Professional Planning and Student Learning
So… refering back to my professional development sessions I had last week on Wednesday and Thursday - Jeff Burgard and Gateway to Mastery (http://www.jjburgard.com/). I am not going to try and give a sales pitch, and I realize everyone has there own methods for instruction, but these sessions really brought everything together for me – curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Jeff spoke about giving the ownership of learning to the students – learning is not dictated from authorities as we teachers think we should be in our content areas. Okay – this is something I believe and feel the students should always have ownership of their learning, projects, and more… so Jeff kept teaching and the teachers kept learning.
There were several ideas that resonated with my teacher brain. One idea was a student curriculum committee where Jeff had students apply and meet to discuss ways that would better serve the students’ learning and understanding of concepts. Jeff would try them in class and if they worked or didn’t work, the students and classes would discuss why the method for that topic did or did not work for learning. I love it! Since my content area at my school does not have a Knowledge Map (essential knowledge for a given content area that students should know), I have decided to also ask the students to help form the visual art Knowledge Map. Students have ideas and we should honor them and facilitate their learning. That does not mean to give up the classroom to a free for all for the students, but really allow the students to have choices in their learning.
Last year, I began the year with a formative assessment of my students – Why did they take art? (Or maybe it wasn’t a choice in their electives selection?) What was the last art class they had? What art materials had they used? What would they like to learnabout art? What were their goals? I took all of the information, read over it, and felt obligated to reach and convince the non-art lovers that art can be about their process and choices. What I did not do was share the students’ experiences with each other and take the obligation solely off myself. So – this year I am going to take it a step further and share the responses with the entire class and chart their enthusiasm of art. There is so much more I can do with the information Jeff Burgard gave the faculty last week, but I am going to build from what I have been doing and go from there… the great thing about learning is there is always room for growth!
What assessments are you going to implement in your instruction and art classroom?
~ Nikki F. Kalcevic
Its wonderful to hear such positive thoughts on PD, I often approach it with wariness I wish I didn't have. Last year there was a big push to "develop your own" as a team, as an individual, but it didn't really seem to go anywhere and teams didn't end up acting like teams....We have four of those days prior to school starting tomorrow, one of them with our arts supervisor. I'm fairly proactive about setting up personal goals and following it, but groups are so much more energizing...not familiar with Gateway to Mastery - i'm going to look it up...enjoying your posts...
Ruth
Posted by: Ruth Manning | August 19, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Giving students choices and opportunities to take ownership of their learning is not a free-for-all! As you state so eloquently, it empowers learners to become invested in their work. This year, I am working on several assessments to help students become more cognizant of the choices they are making in our TAB classroom. On one chart with color stickers, students indicate the studio centers where they worked each class. A second chart will track where their art ideas come from, using color stamps to show: family, classroom, nature, discovery, media, friend, interests, and art world. We do "choice checks" every so often where students indicate on a form why they decided to work at a specific studio center that day. We discuss the choices students are making while they work to heighten awareness that they are in control of their learning. On occasion, students write a reflection on a specific piece of artwork that makes them proud; these writings reveal much about critical thinking. Thank you for your good work on this blog; I look forward to your next entry!
Diane Jaquith
Posted by: Diane Jaquith | August 21, 2009 at 09:08 AM
Thank you Ruth and Diane for your comments.
Ruth - I hope your in-service and first days of school went well. I know working with teams can be difficult. Stay positive as you are!
Diane - I agree that giving students choices is so very important! Thank you for your insights on TAB - I checked out the info on TAB from you prior NAEA blog entries. I also like the idea of choice checks. I am going to keep those ideas in mind for future assessment adaptations in my art classroom.
Happy First Days of School!
~Nikki
Posted by: Nikki F. Kalcevic | August 29, 2009 at 11:20 AM