Art Education

ISSN: 0004-3125 (Print) 2325-5161 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uare20

Collaboration and Care in an Art and Special

Education Course

Margo Collier & Linney Wix

To cite this article: Margo Collier & Linney Wix (2017) Collaboration and Care in an Art and
Special Education Course, Art Education, 70:5, 34-42

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2017.1335545

Published online: 11 Aug 2017.

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 Collaboration
and Care
in an Art and
Special
Education
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Course
Margo Collier and Linney Wix
This article examines one approach to preparing art and special
education teacher candidates to engage all learners in art classes.
As professors, we designed and taught a course entitled Art for
the Exceptional Child at the University of New Mexico. The
42-contact-hour class spanned 4 weekends across a fall semester.
One professor is a special educator, the other an art educator.
In addition to our university teaching experiences, we brought
with us careers in architecture, art therapy, and physical therapy.
Making art in choice-based centers (Douglas & Jaquith, 2009)
began and ended the course and occurred at least twice during
every day of the class. Repeated opportunities to make art aimed
to help teacher candidates practice long enough and often enough
(Rubin, 2005) to develop understanding and comfort in working
with materials to give form to feelings and ideas and to see ways
that imagery was emerging in visual journals. The visual journals
were bound sketchbooks in which participants created images and
wrote about their work. Participation in making art was especially
critical for the special education teacher candidates while learning
how to include all children was crucial for the art education
teacher candidates. What were comfortable practices for one group
challenged the other.
As instructors, we believe that practice teaches. Thus, without
repeated opportunities to practice giving form with materials in an
inclusive setting, the art and special education teacher candidates
would likely lack confidence to engage all students in making
art when they reach their own classrooms. Making art in centers
34 Art Education
A CONUNDRUM IN EDUCATION
today involves art teacher candidates
receiving too little instruction focusing
on inclusive teaching practices, and
special education teacher candidates
receiving too little instruction addressing
teaching art, a content area toward
which students with disabilities often
gravitate. One way to provide both art
education and special education teacher
candidates opportunities to develop skills
and experiences in both art and special
education is through collaboratively
designed and co-taught courses within
teacher preparation programs.
encouraged peer learning in the context of inclusive community-
building. Encouraging peer relationships in classrooms “honor[s]
the long-neglected role of peers in constructing knowledge” (Wix
& John-Steiner, 2008, p. 218). Peer relationships also offered
opportunities for mutual care and concern among a center’s
participants.
Believing that writing helps artists pay attention to what
they have made and how they have made it, we built a writing
component into every artmaking session and provided guidelines
to help our teacher candidates write toward understanding their
images more deeply. Tenets of archetypal thought informed
the writing guidelines (Abbenante & Wix, 2015), which asked
makers to describe what they did and the image itself. Follow-up
questions addressed the ways the medium informed the making;
what surprised the maker; what the maker liked about the work.
The final question asked makers to create a bridge to the next
artmaking session. Makers looked back into the journal and
remembered what they had done and made while imagining
what might come next. The accompanying visual journal rubric
addressed thoughtfulness, aesthetic sensibility, engagement, and
creating entries both self-reflective and self-challenging. We
noticed several benefits from repeated writing opportunities:
Writing helped teacher candidates look closely and aesthetically at
what they had made; it assisted them in talking about their art and
contributed to ongoing self-assessment. Writing supported teacher
candidates in developing a reflective art practice and offered them a
 way to keep their images with them psychically as well as physically
(Hillman, 1978). Finally, writing helped teacher candidates bring
clarity and closure to artmaking sessions. Additional classroom
practices involved working etymologically with words toward
reimagining language common to education and the course and
formulating personal mission statements to guide teaching beyond
lesson preparation.
Readings grounded teacher candidates in ideas core to the
course and addressed the ethic of care (Noddings, 2012a, 2012b),
universal design in special education (Villa & Thousand, 2003),
and understanding processes of engaging in visual arts practices
(Chapman, 1978; Dewey, 1934; Eisner, 1978, 2004). Learning goals
and objectives in our course syllabus included teacher candidates
(1) understanding exceptionalities and inclusion of all students
in art processes by participating in and contributing to designing
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Central Course Ideas: Teacher Candidates’
Perspectives
We analyzed four ideas and practices core to the class by
examining journals, final papers, and a questionnaire administered
after the end of the semester. The core ideas included making art in
centers, creating caring communities, building inclusion through
universal design, and writing in visual journals.
▶ Central Idea 1: Choice-Based Art
As noted above, we used art to teach inclusive educational
practices. We incorporated and augmented a choice-based
approach because of its compatibility with universal design,
its ability to engage learners not only in art but also in peer
relationships, and its built-in inclusivity for all students. Just as
there are various means of expression, action, and engagement

in classrooms offering choices, students and teachers interact

choice-based art education practices; (2) creating a personal
with materials, resources, and each other in multiple ways. We
mission statement to guide inclusive teaching and learning
collaboratively designed the studio to incorporate purposefully
practices in art; (3) engaging in classroom practices and ideas that
selected materials and thoughtfully organized learning centers.
promote choice and inclusion in art classrooms; and (4) practicing
We intended to demonstrate responsiveness to students’ needs
art’s reflective, informative, and educational roles in teacher growth
while providing an authentic teaching and learning environment.
and development by maintaining a visual journal and compiling
In her final paper, one teacher candidate stated: “Choice-based art
personally and professionally relevant ideas and practices core to
instruction allows students to consider their ideas in a wide format
the course in a final paper and presentation.
and to pursue their own interests.… [It] can be inclusive, multi-
Experience and maturity favored our collaboration. We worked instructional, inspiring, and motivating.” Another summed up her
shoulder to shoulder every step of the way from formulating the experience this way:
syllabus to structuring, teaching, and facilitating various learning
I have learned some fundamental theories and practices
experiences to reading all assignments and grading together. Our
related to providing art education for individuals with
overarching compatibility contributed to a successful and joyful
disabilities. I now understand exceptionalities and the
collaborative experience. Primary challenges to our collaboration importance of providing choices and decision-making
involved time and flexibility: We met repeatedly to plan and opportunities to all students. I see how this can be done using
prepare. Realizing our individual teaching strengths, we worked universal design, fair assessment processes, and art [within] a
both in and out of the classroom to meld and adapt our personal community that is committed to care ethics. (Figure 1)
teaching rhythms in the hope of modeling for our students a
partnership that benefited the teaching and learning endeavor. The
spirit of generosity in which each of us teaches
individually was compounded in teaching together.
According to Friend, Cook, Hurley-
Chamberlain, and Shamberger (2010), ours
was a team approach to teaching. Because we
wanted our teacher candidates to see and hear
us working together, we regularly conversed in
front of the class, modeling two people working
together and working out differences when
they arose. We talked together about ways art
centers are naturally inclusive and how material
choices and peer mentoring inherently support
differentiated instruction. By the end of the course,
teacher candidates had a new view of teachers
collaborating, had developed innovative ways
to think beyond lesson plans by writing mission
statements, and had gained understandings of
universal design, inclusion, care, and art. They also
walked away with journals rich in personal images
and writings reflecting on their artmaking and on
the course. Figure 1. Lori Turner.

September 2017 35
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Figure 2. Anonymous.
▶ Central Idea 2: Collaborative and Caring Communities
We attempted to embed creating a collaborative and caring
community into studio experiences. Instructor and teacher
candidate presentations, assigned readings, and class discussions
reinforced collaboration and community-building. The dynamics
of the weekend-long class periods provided unique opportunities
for teacher candidates to experience first-hand that collaboration is
about “how people work together…” (Friend & Bursuck, 2006,
p. 75). One teacher candidate suggested that, “creating an
atmosphere where all students feel important and cared for” was
central to establishing a welcoming and creative environment.
Recognizing the value of caring relationships, another teacher
candidate commented on positive academic outcomes and
increased well-being for all students, including students with
disabilities, by writing,
If we want to change the attitudes and academic outcomes
of our students, we need to embrace an environment where
students feel welcome and are able to learn without being
discriminated [against] or feel that they are a burden to society
or the classroom.
Noddings (2012a) points out that “the words care, attention,
empathy, response, reciprocity, and receptivity all have special
meaning in care ethics and caring… [and contribute to] a moral
36 Art Education
way of life” (p. 56). A participant studying sign language linked
caring to an environment supporting artistic endeavors when she
wrote,
[When art is the language] students don’t need to feel like
they lack the ability to communicate in creating art. Fostering
artistic expression is a wonderful way to tear down the walls
that divide deaf and hard-of-hearing students [from others in
the general education classroom]. (Figure 2)
▶ Central Idea 3: Inclusion and Universal Design
Research has shown that inclusive teaching is best facilitated
through collaboration. In a study conducted with 600 educators
(Villa, Thousand, Meyers, & Nevin, 1996), collaboration was the
only variable that predicted positive attitudes toward the practice
of inclusion among general and special educators. According
to Villa and Thousand (2003), creativity, collaborative teaming
processes, co-teaching, and interpersonal communication skills are
essential for teachers to craft diversified learning opportunities for
all students. Universal design, an architectural concept adopted by
special education, facilitates inclusion by increasing accessibility to
general education for learners who have a wide range of interests,
capabilities, learning styles, and needs. It is beneficial for all
students, not just those with disabilities.
 Meshing universal design principles with choice based art teaching practices, we demonstrated that
accessibility and equity in all parts of the learning experience can be provided for all students.

Through universal design, barriers that students with disabilities
routinely face in the classroom and everyday life are removed. For
example, created spaces accommodate the width of a wheelchair;
curricula allow for multiple ways of learning and expressing;
and choices appealing to varied interests provide motivation.
We encouraged teacher candidates to examine their views of the
classroom as a learning environment and to consider instructional
strategies and methods that recognized the needs of diverse
learners with diverse experiences. By incorporating principles of
universal design, we promoted interaction and communication
and the creation of a welcoming instructional climate. Meshing
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When teachers embrace the responsibility of meeting all
students’ learning needs and aim for full participation of all
learners, the inclusion of students with disabilities in the learning
community can have a profound positive impact on every member
of that community. As described by a teacher candidate:
One way to include everyone in a community of care is by
implementing universal design instruction, which will allow
everyone to acquire universal success. Through universal
design of instruction, teachers recognize their students’ needs
and instruct them in ways that ensure that no child is left out.

universal design principles

with choice based art teaching
practices, we demonstrated that
accessibility and equity in all parts
of the learning experience can be
provided for all students.
One teacher candidate wrote,
By providing a caring
community that looks out for
[everyone] and acknowledges
a universal design, all students
can be included. Teachers can
create stimulating classrooms
that creatively challenge
students. All students can
enjoy working with art and no
students should be excluded
due to their disabilities.
Another stated that the way to
ensure a community-centered
classroom is to
consider each student
when designing classroom
environments to ensure
universal access to materials
and space (Figure 3).

Figure 3.
Allyson
O’Brien.

September 2017 37
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Figure 4. Jenny Krause.
Another stated, “Throughout the course, I learned the importance
of understanding exceptionalities of children, providing choices
and decision-making opportunities through universal design, all
of which support the creation of an inclusive learning community
committed to the ethics of care.”
▶ Central Idea 4: Visual Journal Writing
Regularly providing time for teacher candidates to write about
their artwork using the writing guidelines gave them chances to
look closely to describe what they had made and how they had
made it. The process was an invitation to make sense of and deepen
relationship with their images and journals. Teacher candidates
articulated and expanded their thoughts as they reflected on their
art. One commented, “…by writing down ideas, notions, and
observations, students are provided an opportunity to examine
their work and analyze their skills.” Besides analyzing skills, we
encouraged artists to pay particular attention to their imagery and
its unfolding across the journal pages (Figure 4).
One teacher candidate who engaged deeply with the
etymological work (Figure 5) wrote,
38 Art Education
Through my journal work I explored relationships between
words and images. I found that each had its own language,
but words evoked images, and images, especially through
particular word work, close observation, and etymological
exploration, led to new meanings. The conversation was a
joyful, aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional process that gave
me better understanding as an artist and teacher.
Later, this same person eloquently summarized her experience of
the entire class (Figure 6), writing,
The hands-on practice of journal work and art centers in
class created a flow of work and engagement with materials
and students that connected readings, discussions, and
ideas to discovery, interdisciplinary focuses, and community
learning. Self-declared non-artists made art and realized its
role in education, access, and self-expression. I learned that
everyone gained confidence in their expressive abilities,
[saw] applications that were appropriate for individuals with
learning challenges and disabilities, and found means within
the structure of the centers to acquire interest in mediums that
could sustain interest and motivation outside the classroom.
 Despite having been exposed to ways to create universally designed classrooms
to accommodate all students, not all teacher candidates understood
the feasibility of creating such classrooms.

Looking Back: Responses to the Art Experience
Questionnaire
In an effort to understand the impact of the course, the
structure of the learning environment, and the emphasis on
artistic process for participating teacher candidates’ learning, the
instructors invited teacher candidates to reflect on the course via
a questionnaire administered after the close of the course. From
a class of 16 graduate and undergraduate teacher candidates, 10
agreed to participate. All but one were graduate-level teacher
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writing about making art; (3) demonstrations of how choice-based
art differentiates instruction and increases inclusion in artmaking
processes; and (4) journal writing as an important component of
the artmaking. The teacher candidates also highly rated both the
likelihood of their providing choice-based art and their recognition
that partial participation in an art class is a valid way for some
children to experience and express themselves. One item on the
questionnaire garnered a wider range of responses (from medium
to high) than the others. This item pertained to teacher candidates’
perceptions of the degree of work that would be involved to

candidates. Six were majoring in art education, three in special

education, and one in linguistics. include in their classroom children who are limited to partial
participation due to their disability. Despite having been exposed
In the 22-item survey, Reflection on the Art Experience
to ways to create universally designed classrooms to accommodate
Questionnaire, we asked teacher candidates to rate and describe
all students, not all teacher candidates understood the feasibility of
the impact the class experiences had on them. Using a 10-point
creating such classrooms.
Likert-type scale (0 = extremely low and 10 = extremely high),
they rated the following dimensions of what they learned very
highly: (1) new ways to make art; (2) methods of talking and

Figure 5. Marci Easterbrook.

September 2017 39
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In their responses to open-ended questions, teacher candidates
articulated their dispositions toward the four central ideas
addressed in the course. Their words reflected content that had
emerged in their journals and final papers. One teacher candidate
stated that two concepts and practices stood out for her in the
class—engagement and caring. She felt that it was vital for her
“to understand, listen [to], and encourage my students” when she
becomes a teacher. Another wrote, “Creating a caring, positive
environment promotes creativity and productivity.” And yet
another claimed, “By using universal design, all students can
benefit.” Choice-based art provided the opportunity “to expose all
students to art [by] providing opportunities to explore materials
and different mediums.” This sentiment was echoed by another
teacher candidate when he wrote, “Students with disabilities are
rarely given the opportunity… to make decisions, and to take
charge of how they wish to express themselves” (Figure 7).
Discussion
We have taught this course on two separate occasions. This
article addresses the second iteration. While we did not study the
initial class, we learned an important lesson about making the
most of time and made adjustments for our second offering of the
course. When we taught the class during a 2-week inter-session
(also 42 contact hours), we discovered that teacher candidates did
not have enough time to practice and absorb information crucial
to learning to teach art for all children. Thus, we re-arranged our
course to span a much larger part of a full semester. In between
class meetings, teacher candidates completed not only reading
assignments but also visual journal assignments. Our aim was to
40 Art Education
Figure 6. Lorraine
Edge-Castillo.
keep them engaged with the course material and practices even
when they were not in class for three to four weeks at a time.
It surprised us to learn that students arrived with significant
trepidation about the course. Several of the special education
teacher candidates voiced their fear of succeeding in art, suggesting
that making art was a scary and unfamiliar experience. Some of
the art teacher candidates admitted their lack of education and
experience regarding how to teach art to students with special
needs.
Commonly, when a co-teacher lacks confidence in a content
area, she or he defers to the other teacher and becomes more
like an assistant. Giving special education teacher candidates
opportunities to make art in a safe environment and art education
teacher candidates opportunities to create inclusive classroom
environments helped give our teacher candidates confidence in
working in an unfamiliar content area. Choices in art permitted
everyone to work with materials without the pressure of
expectation in outcome and without the threat of being compared
to others. The nontraditional mix of materials challenged the
more accomplished artists to push past their expectations of high
quality art materials and offered teacher candidates new to art
opportunities to find comfort working with materials such as
buttons, ribbons, threads, and strings if they felt uncomfortable
with painting and drawing materials.
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Figure 7. George Evans.

Having choices in art and writing about the art supported

all teacher candidates in gaining confidence in expressing themselves
in multiple ways with multiple materials.

September 2017 41
 In the process of trying to glean what teacher candidates
learned we realized that having choices in art and writing about
the art supported all teacher candidates in gaining confidence in
expressing themselves in multiple ways with multiple materials.
This, in addition to providing a comprehensive and collaborative
setting, created possibilities for them to imagine implementing
this approach in their own classrooms. We recognized that our
collaboratively facilitated, community-focused classroom showed
us all—instructors and teacher candidates alike—that carefully
incorporating principles of universal design, an ethic of care,
and choices in art and writing practices promotes inclusivity in
classrooms. In both principle and practice, the four areas core to
our collaboration are key to meeting the needs of all students. ■

Free Lesson Plans Margo Collier, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of
(fashion design, comics, photo
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illustrations, and more) Special Education, College of Education, at the University of New
Loaner Program Mexico, Albuquerque. E-mail: collierm@unm.edu

Teacher Development Training Linney Wix, PhD, ATR-BC, Professor Emerita, is in the Department
of Art and Art History, College of Fine Arts, at the University of New
Special Pricing on Products
Mexico, Albuquerque. E-mail: linneywix@gmail.com

“All the students were captivated and
enjoyed their session....One dad even
emailed me last night to say that his
son is still talking about what an
amazing time he had...”
-Art Instructor at Tukes Valley Middle
School in Battle Ground, WA
References
Abbenante, J., & Wix, L. (2015).
Archetypal art therapy. In D. Gussak
& M. Rosal (Eds.), The Wiley
handbook of art therapy (pp. 37-46).
New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.
Chapman, L. (1978). Approaches to
art in education. New York, NY:
Harcourt.
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience.
New York, NY: Perigree.
Douglas, K., & Jaquith, D. (2009).
Engaging learners through artmaking:
Choice-based art education in the
classroom. New York, NY: Teachers
College Press.
Eisner, E. (1978). What do children
learn when they paint? Art
Education, 31(3), 6-10.
Eisner, E. (2004). What can education
learn from the arts about the
practice of education? International
Journal of Education and the Arts,
5(4), 1-12.
Friend, M., & Bursuck, W. (2006).
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needs: A practice guide for classroom
teachers (4th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson.
Friend, M., Cook, L., Hurley-
Chamberlain, D., & Shamberger, C.
(2010). Co-teaching: An illustration
of the complexity of collaboration
in special education. Journal of
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Hillman, J. (1978). Further notes
on images. Spring: An Annual of
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Thought. Dallas, TX: Spring.
Noddings, N. (2012a). The language
of care ethics. Knowledge Quest,
40(4), 52-56.
Noddings, N. (2012b). The caring
relation in teaching. Oxford Review
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Rubin, J. A. (2005). Child art therapy.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Villa, R. A., & Thousand, J. S. (2003).
Making inclusive education work.
Educational Leadership, 12,19-23.
Villa, R. A., Thousand, J. S., Meyers,
H., & Nevin, A. (1996). Teacher
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Exceptional Child, 63(4), 29-45.
Wix, L., & John-Steiner, V. (2008).
Peer inquiry: Discovering what you
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Skills and Creativity, 3, 217-225.

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42 Art Education