Unit Plans: Long term learning goals!

 A unit plan allows art teachers to connect many ideas into one single theme. I think they can really allow students and teachers to explore a single theme. Unit planning provides you with a sense of direction and organization that again helps you and the class to achieve significant academic gains.

For me, I plan to have my unit being based off the theme of narratives in art. Students today are constantly being surrounded by narratives. Moves, TV, Advertisements, photographs. They may be unaware of it but they are creating their own narratives when they post photos using their phones or cameras, and post you tube videos!

Bloom's Taxonomy

I found an interesting reading about the range of question types from Davis (1993) I think they all can be related back to Bloom's Taxonomy of learning objectives because they show increasing levels of cognitive complexity as students move from simple to more complex tasks.

They are:

• Exploratory questions:

 probe facts and basic knowledge

• Challenge questions:

 interrogate assumptions, conclusions or interpretations

• Relational questions:

 ask for comparisons of themes, ideas, or issues

• Diagnostic questions:

 probe motives or causes

• Action questions:

 call for a conclusion or action

• Cause-and-effect questions:

 ask for causal relationships between ideas, actions, or events

• Extension questions:

 expand the discussion

• Hypothetical questions:

 pose a change in the facts or issues

• Priority questions:

 seek to identify the most important issue(s)

• Summary questions:

 elicit synthesis

More on Learning Objectives..

There should be no tricks when it comes to learning objectives. It is important to clearly outline what you expect the students to learn and how they are going to show evidence that they have accomplished the objectives. This can be done by a variety of methods. Communicating your objectives to your students, moreover, helps to focus their thinking and motivate participation.

For the photography lesson I am planning I intend for students to explore and create a self portrait. I want students to sketch their ideas before jumping into art making, then take their photographs. I would also like for students to understand Cindy Sherman's style of art making and decipher a narrative for themselves. Finally, self reflections are important for artist to reevaluate their choices and hear about their fellow students experiences. By the end of the lesson students should have a director's sketch sheet, final photograph, Cindy Sherman worksheet, and a self reflection.

Learning Objectives!

For discussions to accomplish something valuable, they must have a purpose. While preparing my powerpoint for my fieldwork class, I asked my self: What are my goals for this discussion? How do the ideas and information to be discussed fit into the course as a whole? What skills, knowledge, perspectives, or sensibilities do I want students to walk away from the discussion with? 

My discussion was based around the theme of narratives, and how contemporary photographers are creating their own open ended narratives in their works. I planned a powerpoint presentation that would set them up to analyze contemporary photographer's work. It began with building their vocabulary and ended with a discussion.. more to follow on how it went!

Engaging Criticality & Facilitating Meaningful Discussions

Discussions can be an excellent strategy for enhancing student motivation, fostering intellectual agility, and encouraging democratic habits. They create opportunities for students to practice and sharpen a number of skills, including the ability to articulate and defend positions, consider different points of view, and enlist and evaluate evidence. 

I understand that careful planning can help teachers ensure that discussions are lively without being chaotic and exploratory without losing focus. When planning a discussion, it is helpful to consider not only cognitive, but also social/emotional, and physical factors that can either foster or inhibit the productive exchange of ideas. Also it is important to keep in mind what you want to accomplish by the end of the discussion, and keep your eye on the prize!

Critiques- Barrett

I find critiques informative and very helpful when it comes to analyzing artwork and improving your own artwork.

Visual literacy adds depth to the art curriculum. Critiques provide real classroom perspective on dealing with meaning, gender issues, influences, and more. This discovery-oriented approach gets students talking, thinking, and writing about many genres of art, and hooks even reluctant students. I have seen this first hand in my field work placement. It is incredible how engaged students can become in a lesson once you ask them the right questions. 

Grow-A-Game!

This activity made me think of Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

In the theory of cognitive development, Piaget proposes that intelligence is the founding mechanism of promoting equilibrium in the relationship between the environment and the person. This is attained through actions of the developing individual on the world. In development at any specific time, the surrounding is assimilated in the action schemes which are readily available and then they are accommodated or assimilated to the habits of the environment’s objects in the cases where they are not fully relevant. Therefore, the development of intelligence is process of accommodations and assimilations that is continuous and it results in the expansion of the application field of schemes, increasing abstraction, interiorization and coordination. 
It is clear from Piaget’s theory of cognitive development that play is very crucial and particularly in the preoperational stage of development. Play is very important in cognitive development, it enables children to choose the information that is useful, and it facilitates the development of cognitive abilities and has even proved to improve intelligence. Activities and games also facilitate the enhancement of abstract behavioral codes.