Zooming Support: Stories of How a Pandemic and SAMR Improved Preservice Art Education Instruction

ABSTRACT

The transition to hybrid and online instruction during the 2020 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to the field of art education. This resulted in newly formed communities of inquiry and support, representing a wide range of technological skills and teaching experience. This article spotlights the Michigan Art Education Association (MAEA) Higher Education Division as an example of one such group. In March 2020, the members of MAEA, started holding triweekly Zoom meetings to discuss their new roles as online art educators. Over 10 months, they bonded and provided social-emotional support, becoming a collaborative inquiry professional development group. Because technology is integral to online and hybrid teaching practices, they chose a theoretical model called Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition (SAMR) to anchor their triweekly MAEA conversations. The SAMR model contextualized their uses of technology in relation to their pedagogical approaches, it provided a common language to describe and explain how and why they use technologies to meet specific goals and objectives. In this article, they share their stories with hope of inspiring others to form similar transformational groups.