Documentation___________________________________________________________________________
Here we are talking about a sculptural piece from the Glorioseria exhibition. Students understanding of art-making decisions by asking about the reliability of the piece. Dancing is something we all do or can picture ourselves doing and the students seemed to pick up on that as well as how the faceless aspect of the figures can be tied to relatability because as viewers we can picture our own face sin place of the implied face.
Students began viewing this image and quickly picked up on the tension between the rabbit and the coyote. I think this image from the Native American exhibition was the crowd favorite during both the days I taught at BRAINY. This piece was connected to tricking bigger siblings or getting through hard math questions by the students because of the Native American "trickster" motif of the smaller or weaker individual using brain or wit to beat a bigger and stronger individual.
I laid out the supplies so that students could dig through pre-cut shapes, and grab supplies from any side of the table. It may look messy, however, I ran into zero supply issues and every students was always able to continue working on their art activity which was great for the limited time. In this picture you can see every students in the beginning stages of creating their paper bag puppets that represent themselves. The choice to make puppets was inspired by the African Exhibition Puppet.
All of the following Images / Videos are of students final puppets. Everyone of the students in all my groups were able to finish in the time allotted which was exciting.
This student explored the way the googly eyes "jiggled" when the puppet's mouth is opened and closed. A heart was included to demonstrate her loving and caring side.
This student identified with being athletic, therefore his piece represented a soccer player. He is the only students who created a body that wasn't the shape of the bag which was super fun to see. I always enjoy seeing how different students interpret project instructions.
This is an example of a finish project in motion. The unique part of this puppet was his silly tongue that sticks out when the mouth opens and closes.
This puppet was completely transformed from a paper bag into a flying and fully functioning dragon. I would say this is one of the most successful pieces I have seen during these couple of tours.
This students was super shy, but it did not take away from his success in art making. He did share his love for cats and was clearly inspired by the upcoming holiday, Halloween. This is another great example of a puppet in motion.
Reflection_________________________________________________________________________________
What did you revise from your tour 1 to tour 2? Why?
I did not make any big revisions between my first and second tour, however, I think that the second did go more smoothly because the conversations that I had in the first prepared me in the form of a script an d also as a reference to how students will respond. I did not make any noticeable revisions because I was confident with the outcome of the first tour.
What did you do well during the tours?
I think I did well finding a way to talk about important artworks for a younger audience without taking away importance of the piece or "dumbing it down". When I ran into moments where students seemed stuck I was able to quickly restate what I said in a different way successfully.
I was proud of my ability to make students think deeper too. I noticed when I asked questions about the artwork, students would have to pause for a moment to think about an answer. Then new understandings sparked and I clearly see more excitement about the piece. For Example, the students were able to think deep about he lessons that could come from the "trickster" story of Native Americans. Through some facilitating questions students could put themselves into the shoes of the trickster and learn the lesson the artist was representing in a deeper way than "that's a rabbit and coyote". Through this personal connection, students were eager to talk about the artwork and share their own experiences.
What made you feel challenged during the facilitation?
I think the most challenging part of the tours was getting students excited about the artwork, and about learning about the artworks. Not every student connected to every piece I shared, or sometimes they couldn't all relate to aspects that I shared about he pieces.
The artwork they seemed to have the hardest time with was the dancing sculpture in the Glorioseria exhibition. I had told them about the artist and ask questions about the feel of the piece which was usually a happy response. I talked about what nostalgia means and students could understand. Where the trouble came was with my groups of boys I kept getting throughout the tours. Many of the boys responses were that they couldn't see themselves dancing with in the way the sculpture was, which is typical of their age. I had to ask a follow-up question to aid this relation I was trying to make: Would it be absolutely crazy if you were in this situation? This question got them to open up to the piece and then we were able to talk about how the faceless aspects of the figure is so viewers could put ourselves into the situation.
How was it different from teaching in a classroom setting? How did students respond to the activity differently (or similarly)?
I think that in classroom settings, learning and engaging with learning is a given. In a tour, the students aren't in their typical structured classroom. So during the tours I had to be even more active than usual about using fun tones of voices, and continuously asking students questions to pull them back into the conversation.
How do you think interpretive strategies helped you lead the tours or create student engagement? If they did not help at all, what were the reasons according to your observation?
"What Do You See" Technique:
Students are typically excited to share ideas and interpretations based on a first impression.
Emotion and Feeling ("how does this make you feel")
This question was great for connecting the viewer with the artist's intention. Students are very capable of sharing how they feel about pieces, especially those more emotive ones.
Asking Why
I made sure to allow students to interpret the art first and then slowly introduce history or important facts about the imagery or artist. Often their interpretations could be connected to the artworks actual intent or purpose. For this strategy, I would reaffirm students' ideas by repeating them and either sharing a fact that aligns with the statement or ask a question for other student to explore there peer's idea further.
What did you learn from this facilitating experience? How could you bring the experiences to your future teaching?
I think the BRAINY tours were a great opportunity for me to work on talking about historical or even contemporary art in my own classroom. Before BRAINY, I had the teaching techniques down, but I could have worked on using artists from outside the classroom as anchors for lessons. Now, I can ask students interpretive question during class-time and push understanding or art making beyond their own.
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