Knowledge Building & Art History

1. Knowledge Building & Art History Madeline Campbell

2. Context & Conditions Year 13 NCEA Level 3 12 students: 11 girls & 1 boy - 2 dyslexic students 7 secondary schools Mahurangi - Green Bay – Tuakau – Motueka – Buller – Greymouth - Westland Video conference course 1 hour VC contact & 3 hours self-directed study weekly Two full year content areas run in parallel early modernism & late renaissance Digital Technology Students had 1-to-1 laptops, their own or old school laptops

3. Knowledge Building as a catalyst to move from 20th to 21st century education paradigm personalises learning by locating students and their ideas at the centre activates new views of equity, diversity and inclusivity supports a curriculum that uses knowledge to develop capacity forces a rethinking of teachers and learners roles sets up conditions for a culture of continuous learning for teachers allows for new kinds of learning partnerships and relationships embeds new technologies and collaborative practices Themes identified in Bolstad, Gilbert, McDougall, Bull, Boyd and Hipkins (2012) report to the Ministry of Education “Supporting Future Oriented Teaching and Learning - A New Zealand Perspective”

4. Instructional design Intensive instructional design for online video conference and online learning, using Knowledge Building principles Learning conditions and learning culture changes Teacher and student roles change – thinking coach, co-curators Students ask questions of a proposition, then inquire collaboratively. Students rather than the teacher are in charge of content. Synthesis statements and evaluative reflection, not essays. More authentic learning and assessment experiences possible, formative assessment and assessment for learning meaningful. Knowledge sharing, Exploring understanding, and Knowledge Building

5. Peer feedback shames teacher… • Peer feedback: “I liked the attention to the paintings themselves, (what they looked like and symbolism etc was described in detail.) But you also did a good job at describing the artist’s values and the political influences etc which all seemed to connect and I think were more effective as a result as they could be related back to the paintings”. My feedback: You have used examples from artworks of Beckmann, Kandinsky, and Kirchner to examine evidence of different values, and values changing over time. You have referred to the political and personal contexts of these expressionist artists to ground your evidence about values. Your synthesis is developing well and maps your learning coherently – with further reading you should be able to add depth to your written responses, related to the contextual influences on how the artists works are valued.

6. ‘Neo’ sees the epistemological ‘matrix’… “It just occurred to me that I’m using representation to convey ideas about representation, and even these squiggles called words that I’m writing represent sounds we make with our mouths, and those sounds represent the ideas I’m communicating about representation… Do we live in a world where nothing is real and everything represents something else? As Rene Magritte said: “How can anyone enjoy interpreting symbols? They are ‘substitutes’ that are only useful to a mind that is incapable of knowing the things themselves. A devotee of interpretation cannot see a bird; he only sees it as a symbol.” (Student evaluative reflection…)

7. Challenges & next learning steps Ultrafast broadband and a new version of Knowledge Forum Getting students to collaborate to write the propositions using the prescription, instead of the teacher Bringing individual synthesis work back into community as ‘another learning phase’ rather than an end point Embedding KBC principles across all my classes Guiding staff PLD using KBC principles and Knowledge Forum, and a 21st century model of professional growth

8. Knowledge sharing “To me, 'sharing knowledge' means showing others the sources you have found and the ideas you have come up with. This helps the class community because it allows a broader and deeper base of research for the whole class to see, and it also shows others where you are at with your thinking which leads to discussion and 'knowledge building’”. Student reflection Back to Instructional design

9. Exploring understanding “Viewing the synthesis work of other members of the knowledge building community shows us other ways to put the ideas and information we have learnt together into a structured piece of writing. So this is a way we can 'explore the understanding' of other people and apply what we think is good about them to our work. This makes all of our work better because our ways of synthesizing our work is honed to create what works best for us as individuals”. Student reflection Back to Instructional design

10. Knowledge Building “Knowledge building occurs after knowledge sharing. To me, it is when we look at what we have all found and shared, and then we build on to these ideas with questions, further explanations, and related ideas. This helps us clarify and deepen our understanding”. Student reflection Back to Instructional design

11. Example of theArt History Knowledge Building community using Knowledge Forum to improve their ideas and clarify their understanding…

12. J: Thanks C! I really enjoyed reading what you've posted about Rene Magritte, he was an interesting and like you were saying a relatively down to earth kind of character. It's cool to see how his philosophy ties in with existentialist theory surrounding meaning. I was wondering though about his views on psychoanalytic theory? I find it a hard concept to grasp and especially to link in with artists' work. Do you have any ideas?

13. L: (I need to understand) I can't really understand how Magritte uses Psychoanalytic Theory in his work either. It seems that his some of his work is much more Existentialist, such as the painting 'The Treachery of Images’ and other paintings that look at perception as C has posted. (This idea cannot explain) It also seems that the way Magritte paints is not in line with the other Surrealists or Existentialists, because he does not leave things to chance where the "id” (subconscious) influences the outcome as well as the "ego”. His paintings do LOOK dreamlike, but I don't think this is really relevant seeing as that's not the idea behind them. (My revised opinion is) One thing that I have figured out now is that Magritte's ideas about what is real and what is not, could relate to how in psychoanalytic theory the subconscious produces non-real images while the conscious mind works with what is real. Has anyone found anything else? This is confuzzling.

14. J: I'm glad you're having problems with him too! I did read in this link (http://favourite-paintings.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/rene-magritte-human-condition.html) someone's opinion about blurred reality, how the true nature of the image is inconceivable and so the boundary between real and imaginary is ambiguous. Also I guess the physical nature of what some of his paintings depict can be perceived as a visual representation of Freud's theory of the subconscious and it's different levels shown in the iceberg analogy which shows our unconscious predominantly submerged. And maybe that's the trick with Magritte, maybe he wishes to leave the viewer confused about the subject of his art and what we are really seeing. It's a true optical illusion that plays with the mind on several levels, not just visually. Magritte did say "The mind sees in two different senses: (1) sees, as with the eyes; and (2) sees a question (no eyes).” "This is how we see the world. We see it outside ourselves, and at the same time we only have a representation of it in ourselves. In the same way, we sometimes situate in the past that which is happening in the present. Time and space thus loose the vulgar meaning that only daily experience takes into account."

15. L: Okay then, so Psychoanalytic Theory can be about perception too, just like Existentialism, but it is where the conscious and subconscious (among other things like reality and representation) are fused, confused, or seen as separate. Does that sound right? Also, the way one perceives reality is used as an analogy of conscious/subconscious in Magritte's paintings... I think. This is a thought I had: Salvador Dali practiced and expressed the potential of the subconscious, Rene Magritte analysed and showed it, and Joan Miro kind of did both.