Didactic methods for achieving improved creativity in teaching graphic design in secondary school formal education

Abstract

In teaching and learning graphic design in a secondary vocational school, we mainly use digital tools for both teaching and learning. According to the curriculum, students in the 2nd and 4th years learn to design various printed and animated content. The work is very creative and students need to be able to visualize their ideas in an appropriate way and with appropriate tools, which is a challenging and complex process. For the teachers, it is a challenge to give instructions for a specific task and to evaluate it, and for the students, it is a challenge how to solve it in the most successful way. With the rapid development of technology and the unstoppable updating of programs, problems arise because students must constantly familiarize themselves with new programs and the variety of new digital tools and techniques, while thinking about how to conceptualize and visualize a particular idea in accordance with the task at hand. As a result, they are unable to focus on their own creativity as they have to constantly learn how to use digital tools that enable them to create a design product. The goal of the research is to create measurable and verifiable data that will help apply an appropriate didactic method to achieve optimal results when teaching graphic design. When teaching the subject matter in the practical classes of graphic design, teachers mainly use 3 didactic methods: Demonstration methods, text methods and video methods (Figure 1). In the research, we determined which didactic method is the most effective in achieving a certain learning goal according to the set task. The methodology included experimental work and interviewing students. In the experimental part, students solved tasks using the method of all three didactic methods and then completed a questionnaire. The survey was completed by 56 students (2nd and 4th year students). Students rated each didactic method on a 5-point Likert scale. The results obtained were statistically analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics. The results of the analysis provide an interesting insight into the creative process of the students in relation to the learning methods. The results of the study show that the choice of an appropriate didactic method or a combination of didactic methods is important both for a student's successful and creative implementation of a design task and for the effective teaching of graphic design.