Field Experience
Lesson A:
Big Idea: Communicating Aesthetic Relationships
Objective: Develop an understanding of student’s work regarding formal and conceptual attributes.
Establish criteria for developing an artist statement and propose a trajectory for work to come.
Engage students in a dialogue about what is being communicated in their work.
Preparation: View Everyone’s Work/ Get thoughts together about questions Individual Questions:
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How do you view this work? What is the intention, focus, or main idea? How is it represented?
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Find evidence of at least three principles of design in the work. How does it support the work?
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How is the artist creating a message through the image that we are seeing? How is it a representation of the artist?
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What elements in the piece are familiar to you? How has the artists changed their meaning?
Activity: Read Artist Statements/ Discuss “Answers” to the Questions
**Develop artist statements (if not yet completed) explaining major themes and influences to be e-mailed before next meeting (date tbd).**
Group Discussion: Discuss everyone’s work as a group and answer group questions Group Questions
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What do you see the future (next step) of this piece to be? How can the artist move forward from here?
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What is important for the artist to communicate and/or articulate more clearly?
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What might the artist be overlooking in their work that needs to be addressed?
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Did anyone encounter any challenges throughout the process of making their work?
Assessment: Students will be assessed on their ability to develop of constructive, critical feedback regarding the work of fellow classmates.
Students will develop criteria for the direction they wish to take their future project.
Outcomes: Each student will have a clear understanding of how their work is viewed by an audience.
Students will be able to clearly articulate what they are portraying in their work, and the process they underwent to reach that point.
Reflection:
Our observation at S High School was such a great experience! The few hours we were there flew by so fast. It really got me itching to be out in a classroom working with students. The main idea that our group decided to focus on with the students was “Communicating Aesthetic Relationships”. We were hoping to not only get the students to talk about their peers’ work, but also to allow them to understand what a viewer sees in their work. This will allow them to see if their work truly is portraying what they want to convey, and whether or not the work they are making is cohesive for a portion of their AP portfolio. The conversations that were brought about by the questions we had preplanned for them to address went really well. They had some really insightful opinions and observations for their peers that I think will benefit them greatly in the long run. We were actually a little blown away by how much work each of them did have; we were only expecting a few photographs.
Between this and the fact that the bell was shortened, time slipped away from us. We spent a lot of time on the first student, getting into great detail about her work and answering all of the questions. Our team didn’t realize how much time had passed, so we quickly agreed to speed things up by answering only two peer questions and one group discussion question per student, and to do so as a whole group. This still led to great conversation between the students about the work that they were making; it just wasn’t as in depth as the first students’. By the time we reached the third student, we were really running short on time, so we decided to divide and conquer with the last two students. The other two memebers of my team worked with the fourth student, while I continued to hold conversation with other two students about the third student’s work. The only thing I wish we had planned better was our time. We got carried away with the critique and the conversation, and failed to keep track of it. Our team all did the same amount of work. When we met, I took notes on my computer about what we wanted to accomplish and our plans. I then sent this out to them and we all took turns adding various portions to our lesson plan. All three of us contributed to the big idea for the critique and combined all of our ideas into what we planned out. We each took turns giving input and instruction to the students during the critique, without it being too overwhelming for them.
I am impressed and slightly at awe with the way the instructor runs his classroom. It’s not often that you walk into a school and find teachers so lenient, and willing to give the students such a laid back working environment. Mr. G had stated to us that he does no cleaning, no grading, and has no say in the management of the classroom; he leaves it all up to the students. They are to pick up after themselves and grade themselves on the work that they produce. Even though Mr. G's laidback approach to his classroom and students may seem questionable, he has made quite a difference on all their lives and that’s easy to tell simply just by observing his classroom. The conversations that are held and the lighthearted environment that surrounds both his classrooms is nothing less than inspiring. I admire his ability to communicate so freely with his students, and allow them to have so much control. He is definitely an instructor that totally inhabits all of the philosophical educational inquiries that we have been discussing since the beginning of last fall. Mr. G is not only producing artists that make beautiful work but also independent and creative individuals over all, which he told us was his goal.
Lesson B:
Big Idea: Communicating Aesthetic Relationships, cont.
Objective: Develop an understanding of student’s work regarding formal and conceptual attributes.
Using and developing an artist statement to describe their work as a whole.
Engage students in a dialogue about what is being communicated in their work.
Preparation: Everyone lays out their work at once with their concentration on sitting against the wall and their breadth below it laying on the floor.
Activity: Each students gets 10 minutes to descibe their progress of the work they've made since the last time we met, and talk about the decisions they've made since then and why. We will give them feedback about what they have and give them suggestions on what else they can try to help push their idea and work a little bit further. We will also be recording each student explain their work to be able to go back and email them how we understood their work and how we heard them describe it to help them define their artist statements.
Quiding Questions:
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What do you see the future (next step) of this piece to be? How can the artist move forward from here after submitting their AP portfolio.
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What is important for the artist to communicate and/or articulate more clearly?
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What might the artist be overlooking in their work that needs to be addressed?
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What are some suggestions for the artist to help them push their idea even more?
Assessment: Students will be assessed on their ability to develop of constructive, critical feedback regarding the work of fellow classmates.
Students will develop criteria for the direction they wish to take their future project.
Outcomes: Each student will have a clear understanding of how their work is viewed by an audience.
Students will be able to clearly articulate what they are portraying in their work, and the process they underwent to reach that point.
Students will be have a better understanding of how they describe their work, which will help them formulate their artist statements.
Reflection:
Our second time with our students at our field experience went so much better! We decided to still focus on Communicating Aesthetic Relationships as our "Big Idea", but to delve further into this idea and to allow longer and more in depth conversations with each student about their work. We wanted the students to be able to clearly articulate their work and understand how others viewed it.
To help manage our time and to get most out of the time we had we designated each member of our team a specific "job". One of my partner's recorded each student talking about their work, where we will later go back and note how each of us interpreted their work. The other partner kept a close eye on keeping the conversation going during each student's critique session, while I kept time during these sessions. This allowed us to give each student an equal amount of time (10 minutes) which was a major challenge we faced the first time around. It was difficult to delve deep into the students work during the first visit since we didn't know anything about it. But since we had already seen their work and knew what their concepts were, we could immediately go into what they have done since the last time we met and how they plan to move forward from here. Each student had a better idea of where their work was heading and what their next step was. Each of them had demonstrated the ideas we had dicussed previously and incorporated them into new photographs that they had produced before our second visit.
The students were more prepared to articulate their idea, process, and intentions of their work compared to the first time we had met with them, although they were still struggling to put these words into a written format. For this is the reason we decided to record them talking about their work. We wanted to translate exactly what they were saying to us when we held the conversation and include how we percieved their work and their desciption.
This session of critique overall went so much better than the first one. Every aspect of it was precisely carried out and I truly believe every student benefited from every aspect of this critique more than they did the first time. All three of us faciliating the critique contributed the same amount as we all did before. We made sure to assign ourselves roles to better manage our time with the students. The only thing I would change (as I stated this the first time) is the amount of time. I wish we had more time to allow more student interaction and conversation between them about each others' work. Last time there was more discussion between the students, and this time there was more discussion between the three of us and the individual student we were working with at the moment, so I would like to meet and equalibrium between the two.
Even after visiting Mr. G's classroom before, I was still amazed by the interaction between him and his students and the environment he provides. He is so at ease with them. There's this sense of understanding that just oozes from his classroom walls. He understands them- their work, lives, ideas- just as much as they understand him and his expectations. The only expectation of them is that they produce work, however they do that or whatever topic that it seems to be on is fine with Mr. G. He doesn't limit his students to any specific topic or subject to photograph, instead he hands them a creative license. Which is exactly what an art educator should be doing, but instead often times you find them hidden in their desk drawer. We held a nice conversation with Mr. G about how we can get our students to fully engage in their work and allow themselves to be creative. He discussed the idea of describing the concept of the Right Brain, Left Brain to them, and tell them that it is okay to channel their inner child to create work. There is a lot more creative freedom with children, so if they can reach that 10 year old state of themselves, they can break free of their structure and logical tendencies. Mr. G stated it perfectly when he said, "Art is play, serious play", and I believe that is something we tend to forget more times than not. It's important to not only remind ourselves of this, but our students as well.