Strategies

Examples: Articulated & Sorted

Strategy: Art Affinity Groups
- Allow learners to form affinity groups by artwork.
- Have them self-select which artist's work they wish to respond to.
- Once in groups, learners look for and discuss visual evidence of themes running through the body of work.
- Advise learners to look at the images without researching the artist's background/contextual information.

Purpose: Learners may be more motivated to discuss artworks that they felt a connection/attraction to. Discussing artworks in groups allows learners to discuss different interpretations/readings of an artwork. Discussing artworks without first researching the artist forces learners to base their interpretation on visual evidence and their lived experiences.

Effectiveness: This was somewhat effective. Learners seem to have had rich discussions, but in order to better interpret the clues that they were collecting, it may have been beneficial to structure this activity in stages and to allow learners to do more contextual research into their chosen artist in order to make more confident statements about the conceptual themes that are present in their work.

Strategy: Imagine if...
- Provide learners with hypothetical situations where they might find themselves trying to authentically get to know another person better.
- Instruct learners to generate a question that they would ask under the hypothetical circumstances.
- Once each learner has generated a list of questions, pair that learner with another learner in order to interview their peer partner.
- Invite learners to also ask you any of their questions and promise to answer them.

Purpose: If paired immediately with partners and told to interview one another, learners may come up with generic, less authentic, less creative "small talk" questions. Using this exercise, learners generate more meaningful questions to ask their partner. Additionally, inviting learners to ask you anything (as the facilitator) lays the groundwork that your classroom community is a two-way-street and that you are a participant, not just a voyeur.

Effectiveness: Learners generated interesting questions to ask one another and myself. Some learners merely read their questions to one another, however, not realizing that they were supposed to use these questions to interview one another. The strategy could have been more effective if framed as an idea generation strategy and if more explicit instructions were given for the interview portion.

Strategy: Pre-visualization
- Before beginning to create their artwork, walk learners through a guided series of questions.
- Invite them to create/picture their responses in their mind's eye.
- Once learners have had the opportunity to create visual symbols or manifestations of their thoughts,
- invite them to begin creating their vision using art materials of their choice.

Purpose: This exercise gives learners structured processing time to respond to a prompt. Given a prompt and told immediately to begin, learners are at once presented with a question that they have to answer, and the anxiety of a blank page to fill. Providing the opportunity to consider various aspects of one's personal, specific response to the prompting questions allows one to approach the blank page having made some personal meaning and associated symbolism in the mind before attempting to create a product.

- Purpose: This strategy allows each student an equal voice-- introverted or extroverted. No one may interrupt and because processing time was given before the circle began, each learner is reminded and provided the opportunity to actively listen while their peers are sharing. Because of the pre-established order, the facilitator need not respond to/validate/moderate each participant's response in order to acknowledge that learner and call upon the next. It allows learners processing time and a predictable order in order to reduce anxiety; nobody will be called on unexpectedly or put on the spot. Beginning the circle by responding to the question is an opportunity to build trust with the learners and to create a more evenly distributed power dynamic between facilitator and learner.

Strategy: Taking Attendance (Lynda Barry style!)
- Invite learners to draw a 2 minute (timed) self portrait on a small piece of paper (no larger than an index card) of the versions of themselves that are present in class at that given moment
Purpose: This strategy allows each student-- introverts and extroverts alike-- to take a moment to reflect and contemplate, and to make meaning from their current experience by crafting a visual response that symbolically depicts their current state. This allows the facilitator to "take the pulse" in the classroom community, to check in with each individual. It also provides an opportunity for students to engage in mindfulness, grounding and hands-on activity.

Strategy: Weather Report (using Answer Garden)
- Invite learners to share their personal "forecast" (to describe their current mental/emotional/physical state metaphorically in terms of a weather phenomenon) to an Answer Garden.
Purpose: This strategy allows each student-- introverts and extroverts alike-- to take a moment to reflect and contemplate, and to make meaning from their current experience by crafting a verbal response that metaphorically describes their current state. This allows the facilitator to "take the pulse" in the classroom community, to check in with each individual. It also provides an opportunity for students to engage in mindfulness, and grounding. Using an Answer Garden also helps to show consensus-- if more than one student says the same thing, the common answer "grows" in size and appears more dominant in the visual field.

Strategy: Chat Waterfall
- Invite learners to answer a question in the chat by first typing their answer and then waiting until everyone is ready and simultaneously pressing "submit" to flood the chat with answers
Purpose: This strategy allows each student-- introverts and extroverts alike-- an equal opportunity to process, reflect, and type their statements into the chat. Encouraging all learners to wait for one another and to all hit submit at the same moment creates an exciting visual abundance of responses and makes it so that no one person's answer is sitting alone in the chat under scrutiny, which is intended to reduce student anxiety about the worthiness/correctness/value of their own response.

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