Creativity PLC February 23, 2010

1. CreativityPLC February 23, 2010 At the last meeting we discussed ideas for incorporating technology into our teaching in order to engage our students. Pair and Share: “How have you used technology in your classroom since our last meeting?” “Have you observed any noticeable differences concerning student engagement? http://mrvanhouten.blogspot.com/

2. Where we stand: CreativityVideo segment taken from the CBS Sunday Morning Show 8 Minutes As you watch the video think about how this might apply to your classroom or students. Write down any questions or important ideas that we can bring forward from this segment. Huddle with 3 other people and compile your ideas and questions.

3. How do my instructional choices promote student creativity and individual artistic voice? One objective for this unit was for students to learn about drawing the human figure while exploring and expanding techniques and skills such as proportion and shading. I wanted students to use the human form creatively to express an emotion giving each final drawing their own personal meanings and stories.The unit started with about a week and half of practice in which student models posed at the front of the classroom and students used pencils, black crayons, and black and brown paint on newsprint and white paper to draw the student models.The more students practiced the more they noticed their skills improving.

4. Figure Drawing Assignment Two requirements: (1) they had to draw their figure from observation and could accomplish this three ways: redraw their sketches, look at a picture or a magazine image, or draw someone in the room from observation. (2) Students needed to express a feeling or emotion such as sadness, fear, anger, joy etc., in their artwork. Students started gathering ideas and creating a pencil sketch for their final drawing.

5. Creating “Conditions” for Creativity to thrive… Teaching Artist as a Model I took one class period to show students a short segment of an Art 21 video on the contemporary artist Arturo Herrera, who creates abstract paintings from cut up cartoons and other papers. I wanted students investigate how the artist explored and played with his art during the creative process. Since much of my artwork is based on the human figure I thought it would be a good opportunity to bring in some artwork and talk about the creative process that I use as an artist. I talked about the personal connections I made between my art and my life and how the ideas represented in the works related to important events in my life, such as the birth of my daughter.

6. Creating “Conditions” for Creativity to thrive… Experimentation & Play In order to foster an experimental approach to using art media I had students play with the materials on a 9” x 12” piece of white paper. Gude (2007) comments “Learning begins with creative, deeply personal, primary process play. Such play must be truly free, not directed toward mastering a technique, solving a specific problem, or illustrating a randomly chosen juxtaposition” (p. 7).

12. Creative Anxiety “There is a certain amount of risk involved in setting out on new and uncharted paths. This risk is not limited to the students; the art teacher too takes many risks in encouraging students to think for themselves” (p. 379). This was a new journey and I knew that the anxiety over this project was due to the fact that I was shifting the control of the lesson from me to the students.

13. Validating and Encouraging Students Szekely (1988) notes, “if a child is to fully experience what it is be an artist, he or she needs to be treated like one” “You are the artist” Students were expected to make their own creative decisions

14. Variety “it’s the spice of life!” Pace of students working Subject Matter and Materials used by Students Variety of learning opportunities “ice cream shop, outside, meadows, fairy princess, ballerina, doctor’s office, horse and farm, zoo, wolves, family, flames, insanity, and storms.” “When students base their works on their own experiences, dreams and values presented in terms of their own images, individuality is evident in each work” (Szekely, 1988, p. 5). This variety was very interesting and reflected the fact each of these students was an individual with their own individual personalities, thoughts and concerns.

15. Ellen Winner’s Definition of Creativity Universal creativity is distinguished by three characteristics: inventiveness, playfulness, and flow…a child drawing a person wearing a necklace might draw a circle around the face in an inventive and unconventional reference to the “aroundness” of the necklace. Young children have not yet learned to work within the conventions of drawing, so they can “play” with color, texture, shape, and line, something a mature artist might do only by conscious choice. And gifted children, like mature artists, can draw for long stretches at a time, deeply engrossed and oblivious of the external world--a quality that Winner called “flow.” Winner said the Picassos and Braques of the art world have additional qualities that make them “domain creative.” Domain creators, “alter an established tradition, to reject the prevailing way of doing things.” Typically, she said, “domain creators are hard-driving, focused, dominant, independent, and risk-takers...willing to risk failure, since anything new is likely at first to be ignored or repudiated" (Snell, 1997, p. 7).

16. Setting boundaries “Certain limitations (in artmaking) are actually welcome enablers rather than restrictive barriers” and that by “setting boundaries…the teacher enables students to make more purposeful aesthetic decisions…” (Walker, 2001, p. 74).

17. What I found… How I look at student work: Before this assignment I would often judge student art through my eyes as an adult artist, but the more I saw these artworks the more I realized that my art standards and judgments are not the final say about what is or is not good art. Isn’t the most important judgment their own evaluation of their art? In the end my judgment is not really meant for students, but is to control the work in looking how I as the adult artist wants it to look. So, the puzzle is how might I assess artwork more reasonably while considering multiple perspectives in evaluating and analyzing art?

19. Creativity and Motivation “Art can only be made when the artist is excited about an idea and hence committed to it” (p. 5). I can relate because the best art that I have made has been with materials and ideas that were exciting and interesting to me. How can we expect our students to be excited about projects, which tell them exactly what to do, and what to do it with? In this lesson students were not concerned with grades or other external motivations; it was the interest in their own thoughts that motivated students. Jaquith (2009) explains, “self-directed learners are driven by intrinsic motivation. They question, intuit, improvise, play, take risks, reflect, revise and defer as needed to meet their own goals. These kinds of behaviors promote engagement.”

20. Conclusions • Students are creative in a multitude of different ways • Students are generally more creative when they are given the opportunity to be their own artist by directing their own learning. • Most students are motivated and interested when they are involved in their own art making

21. 4. Students need to be given more credit than is often given to them by other adults and peers. As a teacher I need to give students a chance to surprise me with moments of discovery and excitement in the art room. Students are often more insightful and knowledgeable than we realize. A teacher directed lesson gives students very little room to show us what they know and surprise us with their own creative thoughts. Conclusions continued…

22. “As teachers we often think of ourselves as the ultimate authority over our subject, showing students the right way, and judging work by our standards. After all we are the ones who graduated from (art) college, right? Somehow, I have come to see student art as lower than adult fine art. This perception is predicated on the belief that I as the teacher am somehow more knowledgeable about art then my students. Through this lesson students have given me many ideas, and are discovering their own creative paths to composing images and using materials, which has been very inspiring. It makes me want to make art!”

23. Creativity in all Subjects… How might these ideas transfer to other subjects? What does “creativity” in math look like? Can you give opportunities for experimentation, discovery and play with a purpose? Do your students inspire you? How might you encourage this to happen in your classroom? Does student choice equal more engagement and motivation? What happens when students direct their own learning?