The educational value of real-life scenarios: experiential learning at art fairs

Abstract

Experiential learning, based on "doing", confers on the student an active and central role in the teaching- learning process. The use of real scenarios such as art fairs in teaching allows producing new knowledge for students, enhancing their values, skills, perceptions, critical thinking, and autonomy. In addition, it increases motivation and improves the student's cognitive structure, building this new knowledge from their own and from the experience of others. This methodology generates knowledge synergies based on collective learning whose source could be communication, collaboration, understanding and feedback. As a reflective process, it enriches learning, accelerating the assimilation of knowledge, enabling students to solve problems more effectively in the real world, and thus allowing them to extrapolate what they have learned to other contexts. As an example of the application of this methodology, the students of the Master's Degree in Art Market Management participated in Feriarte, coordinating a stand with artworks from other exhibitors, experiencing for 10 days the vicissitudes and real challenges presented by fairs. Two surveys were carried out with a sample of 20 students (pre- and post-attendance at the fair). Two months after having started their studies, the lack of experience of the students in these tasks is quite common, and before the internship, 25% of them stated that they did not consider themselves prepared to face the responsibility of a fair. After the practicum, nearly 90% of the students found this experience to be an innovative methodology and very useful for learning competencies related to the art market, and 95% of the students felt prepared in theoretical issues to face this experiential learning. What's more, after experiencing the fair from the inside and getting to know how it works, 100% of the students rated the experience as very interesting for their training in the sector. Learning by immersing themselves in the "doing", surrounded by masterpieces that they can get close to, allows them to live and interact with professionals in the sector, and to promote themselves for future internships. In summary, the experience of participating in the fair as a real scenario has meant an advance in knowledge and an improvement in the teaching-learning process, which was combined with theory classes, lectures by experts in this sector, exhibitions of final master's degree projects from previous years with good grades and practical workshops.