Class #4

Don’t let the cat out of the bag!  That was one of my first notes from our 4^th Media and Materials class.  I had never thought of that saying in relation to teaching, but through our class discussion, I can see how it applies.  When you are teaching, the majority of the lesson or project will be about the process and if you jump ahead to the product, your students may jump too quickly to the product as well and not involve themselves in the particular process.

I did discover recently that there are however some things definitely worth mentioning as you begin a class.  I teach a few art classes to elementary school students and the particular project we were working on was a group project.  There were finished drawings in the end, but all students had contributed equally to the works, so then there was uproar, “You mean I can’t keep mine?”  I assumed they saw that everybody was working together and you couldn’t just out-right claim one because you really liked the part you did.  So in that situation I don’t think I would have let the cat out of the bag had I discussed what the final pieces would be, but I made some assumptions about how the class would handle a group project and they needed a little more information from the get-go.

As with assigning jobs/creating a collaborative learning situation, I am ready to take the idea of extra activities and jobs aside the main project on which you are working, into my teaching.  It inevitably happens that some students will finish ahead of others.  I had one student last year in a class who always finished ahead of his group.  Luckily he enjoyed having “jobs” to do around the art room and I put him to work.  While having jobs for students works in some cases, it may not in all.  I am so interested in having a bin (of sorts) to fill with the extra activities.  Aileen mentioned folded papers that have ideas or jobs written on them, perhaps the bin could contain a certain material(s), something that could change periodically.

So many other constructive ideas were brought up in class.  The question was posed as to what do you do when you are given the opportunity to teach but given few if any parameters?  In order to not have complete chaos, what we discussed could be broken down into three phases. First you must create structure and once that is established you move onto content.  Lastly within the content you add variety.  While not necessarily an easy task, breaking your planning down into these parts seems an excellent framework from which to begin.

Adaptations summarized what we had been discussing and name an idea to always keep in mind when planning a particular project to teach children/adolescents.  Our Tyvek cutout we made would need to be adapted into a slightly different project if you wanted to try it with a group of children.  The idea of using text only, or making a cutout could remain, while the process of using an exacto knife to cut would need to be modified.  I am enjoying seeing how I can draw from own artwork or that of other artists to arrive at a well-designed art class for kids.

Clare Hilger, Tyvek cutout

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.
Jacques Cousteau

 

With regard to the Tyvek, I was not extremely excited about my final cutout, but I did enjoy our experimentation session with documentation.  I would have never thought to use an over-head projector, along with some human interaction and a flip video.  If I had strayed in the Tyvek work, our documentation process that brought me right back in!