This learning experience, a unit titled “The Art of Collage”,  is carefully curated and designed to develop both technical skill and creative thinking in Year 9/10 Visual Arts students. The unit strategically aligns with the Australian Curriculum Version 9, particularly AC9AVA10D01 and AC9AVA10C01, enabling students to experiment with visual conventions, refine skills, and engage in critical and reflective artmaking processes. Its pedagogical design reflects a deep understanding of how scaffolded learning experiences, inclusive teaching practices, and a meaningful aim for agency and happiness in education can foster artistic growth and successful learning.

The unit spans ten lessons, beginning with technique-based discovery and then leading to critical and reflective artmaking and responding. While there is a plan for the whole unit, including a unit overview, there are currently just three lessons developed in detail. Starting with an overview of Collage and its Historical significance, the unit then moves into practical skill-building with watercolour techniques such as wet-on-wet, flat wash, and gradated wash. Next, a lesson on composition is provided, followed by students using their watercolour pages to begin the creation of a landscape collage. These tasks are intentionally scaffolded to build students’ confidence with materials, following AC9AVA10D01 and its elaborations, which detail students' deep experimentation and exploration of diverse mediums, forms and media to understand and skilfully use these to convey viewpoints (ACARA, 2022).  The hands-on nature of having students create/design the paper they will use to collage with adds dimension to the task and works to better engage students. Hands-on or experiential learning, often accessed in Visual Arts, is an evidence-based pedagogy widely believed to increase student engagement (Churchill, 2021). Additionally, in my experience thus far as a pre-service teacher, on placement and through conversations with mentor teachers and lecturers, hands-on activities are a fantastic way to engage students and thus are beneficial for both teachers and students. 

Further into the unit, in direct alignment with AC9AVA10C01, students will engage with their own and their peers' works to provide and evaluate critical feedback and apply this to their planning, developing and refinement of their artist practice. This lends to multiple of the High Impact Teaching Strategies [HITS] (Victoria State Government Education and Training, 2022). Including Collaborative Learning, Metacognitive Strategies and Feedback, thus enriching the learning taking place during this unit. Following this, students will engage in artist study, further developing their analytical and reflective abilities. In the final phase of the unit (Lessons 7–10) students have the opportunity to plan, develop, and complete an independent collage artwork that synthesises their technical learning and personal ideas. This task is differentiated by design,  allowing students to pursue individual themes and apply their understanding of both material and conceptual processes. Throughout, students are encouraged to take creative risks, test materials, revise drafts, and document their development. This cycle of experimentation, critique, and refinement is central to fostering student agency and voice in the arts classroom.

Inclusivity and accessibility are also key to the design. The very nature of a website platform serves as an inclusive and accessible hub for lesson materials, demonstrations, artist references, and visual exemplars. It is designed to support diverse learners, including those with language processing difficulties or executive functioning challenges. The visual and multimodal nature of the content makes learning accessible and encourages self-paced exploration.

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Assessment in the unit is balanced between formative and summative opportunities. A unit-specific assessment and learning evidence tracker has been created and linked as a resource, so that anyone delivering this unit can have a clear method of recording learning and achievement throughout. Along with some links to general assessment tools to assist teachers in developing assessment strategies and procedures. 

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Another pedagogy that this task relied on in its design and intention for delivery is student Agency (briefly mentioned already) and Happiness. I designed this unit to be fun for students. To allow them to try two different mediums and to be able to explore the freedom that collage can bring. Collage does not have to be technically demanding, if students don't want it to be. They do not have to use drawing or painting (in their second work or future collages). They can use already-made materials, and thus it is a very freeing medium for students who like to be creative but get stuck in feeling that their technical and traditional skills aren't up to scratch or just don't like these traditional mediums. This freedom to choose is student agency, and agency promotes creativity and thus is particularly important in the arts (Tran & Ternus, 2021).

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Noddings (2003) talks about the need to move away from education that is solely focused on standards and driven by economic goals, instead focusing on Happiness in education. Noddings believes, as do I, that happiness should be a key aim of education as it is a universal goal and will promote wellbeing among individuals and the greater society. In turn, strengthening other benefits of education and life. I believe one of the ways happiness can be achieved is through providing opportunities for student agency. 

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