This article discusses strategies that serve as pathways for getting students to become involved with an art work in a way that generates a personal response. I found the short section on sound and movement strategies to be particularly interesting. I am currently in Belinda Smith's Pre-school through Kindergarten class and this seems like a particularly good strategy to use with young kids. We ask those little guys to sit still for so much of the day, but their brains are naturally programed to move around and explore as a means of learning. It makes sense to nurture this natural learning inclination by incorporating sound and movement into lessons. In a recent field experience I saw students participating in a lesson plan where they looked at some images of Kandinsky's work and then drew and painted line pictures that reacted to classical music selections. I think it would be interesting to add full body movement to this by asking students (maybe in small groups) to first practice reacting to the music with their body and then move that reaction into the creation made with their hands. Carroll and Tucker site Herman and Hollingswort saying that "Kinesthetic learning strengthens memory, enriches conceptualization and deepens understanding, promotes creativity, and expands the potential for aesthetic communication."
Orchestrating Conversations About Art:
By facilitating discussions about art we can help students to make connections between artwork and their own lives as well as develop and higher level thinking skills. Several models for artistic discussion are presented including VTS (though slightly modified from the way I have seen it presented). One method mentioned is to extend and create information though speculative questions. I think it could be really interesting to have studnets discuss and examine a piece of artwork as a group and then individually write about what they think might happen after the depicted scene. Connecting creative writing and art was also a strategy mentioned in the first article.
Employing Storytelling and Puzzle Problems:
This section focuses on how what we know about an artist or the historical circumstances surrounding an artwork can affect what we see in an artwork as well as our overall opinion. Personally, I love art history (and history in general) and it makes a lot of sense to me that we should employ all aspects of art, not just aesthetics, to develop student's interest and understanding of the subject. I also think that by employing storytelling in art and illustrating to students how other artists have made meaning in their art we can encourage them to make meaning with in their own work. I think we all know that we can employ storytelling to support meaning making through contemporary artwork as well.
Using Interpretive Strategies to Find Meaning:
I felt that this section was reinforcing the benefits that we have seen presented with VTS and through Mary Franco's work. Through practice with interpretive strategies students can develop descriptions and connection with in the artwork and evolve to development of connections and meanings outside of the artwork. This section also explores intertextual relationships that can be made to artwork. We can present connections with literature, culture, music, politics, etc. I have seen picture books used very effectively with younger students as a means for connecting artwork to literature, both through the images in the book as well and through the inspired images created by the students. Metaphorical thinking is also discussed. I think it would be interesting to present students with prints of a bunch of different artworks an ask them to select one that the feel can be used as a metaphor for a certain time in their life and discuss this relationship in writing. I also love the idea of using aestetigrams as a means for reflecting on the process of aesthetic response.
Promoting Critical Thinking Through Problem-Based Inquiry:
This section promotes the importance of teachers acting as "cognitive coaches." we can lead students to deeper thinking and questioning in order to develop a deeper understanding. By utilizing a problem-based approach we can promote this type of complex thinking. Peer collaboration can also create a support system through which students can push one another towards deep investigations.
Facilitating Student-Curated Exhibits:
Curating calls upon a variety of higher level thinking skills including making connection amongst a diverse collection of artworks, cooperative group work and presentations skills. In my Drawing II class this semester we were asked for the first time to "curate" our own work as a class. It was a very interesting and valuable experience. I can see the value in asking students to do this with their own work, however I don't think it happens very often in schools currently. Students must look at the meanings made in their own artwork as well as their classmates. They must find some way to connect their work and make a unified message come forth to viewers.
Using Models for Writing About Art:
One of the strategies mentioned in this section is asking students to write postcards or letters to reflect on experiences (Hey! I've seen that somewhere before). This creates an opportunity for more candid and informal writing. I think that this would be a good strategy to use after visiting a museum or going on a field trip. In this way it functions like a art journal in that students can create and image and words to express themselves. We learned last week about how switching between symbol systems can reinforce learning.
Making Art Inspired by the Study of Art:
By creating art after viewing art students can explore the artists ideas, processes, subjects and techniques in their own work. Carroll and Tucker make a point of saying this is "more than creating art in the style of..."At least on the elementary school level I think that teachers sometimes have students look very shallowly at an artist and then ask them to create a piece that looks just like the work they viewed, such as layered Kandinsky-style circles. I think it would be much more interesting to see where this inspiration leads students creatively rather than prescribing the path they should take.
Related Article:
Heintz, June R. "How does your garden grow?" School Arts.
This article looks at Heintz's lesson plan for a third grade classroom which involves viewing art, discussing connections between different artists depictions of the same theme, storytelling through art and creating artwork inspired by the study of art. Students viewed artwork surrounding the theme of gardens from four different artists. They discussed these works and the meanings they found with in them. In this discussion they made connections between the art and their own lives. Next they created their own art inspired by the influence of gardens and nature in their lives. I think it is important to note that the students developed very different responses to this aesthetic inquiry. Their art making was about personal meaning making and drawing connections between an art viewing experience and their own lives and artwork rather than following a recipe of how to create Van Gogh-esqu sunflowers. By engaging students in a thoughtful investigation of artwork we lay the foundation for creating meaningful artistic explorations and interesting products.
Topic Proposal:
Effectively Embracing Cellphones in the Classroom
Cellphones have become an unavoidable part of life. As educators we seem to be fighting an uphill battle against cellphones in the classroom. Maybe we should be embracing the ways that cellphones can help us teach. I want to look at educators who are using cellphones as a tool effectively in their classrooms. I hope that this exploration will help us more consciously evaluate cellphone policies.
I plan to present this information in the form of a video. I think that video will be a great way to show instances in which cell phones are being used as a learning tool. I would like to interview teachers and students (if possible) about the uses of cellphones in the classroom. Michell Livek has agreed to help with this portion of my inquiry and I hope to find at least one more teacher who is embracing the powerful technology that hides in their students pockets. Michelle is bringing me some books tomorrow as well (She's awesome).
Questions to Address:
- What are the drawbacks of cellphone use in a school setting and how can we respond to those concerns?
- How art some teachers artfully using cellphones in class?
- What do students think about using cellphones for classwork?
Other resources:
- The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein
- 21st Century Skills, Chapter 12: Technology Rich, Information Poor by Alan November and Chapter 13: Navigating Social Networks as Learning Tools by Will Richardson
- Education, Can Smart Phones Make Kids Smarter by Todd Hoffman
- YouTube, Idea Channel: Is Instagram the Best Thing Ever to Happen to Photography?
- Signs of Change: Art Education in the Age of the iKid by Kathleen Unrath and Melissa Mudd
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