Changes of Online Art Education Curriculum in the Post-epidemic Era: A Comparative Case Study of China and the US

Case study: Jingwen Li (Shanghai Normal University Tianhua College, China) and Kyungeun Lim (Kennesaw State University)

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2020, due to the epidemic, the global college teaching system is undergoing a change from offline to online teaching. In the post-epidemic era, although most countries have restarted offline teaching, many fundamental changes have occurred in education due to the involvement of the internet. Under the overall systemic change, the art education curriculum is also facing unprecedented challenges. How to make full use of the advantages of online teaching and network in different regions, and utilize the characteristics of art education courses is the focus of this paper. This comparative case study will analyze the online teaching of art education courses of universities in China and the United States, and discuss the innovation of online art education courses in different regions and cultural backgrounds, what is similar and what varies. The comparative perspectives include elaboration and comparative analysis from the categories of learning platform, course structure, teaching method, communication, and students’ reflections. So as to provide audiences with a broader global perspective, as well as empirical experiences and reflections for art educators. The case in China is chosen from the course “Early Childhood Art Education” at a university in Shanghai. This course is about the studies of art education and the implementation of art activities for preschool children. It forms a horizontal connection with other disciplines in early childhood education, with strong theoretical and practical characteristics. Students are supposed to learn the goal, content, approach and implementation of early childhood art education. The online teaching platforms mainly used in this course are Chaoxing (asynchronous) and Dingding (synchronous). In order to make full use of the advantages of online learning, the teaching methods and student learning methods of the course are different from those in the past, which are mainly reflected in curriculum design and learning assessment methods. The case in the United States concentrated on the course of “”Arts-Integration for the Elementary Curriculum”” at one of the universities located in the Southern region. Similar to the first’ case, this course was delivered on an online format during the pandemic. While it was designed for teaching arts integration in elementary classrooms, the course required various hands-on art-creating activities. That’s why this course included both synchronous and asynchronous learning platforms to encourage students’ artistic creation and art appreciation. The course utilized mainly Canvas (asynchronous) and Zoom (synchronous) software. After introducing two different cases and how we designed the courses, we will discuss students’ reactions and contents differences between the courses. The differences will include students’ cultural backgrounds, familiarities with the technologies for online learning, and demographic data. Finally, we will examine how these differences result from learning outcomes in this presentation. Through this presentation, the audiences can see how the involvement of online technology in art education courses has indeed provided a new direction and perspective for the future development of the field.