izv. prof. dr. sc. Sonja Vuk

She graduated from the Department of Teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1995, and in 1996 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Art Education (now Fontys, Academy for Creative Industries) in Tilburg, the Netherlands, and completed a postgraduate specialist study in three-dimensional art. In 2011, she obtained a postgraduate master's degree in video at the Academy of Arts and Design in Ljubljana, and in 2021 a scientific doctorate in art pedagogy from the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Since 2009, she has been employed at the Teaching Department of the Academy of Fine Arts for subjects related to the methodology of teaching fine arts. She is engaged in the education of trainees and teachers of the subject of Fine Arts and teachers of secondary art schools, she is an examiner at state professional exams and regularly participates in the state commission for the competition of primary and secondary schools in visual arts and design. From 2015 to 2022, as part of the Comprehensive Curricular Reform, she participated in the work of the Expert Working Groups for the development of proposals for the National Curriculum for Primary Education, the Art Area of the Curriculum and the curriculum of the subjects of Fine Arts and Fine Arts. For the Ministry of Education, she was a member of the committees for the refinement of the National Curriculum of the subject of Fine Arts and Fine Arts, for the education of teachers in the experimental implementation of the curriculum in the project "School for Life" and the development of the Curriculum for children with special needs. In 2018, she mentored the development of the county curriculum for gifted students in Krapina-Zagorje County. She regularly participates in international scientific conferences on creativity and education, and presented her specific approach to working with future teachers at two international conferences: 2023. 5th Creativity Conference, Southern Oregon University, USA, 18-21 May (Creative education for creative teachers); CALT, First International Conference on Creative Approaches to Learning and Teaching, Osijek (Creative teachers – creative pupils). In 2024, she was included in the speakers of the Global Institute for Creative Thinking. As a representative of the Academy of Fine Arts, in 2015 she participated in the establishment of the Croatian Association for Educational Research, a branch of the European Association for Educational Research EERA (since 2015 she has been a member of the Board of Directors, and from 2020 to 2022 she acted as the president of the association).

The main area of research is education in visual arts and the development of creativity. From a scientific position, she explores the transfer of the creative process from artistic creation to the everyday creativity of all people. In art education, she focuses on the creative process of students and their personal development in contemporary society in order to offer solutions to current problems related to sustainable development, civic responsibility and interpersonal relationships through visual expression. She has designed a method (immersive method) for encouraging creativity in primary school that can be adapted to different educational levels and contexts. In her work with students, she deals with the reconstruction of their creative process and the transfer of discovered laws into teaching practice so that the artistic or visual production of students becomes a communication channel between the creator and the observer, or between the individual and society. She prepares future teachers for a responsible role in shaping the purpose and conditions of schooling and creating teaching that deals with the creation of attitudes and values, the development of creative and critical thinking, problem solving, joint research and encouraging discussion with the environment. Starting from the theories that the creativity of students depends on the creativity of teachers, she deals with the development of the creativity of future teachers and the holistic relationship between creative teaching and teaching for creativity. In doing so, teaching becomes a creative process because learning and teaching is conceived as a common reflective-transformative practice in which previous experiences are re-examined and rearranged. The goal of this approach is to encourage the growth of the whole person and their self-realization, both students and future teachers. From the position of an artist, she is mainly engaged in interdisciplinary participatory projects that network experts from various fields, primarily from education, psychology and sociology. The target groups of projects are children and young people and marginalized groups in society such as the unemployed, the elderly, psychiatric patients, etc.

The methodology of teaching visual arts is a group of subjects that deal with the design, preparation and implementation of the teaching process for the development of creativity and the connection of didactic methods and strategies with knowledge from art history, art theory, psychology and sociology, as well as with the creative processes of students' own artistic-expressive practice.

2024. – 6. Days of Educational Sciences; "The Future of Education: New Directions in Research and Practice", Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Center for Research and Development of Education (presentation together with Renata Burai and Antonio Kutleš: "Interdisciplinary approach in working with children with developmental disabilities" - students' contribution Teacher's Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb); 6th Creativity Conference, Southern Oregon University, USA, 15-18 May (together with alumna Petra Kovačić, presentation of her A map of personality and development of creativity using artistic expression). 2023 – original scientific article "Development of Creativity in Elementary School" published, Journal of Creativity: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2023.100055 ; 5th Creativity Conference, Southern Oregon University, USA, 18-21 May (A Specific Approach to Higher Education "Creative education for creative teachers" 2022. – 5. Days of Educational Sciences: "How to Encourage Well-Being in Educational- educational environment in challenging times?", Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Centre for Research and Development education (Contemporary Approach to Teaching Fine Arts); 4th Creativity Conference, Southern Oregon University, USA (presentation of your own method for encouraging creativity: "Development of creativity in elementary school"); 2021 Original scientific article "Process in contemporary visual art as a paradigm shift in the visual art education: perspective of creativity", Creativity studies ISSN 2345-0479 / eISSN 2345-0487 2021, vol. 14, Issue 1: 99–111 https://doi.org/10.3846/cs.2021.12632 ; 3rd Interdisciplinary and Virtual Conference on Arts in Education – CIVAE 2021, poster presentation and summary Art education as a Participatory Art Process; Musicoguia Magazine, Spain. 2017 – art project ALL TOGETHER I, II, III (with Jordi Lafon) In the context of the PAIC (Participatory Art for Invisible Communities), ACVIC, Centre D'Arts Contemporanies, Spain. 2010 – Author's edition of a book on participatory art project with unemployed young people "Old for New".