Art Spirit

Live Bear Camera

I’m trying to think if there was anything amazing that happened. Anything new that may have taken place. I’m not trying to be ironic or sarcastic, even though I appreciate the well placed language of both. Reflecting on last week, it was really the challenge of teaching skills especially through video conferencing. The challenge was how accustomed to doing this practice a very particular way, I have become. This week I learned the value of pointed and targeted learning.

I learned the essentials of knowing exactly what we were going after and working to get the students there. Targeting the learning for one day is a challenge. This is nothing new. But what is new is the real need to drill down to what is essential in the hour for the students to know, understand and be able to do. This is difficult for any one pre or post Covid-19. For art education, in culture of personal voice and choice targeted learning was always, always a very soft target. Meaning if students did or didn’t ‘hit’ the target there was always tomorrow. Now there is just the time we have together and tomorrow they are doing something else. I want my students to end class with the confidence in what they are being asked to do. Not confusion. So, we are going very slowly. We are practicing the skill, and practicing again. We are taking 20-30 minute virtual studio time ( also known as screen breaks) where students work with their camera on or off but they are still in the class. I check in. We talk. We continue. Just more focused and more targeted. 




Also I have been screen sharing Live Web Cams with my students as they come in to start class with the video conference. Here is my favorite. You’re welcome!

Its like teaching.

So, first week is in the books. Well, begun. I think. In the weeks leading up to our first week with students I kept trying to create metaphors and analogies to frame what we teachers were all about to do. On my runs I would think of Remote Learning as the route we had all been on before we were simply taking the alleys instead of the main streets. When I considered how we would make art, talk about art, look at artists, talk at our ‘tables’ ( Zoom Breakout Room)I thought about how we would be in a virtual studio space working side by side in ‘real time’. I thought about how being in a Zoom Meeting with students is like being on a big (sometimes Magic) bus. With everyone doing what they do all the chaos of the video frames, bringing their pets in gradually. With the first week of Remote Learning came all the frenetic energy of the first week of school. I see the students every other day. One thing I found particularly challenging this year is keeping track of my students in which class they were in… I know. But really from March to May when I would hear from a student or see them online I would have the context of them in my day and their ‘world ‘ within the art studio. This is how I placed them and remembered where they were in the courses that I teach. So this week, I put names to Blocks. I teach six Middle School Blocks, four 5th grades and one 4th grade Remote Only group. We really spent the week building rapport through activities designed for the student to tell about themselves. My Middle Schoolers created Self Portrait Mind Maps and the elementary level students did a simple Google Slide about themselves. We will look at all of the Google Slides and Mind Maps in each class as way to celebrate them and see their art work. This is a similar thing I would do in person. I suppose what is different here is I am seriously slowing the process down. Sure, there is always someone who would like for it to go faster. I understand that. This week and going forward I really want the students to feel that sense accomplishment that comes from making something with quality. Slowing down is a first, real step.

tuning in

7th grade
Painting

It is like being out on a road trip, somewhere in the in middle of no where and I’m trying to find an AM radio station. AM radio is tuning in and out. Words are spotty. Songs are distant and vaguely familiar. It is all wholly distracting. 

Don’t get me wrong. I know all of this is serious business. I’m glad there is so much discussion about schools and school safety. 

I have to be clear headed and clear eyed. By the end of August, I will be seeing my students. Either in-person, remote or some sort of hybrid. This is certain. And when I see them, I will be happy  they are safe, they are with their families and healthy. So how do I proceed with my thinking about and puzzling over our studio classroom when it is certain to change several times throughout the school year. I’ve said before,  we are teaching in some way ( in-person or remote) this school year. I’m thinking about how to frame this school year. How will I know that the students are learning, applying and experimenting? How will I challenge and engage them? 

More process. Deeper and more frequent applications of different materials. Perhaps students are set up with their own kits. Then using those kits they working within a series of 3-4 iterations of a particular concept. Art is a foundational tool. A device with which students can and do work through concepts. Within these concepts the students always ( and I love this) speak their truth, their self out to the world. This is the frame. No matter what the concept is the students always make it theirs. My job is to help them make the concept their own. To understand that they have a voice that is unique and unrepeatable. And needs to be spoken. I think I’m getting this, I’ll tune into materials. I will tune into concepts. I will help each student locate their visual radio frequency.

virtual open studio

7th grade
Painting

Combine an implicit constructivist environment ( in-person learning) and an explicit constructivist environment (remote learning).
 


Here’s the gist:

Consistent  virtual open studio time blended learning and meaning construction for student artists. 



Here were my questions:

How can we create a feel of in-person interactions with remote learning? 



How can I facilitate studio collegiality of an in-person learning environment in a remote setting? 



Remote is not in-person however, might we clean the glass enough that they begin to reflect one another? 



Here’s my thinking:


I was creating short 3-4 minute video demonstrations. My students were making the work and posting what they’d created. The quality was all over the map. And there wasn’t the feel of working in the studio together. We were all missing it. Starting with my painting class, I implemented an open studio on Google Meets that was 1 1/2 hours. I said to the students that they can come, work on their paintings along with their colleagues. I let them know that they didn’t have to stay for the entire time or come at all. It was optional. It was so surprising when the students started to come in to the Google Meets.

Soon, out of a class of 25 students, I had about 20 in attendance. Many of them stayed for the entire time. We really didn’t talk that much. there were conversations here and there. Mostly the students came into see one another and work alongside one another, virtually. Inspired by this attendance and experience of virtual studio time, I started to schedule more frequent open studios with all my classes at all grade levels. We  all met for about 30 minutes twice a week. I met many, many pets as well as parents through these open studios. I think what everyone ( including me) needed was time to connect through working in the studio (virtually). 



Artists of all levels and ages are social through their work. Students / artists whom are otherwise fairly quiet will talk and talk about their work when they feel they’ve connected with a like mind. An implicit constructivist environment is all about connecting like minds. The virtual open studio created space for connecting through art making. This connection through art making is an implicit constructivist environment. Students are creating meaning as they are connecting with one another while making art. Student work did not magically improve or evolve over night. We incrementally created our community in a virtual setting and we moved from explicit ( stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt) to implicit (essentially or very closely connected with; always to be found in) constructed environments. This happened because students were able to see one another and work side by side (virtually). Sure, we did reflection using Google Classroom, Ted-Ed and FlipGrid along with many other strategies, this is the big picture. Students needed and came to virtual open studios. This fostered overtime deeper thinking, resilience in process and meaning construction within their work. 



Working in a series

Puppy Colorwheel
4th grade


If you are reading this, thank you. 

I think of these posts as a journal in a public forum. I’m doing this because I need a way to control what I can control, hold accountable and chronicle my thinking through this coming 2020-2021 school year.

Regardless of whether we are teaching in-person, hybrid or remote; in August 2020, we are teaching. 

The structures I’m thinking about here are not in a specific hierarchy. All of these foundational pieces work together in our studio classroom to create an eco-system that is balanced and re-balanced moment to moment. 



Here's the gist:
* Students work through concepts and applications in a series of 3-4 pieces. 



* Students will post their pieces for everyone to see, comment on in Google Classroom (this would be the place for peer to peer conversations/interactions).



* At the start of the year we will learn a routine of posting to our Google Classroom stream. This will enable students to have the routine when/if we return to remote learning. 



* Posting work to the stream will be the catalog of experimenting, planning and thinking that would traditionally happen in a sketch journal. Students create an online journal as they share and connect about concepts and processes. 



* Material intelligence will surface and re-surface as students analyze their own works in the series and exchange reflections with their peers.

Here's my thinking:
Starting with this structure: Build an eco-system of creativity, risk taking, voice through peer and whole class interaction which reaches across in-person and remote learning platforms.

The foundational / back end of an eco-system built on creativity, risk taking and voice is holding space for “I believe in you because you are a human being with your own mind…” and equally holding space for “ You are capable of anything…” 


My studio classroom is not a floor show where I am at the center. Art making is at the center. My studio classroom is a place holder for creative action. So, everything we do points to creative action. It is this creative action that made remote learning so challenging. How would I facilitate? How will I check in, engage and challenge? Voice, risk taking and creativity are learned. Acquired through a trial and error process. It is imperfect. 

What routines can be implemented for voice, risk taking and creativity? 



This year we will create in a series of works centered on a specific concept, application or material. The planning of a concept becomes a part of the series. For example, for years I have used sketch journal in my studio classroom. We’ve done all of things that every other Art Educator has done with sketch journals: practiced, planned, notes and experimented. Using a sketch journal worked well until we went to remote learning. Then well, not so well. Students did not have the buy in to plan their work the way we did in class. What was missing was the infinite/implicit studio environment which served as a way for students to interact with one another about their plan and their experiments. Sure, I had the students post and comment on their journals. This seemed like busy work. Gradually, I phased out journal assignments altogether. I refocused their energies on the concepts and processes they working on. 

Considering allowing students to solely dig into the processes and concepts, it makes sense to implement a further (hopefully deeper) investigation of process and concepts through works in a series. 

Yes. We look at artists. Yes. We have vocabulary, experimenting, skill acquisition. By working in a series of 3-4 iterations of a concept or process students may begin to locate their own voice, take risks because they’ve worked through something once or twice before and find their own creativity practice within the series.

I am interested to see this work itself out in the studio classroom ( in-person and remote). Logistically, students will post their pieces for everyone to see, this would be the place for peer to peer conversations/interactions. At the start of the year we will learn a routine of posting to our Google Classroom stream. This will enable students to have the routine when/if we return to remote learning. Posting work to the stream will be the catalog of experimenting, planning and thinking that would traditionally happen in a sketch journal. Students create an online journal as they share and connect about concepts and processes. Material intelligence will hopefully surface and re-surface as students analyze their own works in the series and exchange reflections with their peers.