Chapter five discusses the teacher's role as instructor and how to involve students in the learning process so they can own their learning experience. Some parts of the chapter that stood out to me were: through engaging the students in a variety of experiences designed by the teacher, students develop deep understanding; investigation is the key to construct deep understanding, so the classroom should be a community of inquirers; we want students to learn how to learn. These three points are really important to understand and internalize as a teacher. I liked how they talked about the teacher as not always being the source of all knowledge. There are times when it's appropriate for the teacher to have control and employ direct instruction, but inquiry-based learning allows for deeper understanding and connections because the students facilitate their own learning. The book says, "The classroom community is a community of inquirers who value questioning, reflection, collaboration, sharing of findings, and the application to real-life situations of what is known." I think this openness in the classroom is really important for self-discovery and learning. As teachers, we need to help students ask the question "what does that mean?" themselves. Then their own curiosity will take over and they will start to learn from themselves. I like to think of teachers as facilitators. That doesn't mean that teachers don't need to plan their lessons. Teachers really need to plan and structure the lesson to allow for that kind of inquiry to happen. For example, planning the questions one might ask in a discussion with a class is vital to the success of that discussion. Of course, it's important to be flexible and allow for the class to help direct the learning, but the teacher should come prepared to facilitate it and bring it back to the enduring idea or concepts that she wants her students to learn.
1. How do we know what our students know about the topics we plan to address?
Teachers can become aware of what their students are learning about in their other classes/subjects through talking to other teachers and even collaborating on a topic together. Teachers can also look into the news and pop culture to see what is prevalent among their students. Teachers can also ask their students before they start a unit or topic about what they already know about that topic. They could maybe provide a survey at the beginning of the semester or unit asking about what students know about the topics they hope to address.
2. How would you go about teaching for “deep understanding”?
The chapter talks a lot about investigation and inquiry being the best ways to construct deep understanding and I agree with this. I would want to hook my students into the topic we were discussing in an interesting way so that they would have the desire to keep learning. That hook could take many different forms depending on the lesson, but it could include a video, task party, art project, powerpoint, field trip, listening to a song, dancing, dressing up, or inviting a guest. I love what the book said: "The classroom community is a community of inquirers who value questioning, reflection, collaboration, sharing of findings, and the application to real-life situations of what is known." That's what I want my classroom to be like. I think through asking questions and allowing the students to freely question and express their thoughts, we can create this kind of community. I also think that connecting every project or discussion back to the enduring ideas that apply to the students, students will reach deeper understanding.
3. How would you teach for student relevance?
I would teach for student relevance by continuously asking myself as I planned and taught or interacted with the students, how does this apply to them and why is this important? I would also ask them those questions to learn from their answers. I also want to ask my students what kind of topics they are interested in learning about, so they feel more invested and accountable for their work.
4. How might teaching for student relevance be a ridiculously bad thing?
Teaching for student relevance could be a ridiculously bad thing if it gets out of control and unproductive. I think it's good to have student input, but the teacher ultimately needs to come up with a plan to facilitate an environment for learning and making connections. Also, teaching for student relevance is a hard task to ask of a teacher all the time. It would be almost impossible to try and relate everything you do to each student. Some students might feel left out.
5. For the unit you are envisioning, what will be your “entrance strategy”?
I'm thinking about doing a unit on dreams, memory, and alternate realities. One "entrance strategy" idea that I had was to start out by having the class keep a dream journal where they write down what they remember about their dream each morning. Their dreams can serve as ideas for later artworks throughout the unit. We will talk about what dreams might mean, other cultures that esteem dreams as being important and having meaning, the subconscious and how memory is linked with dreams.
6. In an inquiry based, constructivist approach, a key question is “What does that mean? What are some other ways that you can ask that question?
How do you feel about that?
Why do you think you feel that way?
How does this apply to me?
What should I do with this information?
7. As art teachers, we often pose artistic problems for our students, defining the constraints that we hope will cultivate divergent, creative solutions. How do you plan to have students become researchers and pose their own creative problems?
I plan to invite students to find a topic they are interested in that relates to our unit and to try to find out everything they can about it. I plan to have required "research activities" That will include researching different artists that students feel connected to or interested in. But I also want to provide materials that students can just experiment and improvise with as a part of their research process. I think it would be awesome of students could find a kind of "mentor" or person that is an expert in something that they students are interested in and then they can learn from that person. I also think that sharing our research or findings with other people is really important, so I want to have time where students can share with the class what they are learning and maybe teach us something new.
8. At this early stage in your unit, how do you envision the sequential organization of learning experiences or activities? Make a list of what you plan to do in sequence.
- dream journals
- exquisite corpse
- collage/assemblage
- writing a short story/non-linear narrative
- Surrealist landscape/alternate reality
- final project...maybe a new genre type project?
9. How will you determine if what you are doing is working? What counts as evidence of learning for you?
Student engagement is one of the greatest evidences of student learning for me. If students are actively participating and engaged then I think they are learning. I think that's also how I'll know if what I'm doing is working. If students are excited to learn, share, and make art then the plan must be working. Also, if students are making work that they are invested in, I believe they are learning.
10. What are the learning goals for your unit? What kinds of understandings are you reaching for in these goals?
I'm hoping that students will learn about art history through the lens of dreams or alternate realities. There will be a prominent focus on surrealism, but we will look for those concepts throughout history and in contemporary art. I really want students to become familiar with contemporary artists who are working today through watching Art21 and other videos or visiting museums to see the works in real life. I'm hoping that students will come to understand that their own experiences can be sources for making art and that they will have a greater understanding of themselves through thinking about their dreams and memories.
