Scaffolding creativity in arts education

The paper outlines a pedagogical approach taken by a visual art educator and a music educator to implementing an Integrated Arts course for third year student teachers within a Bachelor of Education program at an Australian university. The central aim of the course is to promote student teachers¿ fl uid engagement with the concepts of creativity, autonomous and collaborative learning in ways that embody the notion of life-long learning across the knowledge continuum. An integral component of the course work involves the students in undertaking a project that incorporates important arts skills and links to other curricular areas. Allied to this, students are encouraged to explore learning experiences that they can promote in their own future primary school classrooms by cultivating a spirit of enquiry in the creative domain and valuing the particular skills, ideas and preferred learning style/s of each group member, and by critically refl ecting on their own learning processes.