaching art in early childhood settings. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.