Art
Art is about learning how to express "that which might go otherwise unexplored." Art is a uniquely human endeavor and it is our goal for all students to develop the artist within. Children explore different mediums and methods to create art for a larger audience and for purposes that meet their needs. The emphasis is on experimenting, trying new methods, and creating public art. The vast portfolio of art in history will be taught from an experiential point of view. Integrated art instruction will also be a part of the inquiry process in other classes.
Student Created Kinetic Sculpture
Art links for further research:
ARTEDUCATORS.ORG <http://arteducators.org/> :
Art lessons that pose open-ended art problems require students to use creative and critical thinking as they produce art.
Zimmerman has described creative thinking as the ability to generate new ideas or products by someone who solves a problem in a novel way. Gnezda extends this definition to apply specifically to art by suggesting that, “Creators have to move back and forth between creative and critical thinking modes... as they manipulate their media and solve ideational and construction problems”
REGGIO EMILIA APPROACH TO TEACHING:
The belief that children are already competent, capable, curious, and able to actively participate in their own learning versus a “blank” slate waiting to be filled with information. We view art as the process or inquiry-based rather than the product which might be hung on a refrigerator or wall. The way children explore the art medium or tools is as important as the final product.
THE NEW CHILDREN'S MUSEUM IN SAN DIEGO:
Our environmentally sustainable, 50,000-square-foot building houses expansive galleries, open studio environments and an Arts Education Center offering unique classes and camps <http://thinkplaycreate.org/education/> . The New Children's Museum is a new model of children's museum whose mission is to stimulate imagination, creativity and critical thinking in children and families through inventive and engaging experiences with contemporary art. (Importance of exposure to contemporary as well as art throughout history).
We commission art pieces directly from leading contemporary artists rather than reinterpreting existing works of art or applying an artistic element to a hands-on children's activity. By asking artists to create pieces with tactile, physical and participatory components, NCM opens a world of art to children through opportunities to observe and create. Featuring a wide array of art and inspiring creativity through a range of topics, our previous exhibitions include Childsplay (2008), Animal Art (2010) and our current exhibition, TRASH <http://thinkplaycreate.org/trash/> (2011 – 2013). The Museum is excited to be preparing for our next big exhibition, which will launch in October, 2013.
TRASH : For nearly 100 years, artists have chosen to work with trash to create a tangible connection to everyday life and to reject the idea that making art requires precious or expensive materials. Today artists are also passionately interested in the environmental impact of their materials. Through their transformation of trash into art, our artists encourage you to envision trash as more than waste needing disposal. They want you to see possibilities where others see waste. We want to empower kids to act as the agents of change at home, and we look to kids to find the new approaches, new ideas, and new solutions that will change our future.
FEAST: The Art of Playing with Your Food - Artists have used food as artistic inspiration for hundreds of years, and today the subject is a tool for artists to talk about community, sustainability and the environment, family traditions, and health.
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KQED :
CREATING CLASSROOMS WE NEED/8 WAYS INTO INQUIRY LEARNING: (- Diana Laufenberg)
1. BE FLEXIBLE. The less educators try to control what kids learn, the more students’ voices will be heard and, eventually, their ability to drive their own learning. ‘What do you mean I’m going to have 60 kids doing 60 different projects,’ teachers might say. But that’s exactly the way for kids to do interesting, high-end work that they’re invested in.”
2. FOSTER INQUIRY BY SCAFFOLDING CURIOSITY. For example, in exploring the subject of American identity with her history students, Laufenberg asked them to come up with words that convey to them the abstract idea of America, or what it means to be American. She asked her students to find images that epitomized America, then asked them to talk about their ideas with their peers, studying data about immigration, taking the American citizenship test themselves (most received an average score of 3, across the board regardless of age), so they could understand the processes and become personally invested in the subject.
3. DESIGN ARCHITECTURE FOR PARTICIPATION.
“There are so many ways that kids can be active in their learning, beyond the standard call-and-respond business,” Laufenberg said. It may be hard to do with 140 students, but if you consider all the available tools at your disposal, ideas can start to take shape. at the end of the speech, students had posted a total of 438 tweets and 18 pages of Moodle chat. “I could have them face off against any pundit the next day,” she said. “They understood it. None of it went over their head — they were making meaning of it. They were offering their own opinions, participating in the conversation. Laufenberg used every tool she had at her disposal as a framework for her students to build their learning around.
CONFUCIOUS:
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” You learn by what you do, not by what you hear. Experiential and challenge based <http://www.challengebasedlearning.org/simplepage/common-core> learning puts the mastery back into the student’s hands. We provide guidance and pushes along the way, but they are the ones “doing” and “making”. Let your students make and they will understand
KHAN ACADEMY:
Art History/"SmartHistory" How to Watch and Listen Critically. Technology has not only changed what we can see but how we see it and this applies to education and learning as well. It is hard to imagine any student walking into a college classroom who expects to learn just by reading, listening to lectures, and discussing. Odd, because that used to be the system and it worked pretty well for hundreds of years! Today students and faculty alike use muliti-media and there are excellent videos, podcasts, and interactive websites available, but to make the best use of them means that students need to look and listen critically.
FINLAND :
Finland's schools engage children in more creative play!!!! Finland has a long term approach to arts in education. Rather than valuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) over the arts like many Western countries, Finland considers the arts to be vital and weaves it through their entire education system. Music, visual arts, and crafts education is compulsory for students up to age 16 in Finland, as part of an effort to promote creativity and problem-solving skills and boost learning in other subject areas
INDEPENDENT: The goal of education is that student by expressing themselves with art, learn to evaluate and assess himself and his environment and to build and develop their worldview based on both personal experience and heritage. Teaching should help students to become aware on what for him is important in life and to express this by visual means.
TEAM: Education must develop students’ ability to work in interaction with others. Pupils should receive guidance in understanding and accepting diversity.
In teaching, the student will be encouraged to interpret the art on a personal way and recognize their personal history and the context, in which he examines the work of art. Art can be interpreted on many levels, the same works of art, handicraft product, or built environment interpreted differently at different times and in different contexts. Pupils must be able to formulate problems, process information, analyze the facts and form their own opinion about art.
• to express themselves by exploring and observing
• observe and interpret both their own and others’ activities
• to search ideas from nature, the built environment, historic sites, museums and exhibitions as well as professionals in the various sectors of the visual representation
• to work in collaboration with the community and with working and cultural life
• to take into consideration the principles of sustainable development and ability to apply them ecologically, culturally, socially and economically in their work
• to learn the concepts and vocabulary of visual representation and the ability to communicate through them
• to evaluate own and others’ work processes and learning.
• express themselves in various fields of visual arts, i.e. in drawing and painting, sculpture, architecture, environmental planning, design, graphics, ceramics, textiles, photography, film and video, series, environmental art and public art, performance art and video media and multiple artistic work.
• use new and ancient symbols and give them meanings.
• examine the relationship between form and content
• learn to observe nature, architecture and objects in the environment on the basis of aesthetics and sustainable development and learning to understand the importance of the environment for his and others’ welfare
Visual production is practiced both by their own work and by looking at the picture artwork and images of everyday life. In teaching the importance of using the senses, intuition, dreams, imagination and empathy is stressed. Education shall be exploration and problem-oriented. observe and interpret the surrounding countryside, built environment and objects in the environment and learn how to transform the observations and ideas into images
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: (JH. ROLLING)
• We need to teach art teachers to be educators of multiple arts, design thinking, visual literacy, meaningful marks, models of the world, and special aesthetic interventions indicating our cherished values. Educating everyone to contribute culture, not just consume it."
CHILDREN'S CREATIVITY MUSEUM SF :
MAP EXHIBIT : This exhibit was created by teens from two cities who were given a unique opportunity to “map” their experiences and ideas on many levels. The artwork and dialogue transcends mere geography, touching on the shared social, historical, cultural, economic, biographical, psychological, and artistic issues as experienced by young people in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
MYSTERY BOX EXHIBIT : Every day, our Mystery Box Challenge presents kids with a prompt to invent something. Just one catch: you can only use materials inside a box. Kids are challenged to think in terms of design — What does this invention need to do? How can I build it so it does that AND stays together? Throughout the process kids tap into their critical thinking skills and can also develop their communication skills by explaining the steps they took. And, of course, they get to take home what they make or they can leave their inventions on display in the Innovation Lab to inspire others.
STORY WALL EXHIBIT : For the Story Wall workshop, visitors first chose a prompt card from one of the following categories: character, setting, or artifact. They then used this prompt card as inspiration for a crayon drawing. Next, each visitor chose four surprise drawings out of the Story Cauldron and used his or her drawing plus the four surprise ones to tell a story. When visitors had finished telling their stories, CCM staff encouraged them to add their drawings to the Story Cauldron for others to use. The workshop took place on three weekends, and each weekend our collection of drawings and stories grew.
LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE :
KAPLA BLOCKS :
Logical Thinking – First of all KAPLA encourages children to think logically and helps them to develop their spatial awareness. Through the use of identical unfixed pieces, KAPLA develops the child’s capacity to organize elements in a three-dimensional way. With KAPLA, children acquire a basic knowledge of geometry, physics and technology. The game enhances their awareness of shape and volume and gives them a good sense of balance while improving manual dexterity.
Stimulating Creativity – Besides logical thinking KAPLA stimulates children to think in a different way and to create constructions <http://www.kaplaus.com/big-constructions/> from their own imagination. By using their creativity children will discover their artistic talent.
Concentration, Perseverance and Patience – KAPLA encourages perseverance, patience and concentration, which are key elements to success at school. Children are made to work in a concentrated way if they want to build a good, solid construction and achieve the desired result. One may have to start over again when the construction collapses at an early stage. You cannot cheat with KAPLA: If your construction does not have a solid base, it will inevitably collapse! This demands perseverance and patience.
Cognitive Development – During childhood a child goes through several phases of cognitive development. In each stage a child likes to play in a different manner and will develop different skills. Being a progressive game, KAPLA allows each child to play at his/her own level of difficulty. KAPLA grows with the child.
Teamwork – KAPLA is an ideal game to play in a group. It stimulates teamwork and cooperation. Children will have to communicate with each other to decide on the subject of their project and work together while building their constructions. Each child will automatically find his/her place within the group, as a leader, assistant or coordinator.
OPEN MAKE:
Open Make @ The Hall kicking off on January 19. Open Make is a monthly program highlighting the tools, techniques, and ingenuity of local Makers. The Lawrence Hall of Science has been an active participant in the “Maker Movement” for many years, sharing in the goal of providing young people with inspiring project ideas as well as mentors to help them work on their own engineering, art, and science projects.
YOUNG MAKERS.ORG <http://makers.org/> :
The Young Makers Program (youngmakers.org <http://youngmakers.org/> ) connects young people with adult mentors and fabricators to create opportunities for kids to dream up and develop projects for Maker Faire each year. We encourage kids to develop projects based on their own interests and ideas. Past projects have included a pedal-powered trolley, furniture that doubles as a hamster habitat, a fire-breathing dragon, a seesaw water pump, an animatronic galloping horse, and a mobile spy camera. We all work together to create a collaborative culture of creativity, innovation and experimentation. In addition, we bring program participants together for monthly meet ups to explore different kinds of making and to talk about their own work in progress. In the Young Makers Program, there are no winners and losers; the focus is on exhibition, not competition, and just like Maker Faire, anything that’s cool is fair game.
The mission of the Maker Education Initiative is to create more opportunities for young people to make, and, by making, build confidence, foster creativity, and spark interest in science, technology, engineering, math, the arts—and learning as a whole. We want young people to join—and eventually lead—the growing Maker Movement. We are building community networks of families, leaders, educators, mentors, and organizations to nurture young makers.
EXPLORATORIUM :
For us, the artistic process—much like the scientific process—is a form of inquiry vital to learning. We see art is an open-ended process of investigation, speculation, imagination and experimentation. The results of artistic inquiry can take infinite form, as every artist has the potential to reinvent art practice anew.
THE IMAGINATION FOUNDATION
Imagine the world we can build?
The mission of the Imagination Foundation is to find, foster and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in children around the world to raise a new generation of innovators and problem solvers who have the tools they need to build the world they imagine. Born out of the phenomenal global response to the ‘Caine’s Arcade’ short film, the Imagination Foundation <http://www.imagination.is/> was established to find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids. ‘Caine’s Arcade’ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U> celebrates the power of kid creativity, storytelling, community, and play. These elements are in our DNA and they will continue to inform what we do and how we do it.
• Teaching towards critical thinking : shift from looking to seeing, watching to doing, touching to feeling, doing to experiencing, wondering to understanding
• Host LIVE local artists on campus to create pieces with tactile, physical, digital, and participatory components to help open a world of art to children through opportunities to observe and create
DESIGN MUSEUM - LONDON
Mystery
Our most popular workshop uses a range of unusually designed domestic products to kick start pupils creative design ideas.
Recycle
Supported by a handling collection of innovative products made from recycled materials, pupils are introduced to the importance of sustainable design.
Chairs
Pupils evaluate a collection of contemporary folding chairs before using their creativity and imagination to sketch their own chair design.
Innovative Materials
A cutting edge selection of inventive and unusual materials and applications highlighting the role of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the design process.
Chocolate Box
A mouth-watering selection of chocolate packaging design solutions provide an engaging way for pupils to learn about key graphic design techniques.
Textiles
Inspired by an exciting collection of fashion and domestic textiles, pupils explore a range of fabrics and textile surface patterns to create their own fashion textile designs.
MOMA - NYC
MORE THAN A BOWL OF FRUIT - Look closely at how the modern masters reimagined everyday items as you explore the exhibition American Modern: Hopper to O'Keeffe, then head to the studio to experiment with a time-honored form in this drawing workshop.
DREAMSCAPES - From the silly to the surreal, we’ll look at artwork that is out of this world. Then we'll delve into your dreams as we create curious collages in the studio.
SEARCHING FOR THE SURREAL - What make something seem odd or out of the ordinary? We’ll look to the work of René Magritte for inspiration as we explore the exhibition Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938. Then we'll create our own strangely surrealist works in this collage workshop.
GUGGENHEIM (DIGITAL WORKSHOPS)
• Responding to the work of Keith Haring <http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/haring/index.html> and The Aztec Empire <http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/aztecs/index.html> exhibition, teens create animated symbols expressing change and duality.
• Kandinsky's theories about music and painting inspire Flash-based animations.
• students re-imagine the space around them using the 3-D modeling program SketchUp.
• responding to photography thru creative writing, students develop a portfolio of drawings and creative writing to be "published" in an artistic chapbook.
ART RADIUS SAKSALA
The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity.
Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor number exhaust what we can know.
The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
The arts traffic in subtleties.
The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.
When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
CENTER FOR INQUIRY BASED LEARNING
Before and After
Grade range: 5-12
Students are asked to identify something, A, that changes into something else, B. They are asked to makea model of B (preferably three-dimensional), and make a presentation including information about the causesand mechanisms of this change. This can be in a biological context, an art context, or a technological context. Origami is used as an illustrative analog of morphogenesis ("form creation").
Bridges
Grade range: 5-12
Each student builds the lightest-weight bridge he or she can that spans a 24-inch space between two supports. The bridge must be made from simple materials and must be able to support a standard brick (about five pounds). In the process, students formulate the basic engineering principles of bridge design.
Find Your Peanut
Grade range: 5-12
Each student is given a peanut and is asked to study it carefully. All the peanuts are then placed in a bag and mixed up. Students are then asked to find their own peanuts.
Paper Towers
Grade range: 5-12
Each student makes a tower using two sheets of newsprint and ten inches of transparent tape. The object is to build the tallest tower that will resist being blown over by the teacher from one arm's length away. In the process, students formulate the basic engineering principles of tower design.
What's Going on Here?
Grade range: 5-12
Students are shown photographs, slides, or overhead transparencies of a natural phenomenon. After making careful observations, they are asked to infer how the phenomenon occurred.
INCREDIBLE @RT DEPARTMENT
Fact: According to researchers Marlin Languis, Tobie Sanders and Steven Tipps, physical movement ties in both hemispheres of the brain and makes it easier to pass information between both hemispheres. Younger children learn better while moving around while learning.
Application: Allow your students to stand at their table or move around the room between learning centers. Use drama as a way to teach art. Refer to the section on the integration of art and drama <http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/drama/drama.html> .
Fact: According to researcher Pat Wolf, the average human brain has about seven memory "spaces." From about the age of three, a space is added each year. If a student learns while stressed, they will develop these spaces slower. Initially, students can learn only one dimension at a time. For example, a blue "A" and red "A" can't be the same letter to them. A taller glass can hold more, even if it can hold more volume than a short, wide glass.
Application: Give younger children manipulatives that enable them to sort, classify, and solve problems. Geometric shapes and colors can be used to hasten this development.
Fact: Pat Wolf also says that the wrist is not fully developed until the age of seven. Because of this, they can't draw details or shapes easily until this age. A child younger than seven also doesn't realize that 2-dimensional abstractions can represent real life. Students have reached this point when they can draw a diamond.
Application: Have students draw pictures that force their eyes to track in a full circle rather than vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Don't give seatwork or worksheets to students younger than seven.
Fact: Pat Wolf says that the brain in all ages loses interest in something after 18 seconds. The brain will then either drop the input or retain it. Visual, auditory, and tactile stimulation is retained or dropped in less than a second!
Application: Have a great introduction that captures students' attention. Use exciting and attention-grabbing visuals. This is especially important in a world of video games and text messaging.
Fact: According to Hotz, the brain has reached its peak of activity at the age of five. By the teen years, thousands of neurons are being lost per second. Neurons that are reinforced through experience survive.
Application: Continually reinforce material and give plenty of hands-on work.
Fact: When the brain hears music, neural circuits are strengthened- especially in the area of mathematics.
Application: Here's your permission to have the radio on while students work on art.
Fact: Rote memorization is not retained or transferable unless it is immediately associated with an experience. Sylvester says that activities that draw out emotions, role playing, and cooperative learning help prompt students to recall information.
Application: If students need to memorize something, have them do it in groups, while role playing, or in engaging activities.
ART WITH THE BRAIN IN MIND (Harvard Educational Review)
Eric Jensen, the author of Arts with the Brain in Mind, is neither an arts educator nor an artist, but a researcher. Jensen has compiled and reviewed research studies on the arts, the brain, and learning, which has convinced him that the arts are vital to educating our children and should be taught every day in our schools, just like language arts, math, science, and social studies. In effect, by conducting his review of the research, Jensen has become an advocate for the arts in education. Arts with the Brain in Mind serves as Jensen’s treatise for his newfound advocacy. The bulk of the book focuses on a review of the research on the arts, the brain, and learning. This review is divided into three sections: musical arts, visual arts, and what Jensen calls kinesthetic arts (including dramatic arts and dance, industrial arts and design, and recreational activities and physical education).