Arts have the potential to express what all languages fail to do. Arts provide multiple opportunities to demonstrate in different ways. A number of researches have shown that using arts in teaching enhances the level of learning abilities of students and their performance in school. The integration of visual arts into the teaching and learning of different subjects shows positive improvements in children’s creative and critical thinking skills, reasoning abilities and organizing skills. It also enhances skills for exploration and analysis, insights into the challenge, analytic clarity, and problem solving skills of students and helps them to become more comfortable and active participants in group processes. Focusing on developing innovative mindset has become the necessity of present time. Preparing for innovation has been considered one of the most important goals of the education in 21st century for sustainable development. This study aimed to use an art-based teaching-learning programme, the “AAKRITI” (Art And Knowledge Relating Integrated Teaching Initiative), to nurture innovative mindsets. For present study, the AAKRITI programme was implemented on 24 students of middle schools. The 24 prospective teachers who were already trained in using arts in teaching facilitated these students on one to one basis. The findings of this study were determined on the basis of the drawings prepared by the learners, their connectivity with the topic, passages written by the students before and after the drawing preparation, discussions made during the intervention AAKRITI, and the observations of the prospective teachers for their respective learners. Further, the prospective teachers captured students’ level of interest and enthusiasm, their process of arriving at new ideas for visualizing the concept in the form of a drawing, making decisions regarding selection of the topic and the objects to be used for the depiction of the concept in art form, use of writing, drawing and other kind of communication skills, and the exhibition of presentation styles on individual basis during the entire process. The results of the study show that the AAKRITI programme raised the level of conceptualization of knowledge of the learners along with their creative, purposeful, collaborative and productive performance level, the main features of an innovative mindset. The students showed interest in all activities.
Author(s): Professor Rekha Agrawal