This web resource demonstrates a creative process in visual arts focusing on sustainability as its overarching theme. It aims to engage Year 7 and 8 students and support teachers in facilitating a meaningful learning experience. It is designed to help teachers model what a creative process looks like to junior secondary students. By clearly demonstrating an example of what each stage of a creative process entails, the resource empowers students to explore their unique artistic responses, as each student is unique. The creative process aligns with both the Australian Curriculum and the Victorian Curriculum, Specifically, VC2AVA8D01 and VC2AVA8D02, but can quite easily be adapted to suit other curriculum areas and even other year levels, a benefit of having a digital resource that can easily be adapted. 

The inclusion of guided steps, each with worked examples, allows students to see how artists move from initial themes, inspirations, and ideas to finished products, assisting students with visualizing the entire creative process. Each task within the resource acts as a building block, demonstrating to students how they can develop their own creative process. These worked examples and clearly structured tasks, also reduce the planning burden for busy teachers. They can use the tasks as is, or adapt them to suit their students’ needs, ensuring that all learners have access to quality arts education. The resource includes worked examples of brainstorms, reflection questions, making experiments, annotations, artist research, planning and thumbnail sketches, and responding activities. It also outlines the curriculum links, provides alternative options in a teacher section, extension prompts, videos and a varied range of colours, images, videos, fonts, art and links to make the resource engaging and easy to navigate for a diverse range of students and teachers. 

 Gradual release of responsibility is a model of learning that aims to provide students with initial instruction and then gradually guide them to self-directed learning. Fisher and Frey (2008) created a framework of gradual release of responsibility that follows four steps: “I do”, “we do”, “you do together” and, “you do alone”(Churchill, 2021). This resource is underpinned by this theory of learning as there are sections of “I do” teacher-driven instruction, “we do” teacher and student collaboration,  “you do together” peer collaboration and “you do alone” individual learning.  

This resource assists teachers in incorporating sustainability-focused content into their lessons, as the challenges of climate change and environmental consciousness become ever more central to society, integrating sustainability into visual arts education is not only timely but essential for arming students with skills for the future, an important and required responsibility of all teachers as outline by the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council, 2019). Sustainability is identified as a Cross-Curriculum Priority by The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], meaning it is essential for all young Australians, and teachers, to understand and explore sustainability so that they can engage with and better understand the world. Furthermore, by engaging in learning sequences that task students with thinking about sustainability they are likely to align with the general capabilities in the Australian Curriculum, such as ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’ and ‘Ethical Understanding’ (ACARA, 2024). 

While it is critical to scaffold tasks with the curriculum in mind, it is also critical to promote student engagement and agency. Grundy writes “You cannot have a curriculum without the active participation of students (Grundy, 1998, p. 31 as cited in Churchill, 2021, p.182).” By providing more than one artist and more than one making activity, as well as further options that teachers can ‘switch-in’, this resource aims to give students a choice, so that they are actioning their agency. Student agency is an important element I aim to incorporate into my pedagogy as it is a research-backed method for creating positive classrooms, relationships and learning outcomes (Amplify, 2019). 

This incorporation of High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS), ‘Explicit Teaching’ and ‘Worked Examples’ (Victoria State Government Education and Training, 2022), reduces cognitive load, ensuring students can engage with complex tasks while fostering critical and creative thinking skills. As a pre-service teacher, it is important for me to understand and incorporate research-based pedagogies into the resources I create and into my personal pedagogy. 

By providing students with accessible, structured yet adaptable learning tasks, students can move from dependent learning towards a flipped learning experience where their independent creative exploration can thrive. The flipped classroom approach helps students come to class better prepared and more motivated for deeper learning activities (Jiang et al., 2022). The flipped classroom approach, which relies heavily on technology (Tomas et al., 2019), shifts the focus from passive learning to active participation, allowing students to engage more meaningfully with content during class time. Incorporating technology-enhanced teaching methods that go beyond traditional lectures effectively motivates students (Baig & Yadegaridehkordi, 2023). This resource embraces this approach by integrating interactive online tasks and multimedia elements. 

By designing this resource as a digital pedagogical tool, numerous advantages are realised. It provides teachers and students with the flexibility to access materials at any time, whether in class or at home, catering to a variety of learning contexts. The resource also supports parent involvement by making learning visible and accessible. Students can work through the resource independently or with guidance, and teachers can easily update content to keep it relevant and engaging. The digital format allows for the integration of multimedia elements—such as instructional videos, links to websites, and in-built options to have text spoken —which enhance student engagement and support diverse learning styles. By utilising a digital/ICT platform and multimedia to deliver this content, as well as the promotion of ethical understanding through the exploration of sustainability, this resource is well positioned as a 21st-century resource that will aid 21st-century students to become global citizens.

Noddings (2003) questions the emphasis on economic or occupational goals in education, instead highlighting the importance of happiness in education (p. 35). The Arts offer students an emotional outlet, bringing joy and opportunities to unwind. McKenna, Cacciattolo, and Vicars (2013) emphasize the intrinsic value of art and arts education, noting their positive impact on well-being. They argue that creative activities are powerful tools for social inclusion and that art provides gratification not only for those who create but also for those who experience it. The Visual arts are an important area of a student's education as they provide opportunities for happiness and well-being in education while also teaching students to think creatively and critically about the world. 

 Throughout this resource and pedagogical statement, a range of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL] Teacher standards are demonstrated including 1: know students and how they learn, 2: know the content and how to teach it, 3: plan for effective teaching and learning and 4: create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments (AITSL, n,d). Showing that both this resource and I are aligning with the AITSL standards ensuring that effective teaching practices are being implemented.