Semester Reflection

Materials
With regard to materials, I have been interested in many of the processes we worked on in class, so much so that I have already tried techniques I learned in Media and Materials in my art classes I teach during the day.  I have taught art classes before and I have some project ideas that have worked well in the past and I will continue to teach in the future.  As an artist when you learn a technique that you are excited about, that excitement will transfer to your students.  For example, I taught the collagraph technique with cut cardstock to my students and felt it was extremely successful.  One huge lesson I learned with our printmaking work was set-up.  I have now successfully done lessons with collagraph printing as an art-on-a-cart class and in an art classroom.  One of my colleagues commented on what an easy clean-up I had (which may seem trivial, but has been something I am working on) and another art teacher asked about the collagraphs as she did not know the cardstock collage technique.
Simply put, my thinking about materials has become more flexible.  I will not shy away from a material just because I have not used it before.  Instead, researching a bit more or asking others for their input can make a huge difference in presenting a lesson with a material that is both new to me and my students

Themes, practices and concerns of contemporary art and design
I have become aware of how you can involve our students in topics important to them and important in the world of contemporary art.  Working with students need not be teaching an art principle alone, we worked on ways to infuse artwork with meaningful content, as in the Tyvek text piece where we selected an important written document, letter or quote as the foundation of our work.

Visual resources
Aileen has visual resources!  At times I was overwhelmed by the resources brought into class, I think I could have spent a class period just looking over all the resource materials.  But seriously, I realized how important it is to bring these resources to class.  Visual resources can provide context for an art project, they can offer a multitude of imagery for one specific kind of art or technique and they can help get the creative juices flowing.  Even though you may have given an excellent demonstration, students still may not know where to begin, or how to begin.  A visual resource can aid a student through the initial stages of an artwork.

Instructional strategies
One of the most important instructional strategies I am taking away from this class is set-up.  Being prepared material-wise and idea-wise makes all the difference.  Setting up your work space with all the needed materials creates structure necessary for a successful class.  I have tried recently to create a prepared environment for the students I teach and the times when things are best planned and prepared, I have had smooth, productive classes.  I now think you should always have some sort of visual reference to go along with the project you are teaching.  As a class we have participated in different types of critiques.  From these critiques I have taken away how to get our students to have meaningful dialogue about art, ask well-directed questions and develop their art vocabulary.

In conclusion and to be continued...
What am I taking from this class into my own studio?  Some of the first thoughts that come to me are experiment and just work!  I do not handle unsuccessful projects in my studio well, but I found the twice weekly sketchbook drawings to provide needed structure and routine for me.  While I am not happy with every single sketchbook entry, I am pleased with several and think I can develop ideas that emerged from these drawings into more elaborate works.  I have learned that I should document everything.  I may not feel like bothering, but if documenting becomes routine then I am always prepared and therefore will not miss out on any opportunities to promote my work or experience teaching.
The overall themes I think I will be taking with me in my work with children and adolescents is to relish the discovery in working with different materials as an artist and educator and to prepare for my students materially and intellectually so that they can meaningful and enjoyable art experiences.

Class #13

Our class was a continuation and elaboration of the stations we started last class.  Before getting to work, we discussed the idea of using stations when teaching.  As I mentioned in my last post, I thought the idea of stations with a different project at each station seemed a bit chaotic.  Aileen proposed that while there may be a certain level of chaos, and acceptance of the fact that you will not be in control of each process, children find stations to be fun.  She said she has always had a positive student reaction to working in stations.  It was good to hear another perspective, not that I was writing off the idea entirely, but now I have become more flexible in my thinking about stations.  The best part for your students, according to Aileen, is that they do not think they are being taught.

With stations there is no teacher directly watching over students, they are working more or less independently.  If you were to leave instructions at each station, most likely your students would not read them or only read part.  At each station personalities emerge and most likely one student will take charge and the others will follow.  Aileen mentioned stations can be an opportunity to play and discover.  Along with discovery the objective may or may not be met, again you as teacher are not totally in charge.  Ultimately as a teacher utilizing stations with your class, in best practice your different processes should prompt thinking, not just provide different kinds of busy work.

While staying in our groups from last week we began working and rotating through the different stations.  In addition to the three stations we had last week (lashing with cardboard strips, stop-animation and tape casting) two more were added.  The new additions were making a book form with a cover made from ironed plastic shopping bags and to make an observational drawing of one of several globe or ball shapes placed on a table.  Each form was different material, for example some of the structures were made of paper straws, wire, cotton batting, aluminum foil, or plastic beads glued together.

I was immediately drawn to this structure and choose it for my observational drawing.

Another addition was collaboration and installation to the cardboard lashing station and the tape casting stations.  The first group installed their work and the next group was to make their own objects taking the previous group's work into consideration so that all the objects/spheres/balls/globes/pods would become one installation.

Installation views of Cardboard lashing and tape casting, 11/30/2010

In taking this work into teaching children and adolescents, I think projects such as these could be conducted as stations or one of these stations could be the sole focus of a class.  I had a difficult time with the cardboard lashing, I would definitely modify the cardboard structures for children.  The other project stations could also be adapted for a younger group.  I especially liked the "choose one" observational drawing.  In this example I do not think there would need to be much modification.  Having like objects shows students the many different ways of representing a form and I believe students would like having the option of choosing their still life object.  While I would not present these stations to a group of young students all at once, our station rotation serves as a rich collection of  prospective projects.