keeping it Going On Instagram

Unfortunately, the Bodies exhibit would not allow us to take photographs, so we couldn't make it work there.  However, With the grade seven Japanese exhibit we had the students complete
their responses using Visible Thinking routines.  It would be inappropriate for me to send out the the student Instagram posts, but I put of a couple of their responses on my Instagram.  Recently I also made a post all on my own.  check out #mralleniscool.

http://instagram.com/dplusinternational

Process Boards and Polariods with a Side of Corn

Greetings Everyone, It has been quite some time, I’m aware, but this is the life of a teacher/student.  Finally I am getting some images up to show something a Project Zero teacher/friend of mine suggested and some double-ended art making that recently occurred. 

About a year a go I wrote about film making as an educational tool and the unit has come around again.  This group of students is very good about staying on task and while they were making their sets and characters, I ran around the class with the Polaroid to take photos of the process.  My reasons are two fold.  1. To be a bit of a goof ball (the charm of being a middle and high school art teacher is that it is in the job description to be a little corny), and 2. To document the students’ progress and post it on their semester process board. 

The idea of the process board is to help the students visually see where they start the term and how it progresses along.  Not only is it a history making device, I believe it helps students make connection between experiences they have, what they learn, and what they accomplish.  Hopefully in the future this will reinforce their ability to call on prior knowledge when approaching current tasks.

Enjoy the corny photos!
Devin

Film as an Educational Tool

I have been mulling over the idea of using film as an education tool for students for some time now and over the past week I have started to think about it more in ernest.  I should describe what I mean.  When I say film as an educational tool I do not mean showing students films that relate to content in the class, or as a reward or anything like that.  Rather I mean students should be making films to exhibit learning.  This originally came from an experience I had in the classroom where instead of requiring students to write a reflection (I called it an artist’s statement) at the end of a unit I offered the option of writing, or recording sound or creating a short video.  Later I offhandedly said to my students “For your artist’s statement you can write longhand, type and essay, record a video, write a song or a poem or whatever tickles your fancy as long as it covers the following points”.  The points are listed in their book as well as in a rubric and I covered them verbally.  I did not expect it, but when the artists statements were turned in as normal I got many typed essays and videos and low and behold I got one poem and two songs.  I believe this points to the nature of current students’ environment and where they are comfortable working and expressing themselves. 

A while back I was reading a graphic design back (by a while back I mean probably six or seven years now) and a particular statement stood out to me.  To paraphrase:  Graphic design is not longer about static images, if you create a logo or symbol, eventually someone will spin and twirl it.  If we extend the definition of students all the way through university then I feel comfortable is saying that students today have grown up in an environment of moving images.  It is not novelty but a way life is presented to them.  Naturally they should then feel accustomed to receiving and also sending information in this manner.  In fact they are so comfortable with this platform that I have found students often do a better job of meeting class requirements when allowed to communicate in this manner.  To set the stage:  In my class part of the requirements of the every unit is to reflect.  Often times there are audible groans in the classroom when the work ‘reflection’ escapes my lips.  The sad thing about this is first, reflection is shown to be a very valuable learning tool as it promotes metacognition in students and second, reflection can be quite exciting but students have learned that reflection is the same as describing.  Sincerely, when I read a description of what happened in class I also groan because I was there, I saw what happened in class and do not need to revisit.  What reflection should be about is describing meaning and pinpointing areas where a multitude of possibilities became an idea worth pursuing and where for artistic reasons the student took a direction different from the design.  It is my belief that as students come to recognize these moments (and there are more than I have just written) then we as teachers develop better honed thinkers.  Through giving the students an option to record a short film for their reflection instead of writing, I have seen students respond to the above mentioned moments instead of just describing what happened.

This is a singular event, film can be used to go beyond reflection and can also be a tool for exploration and of course, expression.  However I want to stress for the time being that a film as a thinking tool does not need production value which is a problem I have run into with film in the classroom.  At times with both students and enthusiasts of film, production value has gotten in the way of content.  From a simplistic point of view with basic tasks, clarity in communication is more valuable than a good looking film.  In most cases the better video reflections I have received are shot on the Mac program Photo Booth and usually features the art work and the student.  So long as the video and audio are clear  the job can be done and high marks can be earned.  This is not to discount the value of production but in circumstances I have described it is not important. 

But there are places where production value is important.  Making an eye catching film is the content of other education domains.  Drama and ICT for example.  Seeing as these are the places where the art of film are of paramount importance I believe this presents an excellent opportunity for true cross-curricular education.  The thinking skills and techniques that are being instiledl through these classes can be put to use by making it easier to operate the hardware/software and to better communicate a message.  Additionally, the platforms for sharing are increasing all the time.  You Ku and You Tube aside, film festivals and even student film festivals continue to grow every year.  I believe this give us a teachers the opportunities to exhibit to students how intellectual and technical skills are linked to valuable participation in the global community.

To conclude, I hope I have made my point that the value of using short film is great for a generation of students who understand and communicate in this method.  As teachers we should be giving the students the thinking process, technical skills and the platform to develop their minds and their abilities.

Basic Understanding

I have been reviewing some of my practices and to do this I wrote out some of the techniques I have used in class with my students.  Through this process I actually changed some and please keep in mind this is for just developing the idea, there is still a lot of art to be done when it comes to creating the art.  As always, free to use as you wish because I'm a good Communist like that.  However, if you end up making some good money maybe you could kick a little my way since teachers don't get paid squat, or even better, buy me a bottle of wine.

School-Scapes Grade Six

1. Brainstorm feelings.
2. Brainstorm feelings about school.
3. Associate colors and shapes with feelings in #1.
4. ASsociate places with those feelings in #2 and add colors and shapes from #3.
5. Review good photo-taking techniques.
6. Go out and take photos around campus and keep in mind #4 and #5.

Ceramic Culture Grade Six

1. Define what culture is, both what it means and what are some examples of it.
2. Look at Principles of Design pattern, rhythm, harmony, unity, variety.
3. Research how different cultures have identified themselves on ceramic work (this is coupled with a slide show where one culture from each continent is displayed as well as some contemporary work).
4. In process journal brainstorm cultures you may be interested and making a cultural motif of.
5. Keeping in mind the principles of design we studied develop a decoration for your ceramic object.

1. Research different ceramic techniques and terminology.
2. Practice with each of the techniques - pinch pot, slab construction, coiling.
3. In your process journal design at least three different profiles.
4. Execute your work and halfway through working on it write a short journal entry about what is working well and what is difficult.

Artists and Communities Grade Eight

1. Brainstorm words that are important to your person or your place
2. Ideally 4 - 5 letters
3. Write on in all capitals
4. Join the bottom of the letters together
5. Write three questions about your name/tag.
6. Add a number and symbol.

Surrealistic Portrait and Still Life

1. Look at several surrealistic paintings and identify things you believe make them surrealistic.
2. Think about some dreams you’ve had, they are difficult to remember so do not rty to remember the whole dream, just images and as you have one write it down in phrases or a couple of sentences.  If you really can’t think of one then use classic ideas of dream imagery.
3. Practice drawing techniques found in both still life and portraiture.
4. Introduce students to some of the symbolism found in Carl Jung’s psychology, e.g. Greek myths symbolizing aspects of the psyche.
5. Have students brainstorm with images - circle exercise - of symbols they think represent themselves.
6. After a good bank of images exists, then design the drawing, with the symbols and the ultimate design of the painting, keep in mind that it needs to be surrealistic, so make odd changes in your imagery or juxtapose things not normally found together.  Also keep in mind you portrait and your hand need to be in the composition.

Sequential Art Grade Nine

1. First map out (write in words, in order first, second, third . . .) normal activities of an insect.
2. Now map out the insect doing something a human would do.
3. Now combine the two.
4. Look at your story map, rearrange parts of it.
5. Make an official story map.
6. From a story map make a story board.
7. Film your animation.

Crossing Cultures Grade Nine

1. Choose one work of art from one of the traditions.  Interpret it for the purposes it serves - look at the Purposes of Art for examples.
2. Describe how the work looks, be specific about colors and shapes and their relationships, narrative and overall design.
3. Take individual words from these activities and write them in a top to bottom list.
4. Now do the same with one work of art from the other tradition and write your top to bottom list next to that list from the first tradition.
5. Look for natural connection and random connections, as you make these make a small sketch of an image this makes on another sheet of paper.
6. Take these images and compose a drawing of one or a combination of a few.

Idea Generator

So I am playing around with this, check it out, try it out.  Hopefully something great or at least entertaining comes from it.  If you are so inclined, comment with some feedback.

Magazine Development

I have been working more scientifically (not really scientifically mind you) and have begun compiling evidence for creative thinking exercises.  Below is something I have written up in a report and I thought it would be nice to share.

Task Description:

When embarking on this unit I asked the students to think about the content of their magazine cover and I wanted them to follow a certain protocol when developing their ideas.  I instructed them that this method is not the only method but one I had found successful for students.  I also instructed them to put their idea development on paper, I believe this is most beneficial because it allows the mind to focus one one thing, new ideas, and allows paper to do the job of keeping track of ideas.  The concept here is that one should put as many ideas down as possible and then when they are documented, choose the best or most appropriate.  The student followed the following protocol:

1. Make a group of nine circles on you paper and in two minutes time fill in each circle with one thing they like.  It could be in the form of  words or sketches and that quantity is better than quality.
2. Then I asked the students to review verbally the previous lesson about the design of a magazine covers and make another circle brainstorm of topics they found interesting.
3. After the students had filled several pages of ideas I asked them to pick one of their ideas and brainstorm in a list sub-genres of this topic/item.
4. Finally the students were required to discuss with the classmates at their table their brainstorms and have their classmates give honest response to what was a good/interesting idea, what would be most suited to the student and alternative solutions.
5. Once the students had an idea they were happy with they could begin sketching out possible designs.

This is not a very involved process and in total time it lasted about thirty minutes.  My intention was to show the students how they could use what was already in their mental vocabulary and then developed that concept more robustly.  Then to make editing decisions that would best suit their skills, interests and third party opinions.  What is missing from this picture here is that the students had already been thinking about magazines and they had been given the unit introduction which definitely influenced their decisions.  On the opposite end some of the student reflections are missing so it is difficult to evaluate their exact opinions on how the creative thinking exercises assisted them.

Student A followed the in class method well.  She gave herself a variety of options when beginning the idea and choose clothing.  Where the idea for fashion for pensioners came from I do not know.  I believe it is related to her desire to do something different from the norm.  I do not recall specifically if this conversation took place between myself and this student, but several times I did discuss the issue of not having a magazine only about fashion but to choose a particular demographic to target.  Her choice is clever and entertaining.  This student’s trimester grade for Criterion C Thinking Creatively is six out of eight.

Student B used a slightly different method, choosing from a more limited brainstorm but then expanding upon that brainstorm and setting a kind of to do list for herself before beginning on the design of her magazine cover. This student’s trimester grade for Criterion C Thinking Creatively is a six out of eight.

Too Much

Ah too much time has passed since I've written here but I have a good excuse. I am a teacher and we had reports to write, then it was Thanksgiving and now it is the build up to Christmas.  Sadly I do not have anything properly prepared although I have a few things in the works and I will preview these with a little follow up to something I started a few months back.

First, to add to sequential art.  It has been the second time around that I have asked the students to make a story map, then a story board then studio work of art telling a story.  The first project of this unit is complete and assessed and the students are now onto their second project.  What I have noticed is somewhat inconclusive.  First, out of thirty students only about five or six actually completed both a story map and a story board (although all but one completed one of these) so it is hard to read whether it helped them creatively or not.  Secondly, as teachers know, students come in all mental shapes and sizes and while some ideas are quite imaginative, it may be a naturally occurring thing rather than the opportunity to use a thinking exercise.  What I have noticed is that the student who did not make either story board or map had a very limited story, with only one scene change and no bodily change showed in the art's subject matter.  Also the story board (which most of the students completed) definitely has an effect on how well they designed their work and even when the story was simple, it came out well rendered and engaging.  One student even wants to have the story mounted on a record player so that one can sit and watch the story spin before one's eyes.  The students are now onto the film making aspect of the unit and results won't be in until just before the Christmas holiday.

Also I spent some time working with one of our Spanish teachers and we looked at different ways we use story telling in our classes.  She uses it to help students access information and display learning.  We both thought that this is an excellent opportunity to start collaborating because I am working on the art of the story, she is using the form of the story and our ICT department is discussing the tools.  What I really like about this is the change in education that is being indicated here.  We all inform each other how to work and what we work on, and students can employ methods which are relevant to contemporary society in their education.

As an addition to this I decided to take my own medicine and created several narrative for myself which I could then turn into art.  This has had several results.  I've created a couple of paintings where part of the narrative is told and it has given me new ideas for imagery.  Another result is that my graffiti is taking on a more engaging aspect.  as well as getting my tag up I've been using my character (an octopus) to interact with the surrounding environment.  I'll link in my art Tumblr, not a lot is up there but you can see some of it.

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/devinallenart

Something I have been preparing to write (actually I wrote the outline but have since misplaced it)  Is the idea of struggle and creativity.  As one possible technique of examination I looked at the impossible problem.  Derive a solution to an impossible problem.  I think back to the time when I devised a scheme to create an atmosphere on the moon.  I will save you the details here but it involves planting one flower in a jar and letting things go from there.  Not that I really think this is possible but it's fun to imagine and could set the stage for a good story, imagery and maybe even dance, possible design.  This is somewhat highlighted by an NPR story filed about a month ago concerning how Japanese and American students respond to work.  Even when given an impossible to solve mathematics problem the Japanese students stayed with it for the entire time given (one hour) and attempted to derive solutions from it.  Here's the story you can listen for yourself.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning

There is another exercise I am working on involving nouns, adjectives and verbs but it is less well formed so I won't write about it.  So that's it, if you are celebrating a holiday this month or next hope it goes well.  Like always I will celebrate Christmas and Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) because I like the idea of seeing family, eating too much and blowing things up.

Daniel Pink, Autobiography and a Little More

At school today (I'm a teacher) Daniel Pink came to give the keynote address.  I watched his TED previous to watching him speak and I was a bit turned off because he seemed to spout the same thing a lot of people talk about regarding the right brain and creativity and the need to change schools.  The first issue here - right brain - I find annoying because recent research that I have encountered says that the brain is dynamic, not just hemisphere and I feel this description is just simplifying the complex issue of teaching.  However, his keynote address made up for what I expected to be a mediocre performance.  What I appreciated most is the data he presented us with concerning what the science and technology industries are looking for in education and how the policy makers in education are defining the system.  I will allow you to review what he said, since he said it and the information is readily available and my point here is to expand upon it from my point of view.

If you have been following this blog for the last six months you will see that I am working at creating exercises that can be employed in any situation to allow one to develop new ideas.  This informal research started out to assist my art teaching, however, upon consideration I have determined that it is applicable in many situation and I just have not worked out the details.  In fact, part of the reason for me writing this blog is so that others can try some of these concepts out and see what results can be obtained.  In this respect I am a punk/communist/Buddhist e.g. no one owns a guitar chord or idea, this should be owned by all and try it for yourself to make the best out of it you can.  Some of the exercises I have written about in the past are brainstorming plus, writing from a point of view, motion as a creative thinking skill (this one is weak but kudos to Will Percy for turning me onto an article about a motion classroom that helps students think) and story mapping.

Last night I put my money where my mouth is so to speak by employing one of my techniques (mind you I did not invent these, they came about over the course of my experiences, some synthesized, some dreamed up and some just from conclusions I've drawn).  In an effort to make my own art work stronger I brainstormed two categories to make art about and ultimately would like to combine them.  The first autobiography the second what I fantasize or dream my life to be.  I forced myself to write non-stop for a given time period for each of these categories, even if I did get off topic, and then review the results.  What I found was some thoughts that pop up once and again but I never focus on and some ideas I think about have finally been put to paper.  From there I put titles at random on the top of sketch book pages and while I may have no visual vocabulary at present and am requiring of myself that I make two sketches of each title.  What has piqued me most is that I have a problem to solve and generally speaking it is a fun problem for me to solve.  Will it make my art stronger?  I hope so.  Something nice that did come of it was my affinity for art materials and then a collage from art supply flyers that will be a drawing or painting soon.

An implied charge in Daniel's address today was that it was up to us, the teachers, to figure out how to educate students to think creatively, holistically, recognize patterns and develop systems and things people need.  Hopefully this is what I am doing, at the very least, it is what I am attempting to do.  I am beginning to consider how this work can be made into a tangible and I am looking for people who would like to collaborate with me on this endeavor. My initial thought is to create tablet computer apps (I even have some hand-drawn interfaces for these) or to work with people in a variety of industries and have work sessions where we try out some of these exercises an see what results present themselves   If you yourself are interested or know someone who might also be, by all means get in touch and let's see what can become of it.  I am going to do something bold here, I will put both my phone number and email address. - 2167540879 - china.devin@gmail.com.  This is because I am not sure if you can get the info from my blog, but I hope it shows how sincere I am in this endeavor and how much I trust humans' good nature.  Waiting to hear from you

Brainstorming Plus - The Spiderchair Incident

Brainstorming is a good start but experience has taught me that it needs more steps to make it more effective.  This is particularly apt with middle school students who sometimes need more guidance when developing ideas.  For purposes of clarity I want to define brainstorming as writing words and phrases freely, without editing or even stopping.  I often tell the students they must write no matter what, even if it's nonsense, for a given amount of time.  I limit this to writing because words usually work in concepts.  Images are also good but I believe they are thinking in a different method and I treat that as another creative thinking exercise.

I have serval starting points.  The first is to allow the students to just have at it and see where their ideas take them.  The next is to give the students the unit question and/or significant concept to think about and again go at it.  While some students will naturally take to this the results I have seen in the classroom are as follows:  About fifty percent of the students get right to it and the other fifty percent are stymied and may write one or two things down but spend the rest of the time looking at their paper.  Of the writing fifty percent only about 25 percent will have something that is a good representative of their ideas and the other 25 percent get off task.  Not that getting off task is entirely bad, but in the classroom setting where the teacher is guiding the students to a goal centered around a certain topic, it is ultimately unproductive, but I reiterate, still valuable.

These observations have lead me to construct the 'plus' method.  Break the concept down into more simple themes and have the students brainstorm along a certain theme.  The brainstorm may deviate as work progresses but it makes the work categorical.  From here I may take another aspect of the concept and have them brainstorm along those lines as well. Or instead of brainstorming along another line of the concept, have them run the first brainstorm and use another aspect of the concept as a lens to view the brainstorm.  Perhaps my writing is not clear but it is far more straight forward when actually conducting the exercise.  I will illustrate with a couple of examples:

Concept: Artists can combine unlike ideas together in a work of art - credit to Richard Todd who wrote this concept.

The students will create two brainstorms they like in separate columns in their workbooks.  Then randomly draw links between these columns and see what ideas generate.  (This moves onto a different idea of concept association that I will discuss in another blog entry) As I mentioned earlier this stymies some students and others get quite off task.  In my opinion it is a little too broad for students.  So my remedy has been to give the students more guidelines.  For this particular unit (once again credit to Richard Todd for planting the seed of this unit) I give the students two concepts to brainstorm, one of my choosing - furniture and another of their own.  Here I encourage the students first to brainstorm nouns and then to pick some of the nouns they feel attracted to and brainstorm those further.  When the massive brainstorming is complete then it's time to combine the concepts.

Typical instructions may sound like this:

1. Open your books and on the next blank page write 'Furniture' then take two minutes and write as many different types of furniture you can think of.  Don't worry of you get off of the furniture idea just keep writing for the entire two minutes, even made-up words are ok.

2. Now go to the next page and for two minutes brainstorm as many nouns as you can.

3. Pick three nouns you find most interesting and brainstorm them on separate pages.

Now comes time for concept association, which is another exercise I will discuss in future blog entries.

Here is an alternative example:

Concept: Humans made tools to make life easier and they make objects attractive to improve quality of life.

1. Brainstorm objects for use.

2. Take three objects from your brainstorm and describe each object looking pretty.

Ok I am going to leave it here.  In reality, many of the exercises are not isolated and please keep in mind that after the ideas are generated there is still a lot of work to do.  Refining the idea, designing and executing.  The goal of these exercises is to access the idea.  There is still a lot of creativity involved but I have found getting the idea makes the next steps more successful and more fulfilling for the students and teachers.