NAEA 2014 Notes

I had the honor and privilege to attend the 2014 National Art Education Association conference in sunny San Diego, CA.  The weather was beautiful all four days and the convention center was gorgeous.  It was also fun exploring the gas lamp district.

The information, ideas, resources and inspiration I received from the conference has been so valuable to my instruction and lesson planning since I returned to the classroom.  I am getting excited to return from Spring Break tomorrow and continue implementing all that I have learned.

I tried FREE CHOICE (TAB Teaching) for the first time with a second grade class.  It was highly modified and we only used drawing materials but it was incredible what the students pulled from it.

I asked this 2nd grade girl to tell me about her drawing and she responded:

"I was trying to make this house look like it is on fire because the sun was too hot"

This girl is likely to repeat the second grade according to her homeroom teacher, but art is a place where she shines bright.

The pictures below may not show, but here are my notes from the conference.  Please feel free to message me for a pdf copy of these notes if you wish to see the pictures.  saralauth@gmail.com

My Journey... How to Scaffold from Teacher Directed to Choice Learning

Presenter: Maryellen Picker - maryellenpicker@claytonschools.net

“It is not easy to start choice art, you have to flip your whole mindset, but it’s worth it.”  

In choice based art education, teachers must stop looking at the product and ask themselves the following questions.

What am I doing to help kids be creative?

How do I learn and create as an artist?

I could get wonderful work by giving directions, but just because I can, should I? 

Choice Art in Kindergarten

Essential procedures and routines are born in Kindergarten so the first half of the year is spent scaffolding and introducing artistic ideas, materials and processes.  A lot of K projects are collaborative, children learn to work together and help each other.  Projects should be personal and near and dear to their heart. Mid-year you can begin to add choice.

To open them up to the idea of choice you can have a Kindergarten cart... Special boxes filled with simpler materials that students get to choose from and make something.  This can always be kept on side for students to visit when they finish early.

Choice Art Management

Silent Song - The silent song can be anything, Picker recommended something classical, calming and soothing.  The song is played when it is time to work silently and independently (zero noise).  Emphasis is placed on the silent song being a special time for the students because it is "all about you enjoying the work you are doing".  Next steps: I tried this today and it changed the energy in the room merely saying “enjoy these two minutes of your silent art time” as opposed to “we’re in zero noise for the next two minutes, work silently” not one scholar talked!

Color coated bracelets for each studio.  There is a max of 6 students per studio at any one time and the child wears a bracelet the same color of the studio space.  The bracelets can be plastic or even a piece of yarn.  Bracelets hang near the threshold of the art classroom.

Picker rings a gong to get students attention.  When the gong sounds, all eyes are on the teacher and art making halts.  (Practice this in the beginning of the year)

Summertime Set Up

Before the school year even begins, a lot of time is invested into setting up the ideal choice art studio. Decide where your students will go, different materials in different studios, and be sure to establish as much private space as possible for creating art.

-Keep it simple.  In the painting studio, the paint tray is the only thing they are accountable for and pictures are posted everywhere with clear expectations as to how the set up should be.  The students are responsible for getting themselves this tray and cleaning it up (water, paintbrushes, sponges, etc)

-If you clearly mark where everything goes, kids can put it away.

-Everything they see, they can use.  This helps to create ownership of space.  They need to know how to use all materials.

Each studio contains a list of project prompts for all grades in addition to inspirational imagery.  

Set up tape across the tables.  Kids need to know how much space is theirs and it makes them responsible for their own.

Work in Progress Buckets

Black buckets for each class where students can store their in progress work.  A clothespin with the child's name is clipped to the work.  

Clothespins Get the class list and write the students' names on clothespins.  Students will use these to mark their WIP art throughout the year.

Beginning the year

Day 1: Assessment - Draw a human being.  You can assess a lot about their skills and artistic development by drawing a person.  Each child has a file folder to record drawings and their progress and this assessment drawing is glued to the front of their file folder.

No choice is offered at the beginning of the school year - seats are assigned and students spend the first few weeks practicing and mastering the routines of the art studio.  

1 class is spent rotating to each studio so students get a feel for it.  "If you don't feel safe, don't use it!"  

Teacher directed projects highlighting skills from each studio.

Teacher directed projects for special school events and displays.  Get it all out of the way early in the year so it is ready and students can embrace choice art.

Lesson Structure

Mini lesson - "when they walk in I put all this stuff on the floor to trigger their thinking about what they did before"

-1 lesson per week, key stage 1 (1-2), key stage 2 (3-4) lessons are kept in studios

Art creation

Clean up alert

Clean up song - if you really TET routines, the biggest messes can be cleaned up in 5 minutes

Project assessment, reflection

Reflection

Thinking and the Thinker

Do you have...

...a comment

...advice

...an opinion

...an art thought 

...an observation

...a feeling about your work

Why choice art?

-Children find ideas instead of being fed ideas

-Conversations are artist to artist rather than teacher to student

-Kids find relationships that are unconventional

-Students do not compare themselves to others because they are working on different problems.  They find their niche.

-Kids have time to become confident with skills 

Don't underestimate kids!  Always ask them... What can you do to make this a deeper idea?

Guest Appearance by Katherine Douglas and she introduced the concept of Modified Choice.  More information available through her book and the website below.

Engaging Learners Through Artmaking: Choice-Based Art Education in the Classroom – amazon link

teachingforartisticbehavior.org

Resources Uploaded to Share Drive

NAEA14_Picker_WhyChoice

NAEA14_Picker_ChoiceLessons

Inocente - ARTS (A reason to survive)

Inocente, winner of the 2013 Oscar for Best Documentary Short, is about the power of art transforming the life of an immigrant youth facing homelessness and abuse. Then, meet the star of the film, Inocente Izucar, and her mentor and “ARTS | A Reason to Survive” founder and CEO, Matt D’Arrigo, who will facilitate a Q&A about the film and share strategies on how to maximize opportunities for arts education through innovative partnerships between local non-profits, city government, and classroom educators.

Screen the documentary for free here:

http://www.mtv.com/shows/inocente/series.jhtml

The documentary is roughly 40 minutes and aired on MTV in 2012.  It focused on the story of 15 year old Inocente and introduces the ARTS organization.   ARTS also focuses on college and career readiness, pairing young students and artists with mentors.

Quotes from Inocente

"I've never had to make this much art in my life and I don't know if it’s good enough maybe."

"I have a lot of impossible dreams, but I still dream them."

"People should know it's a story, not just a painting."

"If you want your dreams to come true, you have to make them come true."

"If the world had more color in it, people might be happier."

Inocente has an art exhibit coming up in NYC inspired by National Arts Club of NY.  May 12-17

Next Steps

Consider showing Inocente to middle school elective and coming up with a free choice style painting lesson.  Who has a story to tell?  How would you tell it with paint?  Do you think art can change lives?  Can art save lives?  Do you know anyone who needs art?  How has art helped you?  How can art continue to help you?  What are some of your dreams?  How can your family, friends and mentors/teachers help you be successful in achieving them?

TRACE: Experimental Drawing – Experience the Force of a Curriculum Assemblage   Presenter: Olivia Gude

Intertwine metaphors and methods to construct a comprehensive bricolage curriculum: an assemblage of qualities, ideas, and objects that introduce students to strategies for experiencing, interpreting, enjoying and making contemporary culture.

Related resource of Gude’s work:

https://naea.digication.com/Spiral/Spiral_Workshop_Theme_Groups/published

Trace: mark or other indication of existence of something

Trace Mission Statement

Situated in a world where we have the capacity to instantly record images of life around us, Trace artists still ponder the relevance of drawing in contemporary contexts.

Trace artists assert that drawing is a trace of human physicality and of human sensibility. 

Our inherent mark making capabilities still provide meaning making potential in this Age of Mechanical & Digital Reproduction.

Trace artists make enlivened marks.

Trace artists challenge and provoke the definition of drawing.

Trace artists affirm traditions of drawing.

Trace artists are in a constant state of unfolding and becoming.

Trace artists are aware of being aware.

Trace artists articulate inner directionalities.

Trace artists index the past to articulate the future.

Trace artists get messy.

Trace artists overcome passive viewership and sterilized surfaces.

Trace artists play with remnants and residues.

Trace artists immerse themselves in processes of making.

Trace artists surrender themselves to rhythmic agitation.

Trace artists find revolution in intersections and overlaps.

Trace artists break the boundaries of the page.

Trace artists embrace the possibilities of space.

Trace artists embrace the possibilities of time.

Trace artists use drawing to trace the trajectories of life.

bricolage curriculum advocates for multiplicity, various art making approaches

Assemblage curriculum is not an arrangement but an act of arranging where the elements are chosen.  Students contribute to ongoing process of juxtaposing and assembling.

Lesson Ideas

- wet painted string on paper, slow down and look at it and turn it into something new – References: surrealism

- perception consciousness "mystic drawing pad"

Sigmund Freud tapping into subconscious mind

Project: Indexical Drawing

Mark making to a metronome... Add physical energy into mark making.  Find a rhythm to doing your work.

Used heartbeat of a middle school student slowing and increasing in place of metronome to create large rhythm drawings on the floor, physical movement, engaging whole body. – use chimes, any repetitive sound with motion.

Outside similar references: http://leichnitz.org/lessons/portfolio/indexical-drawings/

Project: Exploring Line and Hair

Indexical drawing is a great carryover to drawing the details of hair.  Students photographed the back of their head and then use scratchboard to create a design of their hair.  Middle school and up really get into this and looking at their own hair.  Discuss hair in art… hair follicles, hair as keepsake, hair as creepy.

Artist: Winnie Truong                Artist: Jeanne Dunning*

http://winnietruong.com

                          

Project: Leave A Trace

Leave A Trace – confronting advertising as pollution – Ad Busters (https://www.adbusters.org/)

Toxic Culture

Barbie Liberation Organization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVT4T7OR3iQ

http://beautifultrouble.org/case/barbie-liberation-organization/

Home Depot Art Intervention

Take color swatches from home depot and have students use pen and ink to draw images related to the color of the swatch.  Colors always have interesting names And then put the cards BACK in stores.  Make REAL street art.  Stop showing Banksy and making beautiful copies, get students involved and in the real art world.

Project: Erased Drawing

http://www.garyschneider.net/

Rauschenberg

Trace in Motion – it is rare to see the world hold still, we see in moving images.

How to draw a self-portrait in an age where self-identity is understood as a process?  Shifting, changing and evolving.  How to acknowledge a self is really a multiple of selves?

Project: Leave NO Trace

Take students outside and create art with nature.  Can you make art anywhere?  Gude gave students a bag with leaves and also instructed them to use anything in the field.

Artists of Inspiration

     Andy Goldsworthy                   Nils Udo

         

David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387965/

Andy Warhol – Traced Drawings

Trace of something from commercial culture

Overlap tracings of commercial culture – overload in brain

Always try the project first!  What would you do?  Did you do samples?

Summary: Bricolage curriculum uses multiple methods of making, explaining, interpreting art and assemblage plays with structure of change.

Next generation CORE standards, Artists and designers shape investigation.  There should be safety in experimentation while developing and creating artworks.

                     

[Art 21 Educators: Contemporary Art in Contemporary Classrooms]

Presenter: Jessica Hamlin (director of education), John Fusaro, Julia Coopersmith, Don Ball, Rebecca Belleville

Learn about specific strategies and experiences from teachers who have participated in the Art21 Educators program and teach in a range of classrooms, grades and contexts.  Presenters will share how they have brought the ideas and processes of contemporary artists into their teaching and encouraged students to redefine their ideas about what art is and what artists do in the 21^st century.  This interactive session will also allow participants to consider how the ideas presented are applicable to their own work and ask questions in small groups facilitated by presenting teachers.

Julia Coopersmith

Can you really teach contemporary art to elementary students?

Active Space and Collaborative Space – strategies for process

The entire art studio should be used for investigation, discovery and exploration.  Build small worlds underneath studio tables… students work in teams.

Sarah Sze - http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/sarah-sze

Leading with Prompts & Questions

What would an underwater city look like?

Setting the Scene – Transforming the scene, students wore winter coats and received an airplane ticket to take trip to the arctic.

Lynda Benglis – Blatt

http://www.pbs.org/art21/images/lynda-benglis/baby-blatt-1969?slideshow=1

 

Matthew Barney

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/matthew-barney

Physical restrictions to create drawing - Construct devices that make act of painting challenging… students very engaged in the process of art making.

 

Presenter: Don Ball

Noelle Hamlyn – created garment out of teabags

http://artgalleryofmississauga.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/vam-36-artist-profile-noelle-hamlyn/

Micah Lexier with Colm Tobin – measurement and identity - words as art.  1334 Words, for 1334 Students – one word per student.  Each student wrote one word for the short story and it was put back together reading in all of the different handwritings.

Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller – Speakers respond to shadows – creating a presence.  20 second video snippets.

Janine Antoni – Lick and Lather

How do we shed the layers of one’s self?  What causes the deterioration of identity?

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/janine-antoni

Ai Weiwei (coming to Brooklyn soon)

http://aiweiwei.com/

Interactive… Nonverbal thinking/communication Activity

Stacks of postcards – lay on table – another student chooses an artwork that relates and the cards are continuously layered.

Reflection is important – What would you like to see change in your own practice?  What would reward you in that change?

Rebecca Belleville – Baltimore, MD

rebeccabelleville@gmail.com

Rebecca worked with a group of emotionally charged inner city students that were notoriously challenging and disrespectful.  How do I shock my students, she asked.

Alfredo Jaar RWANDA

The Rwanda Project – 1994 – genocide – NYT wrote a small blurb.  Jaar questioned how something as devastating as the genocide in Rwanda could only have a small blurb in the NYT.  It seemed drastically under reported in his point of view.

           (slides of eyes piled in gallery)

http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/reviews/moore/moore5-21-98.asp

Carl Wilkins – activist – came to speak at school

Harvards Project Zero Thinking

http://www.pz.gse.harvard.edu/visible_thinking.php

John Fusaro (Nyack, NY)

How do we approach advocacy, teaching with contemporary art?

Making classrooms more of a public space – leading with questions – building relationships outside the classroom – utilizing public spaces as classrooms.

Teach in front of exhibits, teaching in hallways… move away from cultivating this culture of cute.  Show students engaged and in process.

Process Wall (bulletin board) instead of Product Wall (finished art pieces)… get lots of photographs of students working and have them write about their process.

Next Steps: Consider process boards and process walls around the school.  Do not show the finished project, but rather display sketches and photographs of students working.  Focus on the process of making art and student choice.

The Monster Project: The Evolution of a Collaboration

Presenter: Jennifer Bevill, guggenheim

This multi-year collaboration between classroom teacher and teaching artist shows how a rich art project can evolve, addressing different aspects of student learning and community building.

The Monster Project was inspired by artist Kylin O’Brien

http://www.kylinobrien.net/themonsterproject/projecthome.html

1.    Brainstorm different body parts that can be used to create a monster.

2.    Sketch four different monsters, be sure to include at least three body parts from the list for each monster… you may include more.

3.    Break into groups and create a final monster that is a blend of all of your ideas together.

4.    Think: where are the monsters from?  Why are they here?  What’s going to happen next?

Surprise! Monsters Arrive! 5^th graders created monsters and over night they were displayed in 2^nd grade classrooms.  2^nd grade teachers acted surprised.  Who are these monsters!?!  2^nd graders created their own monsters in response.  Then there was an exhibition called “Meet Your Monster”

Second Evolution

Think about Creatures to change the world – civic minded creatures tied in with social studies / history unit.  – teachers found that this unit wasn’t nearly as successful as the first since the focus on history took away from the freedom of creative expression.

Third Evolution

Inner/Outer Monsters

1.    Character trait game – list of positive traits is provided to students and taped to their backs.  Students walk around room with marker and circle one trait on the back of other students.  They are always surprised to see what others think of them.  Then in pencil circle one trait you feel you have that others didn’t notice.  (Hardworking…creative…mischievous)

2.    Mini Inner Monsters – thumbnail sketch for each monster showing the different traits that were circled the most.  Put all of those traits together to create one composite monster and a personal statement to go with.

3.    Personal monsters come together – based on traits and artistic properties.  Students are allowed to make their own groups but cannot choose their friends.  Have a discussion about how choosing monsters with similar traits and artistic properties will help make the best composite.

4.    Make a composite, collaborative monster.  Use paint to fill in… always give black last!

5.    ELA connection about writing and self-reflection was found to be more meaningful than social studies connection.

On Collaboration…

Group work helps all students.  Concrete thinkers and kids who struggle to collaborate.  There is room for every kid to be creative.

Supplies & Contacts

Utretch/Blick – large canvas paper on roll works great for large composite monsters

Kylin O’Brien – kylin@chutney.org

Jenny Bevill – jennybevy@gmail.com

Melissa Browning (cooperative teacher) – Browning_melissa@hotmail.com

What Do Art Teachers and Students Say Art Teachers Need to Know in Contemporary Classrooms?

Presenter: Patty Bode  bode.40@osu.edu

Research project investigates students and art teachers in multiracial, urban classrooms – asking them what art teachers need to know.  Considers relevance and applicability of postmodernism and multicultural education today.

Implications of Art Teacher Preparation

1.    What do art teachers and art students say we need to know?

2.    How are postmodernism and multiculturalism informing teaching and learning in the art classroom?

Research in diverse population, urban public schools

Attributes students think teachers should possess actually strayed away from technical skill.. the most popular answers being: patience & humor

Students were asked to comment on teacher identity in relation to student identity and language.  Overall, students commented that the teachers ethnicity did not matter in the classroom as long as they were open minded, compassionate and listened to the identity of the students.  Students want their voices to be heard.

Research Art of Collage: title, description, transcript and then participants voices.

Book: The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children [Paperback]  Author: Gloria Ladson-Billings

http://www.amazon.com/Dreamkeepers-Successful-Teachers-American-Children/dp/0470408154/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396540593&sr=1-1

 

Curriculum/Representation

Students Voices

Ask me who I am.

Choice and independence within curriculum.

Desire to be held to high expectations.

Most kids need a push.

Don’t let me quit.

Skill development and imagination.

Expression and visual culture.

The stuff of today.

I want to learn about the war and about my life.

Looney Tunes and cultural hybridity more than skill

Next Steps: Focusing on more child-centered art.  For middle school, answering the question… who are you?  Engaging Learners through art making.

Re-Thinking Arts Integration: Using Technology & Media to Differentiate Learning

Presenter: Jerry James, Center for Arts Education

The Albers App – Josef Albers, The Interaction of Color

Presentation available online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlNtkZv26t4

Arts & Literacy Documentation – Portfolio for each student

Making Thinking Visible – What challenges did you encounter?  What choices did you make?

Arts integration is moving from teacher driven to student driven.  Inspire learners to pursue their own complex investigations.  The new 3 R’s reflect, research, revise.

Students and teachers alike need to reflect.

Project ideas: How can we use digital cameras to document shapes in our neighborhood?

21^st Century Literacies:

Imagine, Investigate, Construct and Reflect

Students need to understand in different media formats.

Creating, Producing, Performing, Responding and Connecting

View youtube video for weather related activity that inspires deep creative thinking.

Engage learners through music, adding music to lesson plans that are related to study.

“The arts are for everyone, not just an elite few” –Maxine Green

Choice without Chaos

Presenter: Anne Bedrick     annebedrick@yahoo.com

“I was a directed art teacher…”

Student-directed learning is the innovative teaching approach that motivates students and develops traits we value: creativity, perseverance, flexibility, self-expression, and diligence.  Learn strategies to offer Choice without Chaos.

Bedrick’s interactive e-book available online

Learning & Thinking vs. Testing & Showing

“The art room has become one of the last places that we have the luxury of allowing students to do the important work of learning in non linear abstract ways.” –Ann Bederick

“The practice of teaching art should reflect the practice of making art.” – Peter London.

You never know what is going to happen in a choice room.  The kids work so much harder in this style of teaching art. You still demonstrate art teacher directed lessons each class, but kids don’t have to do the project unless they want to.  They are inspired by their peers, materials and own lives.  A lot of mixed media happens. 

Reflection

·      Everyday ends with share time. The teacher is respecting students as artists themselves.  Artist -> Artist.

·      Stand back from your work and look at it.

·      Why do we make art?

·      Share ideas and questions.

·      Basket with post-its – silent discussion wall.

Benefits of Choice

·      Students rarely compare themselves to peers.  Students develop a healthier, realistic view of themselves as artists.

·      Students learn to think of interesting ideas and see possibilities around them.

·      The excitement of coming to a choice room is all the time.  BGLS/KWLM’s become the winners of this kind of teaching.

Process vs. Product and GENUINE UNDERSTANDING

·      Artwork will be genuine kid art.

·      Students develop at all different rates in the arts, much as they do in other areas of education.

·      If its not coming from them, they don’t really know it.  Doing is not the same as understanding

·      Students get ideas for future artwork from their peers

Clean Up

·      Students put away own materials. 

·      Signs at each station with pictures of exactly the way the materials need to look on the shelves/table. 

·      Stations are designated by color so students mark their work with the color of the station.

Kindergarten: Smaller materials and consider a special project table.  Introduce the more advance materials a little at a time by offering different materials for special projects.

Drawing Center: What do artists draw?  Idea book filled with student masterpieces.  (One for each center)  Helix Circle Maker is a great drawing tool.

Clay Center: paint bucket with cover, students work on Masonite boards.  Cook me shelf for firing work.  Different shelving for each class.  All clean up procedures clearly labeled with words and pictures.

Fiber Arts Center: Students love to make “real” things.

The Digital Arts Center: First photograph is of name and class.  Xerox box covered in black paper helps students set up still lives for photography.

iPads – “Paper 53” & “Drawing Box Free” Stop motion animation apps.

Inventor’s Workshop: Recycled materials and craft supplies.  Plyers, staplers.  The scribble stage often involves gluing favorite things together without a plan.

         Students often work together on one creation.

         To open workshop, what can you make with a tube?

Silk screen comes out for a short time,

Halloween – the daily monster – blowing ink – have to project

Have Tos: No choice today.  All students must do the have to project.  These can be for school events or a skill the teacher notices the students need to learn.  IE: Landscapes.  Landscape painting is not something kids will necessarily do on their own.

Kids go through different stages in different media, all mediums have their own version of the scribble stage.  The craftsmanship comes later.

Set Up

·      Everything is in small quantities.  Too much choice is overwhelming.

·      Also keep collage supplies on the table.

·      Square tupperwares filled with small cups of the wet tempera for painting station.

·      Each center has signage to help the students be independent.

·      Signs are laminated.

·      Glue bottles – rubber cement type bottles (available at most art supply stores) filled with Elmer’s glue.

·      K – picture cards for saving seats.

·      Every kid has a clothespin with name for works in progress.

·      First 6 weeks, opening centers and modeling everything.

TAB: Nan Hathaway – The Student is the Product, Not the Painting

Beginning choice?

·      Do a lot of research and reading

·      Inform all adults, parents, staff

·      Inform kids – really scary when kids just transition into this type of art making… there will be a feeding frenzy in the beginning.. you mean we can make ANYTHING we want, EVERY DAY?... Students will modify themselves towards the end.

·      Brochure goes home explaining advocacy through students written word.  How does art help us in other areas of school?

Challenges

·      Allow kids art to look like kids art

·      Helping boys find appropriate ways to deal with subject matter that is important to them.

·      Find work for the art show – have an art show box

Scavenger hunts are great tools for interaction during the art show.

Let’s Play: From Play to Ideation

Dr. Carrie Nordlund and Amy Pfieler-Wunder

nordlund@kutztown.edu

wunder@kutztown.edu

Come play!  Consider the journey from inspiration and imagination to ideation.  Explore the history and philosophy of play to infuse child play in your curriculum.

Flow

What happens when our hands, mind and body work together?

Century of the Child exhibition – key writer: Ellen Key

·      View children as competent beings

·      Children’s lives are rich, multi-faceted and complex

Froebel’s Gifts – there are 10 in total that promote different development stages in play and imagination.

Forms of Life – children mimick what they see in the world

Forms of Knowledge

Forms of Beauty – transformation through objects

You need both structure and freedom in creativity.

The Golden Age of Unstructured Play (1900-1950)

Children as designers of Toys and Play

·      Nature provides ample opportunities

·      Urban children – transform and appropriate streets, sidewalks, backyards, alleys, vacant lots, dumps

·      Toys were a reward and to secure children’s affection

Commercialization of play 1950 -> present.  Design toys and play for children.

The Over-Protected Kid

New research shows children will grow up to be more fearful and less creative (Hannah Rosin)

The Land – a new documentary film about the lack of opportunities for risk in play. 

Children who are happy and engage in play have better success in school.

Models of Play experience

·      Blank canvas and safe haven (waldorf) observing and letting child figure it out.

·      Safe places for good and bad ideas

·      In what ways are we prompting our students?

·      In what ways do we make room for student narrative (voice)?

·      In what way do we offer a space to play?

·      Aesthetically pleasing place – invited in to observe

TED Talks – Gever Tulley Brightworks

·      Children can learn through building and tinkering

·      What is adequate time to move from inspiration, ideation to implementation?

·      Time to problem – find.

·      How do we take what happens in play in early childhood and translate it to K-12.

Arts Based Research Journal: Making Learning Visible

Presenter: Jennifer Stuart & Caren Andrews

Explore the use of arts-based research journals in the K-8 classroom.  Learn to help students develop their thinking and connect their intuitive processes with their ability to plan and deepen the skill and meaning in their artworks.

·       Maps are a wonderful way to bride concrete and abstract thinking

·       How do artists observe the world?

·       How am I an artist?

·       Map it out – maps shown – students take from maps what they will

Contemporary Artist: Mark Garrets – drawing with scissors with real maps.  How do you fill those spaces in between?

I see… I think… I wonder… - reflect and write one sentence in journals for each

Creating A Spark: Divergent Thinking in the Middle School Art Room

Presenter: Stacy Lord – teacher at a low income, inner city middle school.

Where do your lesson ideas come from?  Do they spark creative thinking?  Explore proven and successful projects that promote divergent thinking, ignite creativity and appeal to middle school students.

Divergent thinking – lots of ideas, brainstorming, lateral thinking, multiple solutions

Convergent thinking – one idea, focusing it down, synthesize, single solution

Safe Environment: If the students feel safe – they will be more willing to take risks – to learn from mistakes.  Try something new.

·       Ask open ended questions.  Turn their questions back on them.  Let me answer that by asking you this… I don’t know, what do you think?  Repeat the question back to them – see if they can answer. 

·       Make them the artist – give them the choice in each project – being invested leads to ownership.

·       Don’t draw for them!  Avoid saying something is incorrect and avoid saying they did something wrong.  Ask open-ended questions to guide them.

·       Don’t forget to acknowledge students, this creates safety and trust.

·       Tie into real experiences and make it personal.

·       Use a backward design when developing lesson plans.

Project: Anger Pets

Brainstorm – Talk about anger as a natural emotion.  Think of a time you were angry.  What was said?  Where were you?  What would it taste like?  What would it smell like?  What would it look like?  Why?  What feeds your anger?  What would that look like?  Pet – food source.

How do you react to the anger?  Do you react physically, verbally, do you try and hide it?  What would that look like portrayed in an anger pet?  How do you control your anger?  Why did you do that?

Show them student work!  If you show them examples of student work, they will feel like they can do it.  The idea can often seem daunting for students not invested in the arts.  They can relate visually to the work of their peers. 

Use recycled materials with plaster strips – other options, celluclay, mural paint.

Self-Critiquing

What have you created?

Why they created it…

What would they do differently?

Reflective artist statement at the end of each project

P. 1 – Explain what you created – why you created it – how you feel about it – elements and overall design (composition)

P. 2 – Think… what you found exciting or not – explain challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

P. 3 – If you had to go back and do this project again, what would you do differently?

Curriculum Slam!  New School Art Styles: Contemporary Art as Contemporary Pedagogy.

Presenter: Olivia Gude, James Rees, Lydia Ross

Forget the old time curriculum fair.  NAEA teachers from around the country will share projects that intertwine contemporary art and contemporary pedagogy.  Learn to use this fast-paced and fun format at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago to shake up your curriculum thinking in your hometown.

All presenters had 7 minutes to slam out their art projects with a power point presentation.  30 seconds were allotted to each slide that forwarded automatically.

Valerie Xanos

Learning to Love you More

How do I help students create as artists?

Create outside of traditional restraints…

http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/

To truly empower our students we must admit what we do not know, relinquish control and let them lead.