What works? Chapter 2

1. Mindwork: Explore Trial Questions

What type of curriculum and strategies of instruction, if used within the classroom, would facilitate and encourage self-guided learning outside the classroom, allowing students to locate and manifest what they consider to be artistically important?

Trial Questions: 

Teaching Practices

-How can I take this question further and perhaps make it more specific and innovative in order to reach students where they are at?

Student Learning or Outcomes

-Should motivation be focused on external action or internal desire?

-How can the curriculum ultimately better serve the student and their artistic process?

School Policies or Politics

Curriculum

-Do students work best under student centered curriculum or teacher centered curriculum?

-Should lesson plans be precise and expect a specific learning outcome?

-Should lesson plans be more focused on the development of big ideas?

2. Mindwork: Position Yourself in Relation to the Question

Who am I in relation to this idea? How does my position affect the way I approach and/or understand it?

I am in artist.  I am a teacher.  I am a student.  I have experience. In high school my art teacher was very much of the approach of student centered curriculum and I thrived in that type of environment.  I know what worked for me as a student and what didn’t work.  But that does not mean it will work for everyone or even a majority.  The question then becomes, what type of teaching style or curriculum can meet all students, not just the few.

What ethical issues might I raise?

Who will be best served by this study?

Well, hopefully my students as a whole will be best served.  I believe by answering the question I will learn ways to teach more effectively and therefore the students will benefit, at least that is the goal. 

Who might be affected or hurt by it, and how?

What are my hidden biases and assumptions?

It is hard not to assume that everyone learns in the same way I do.  While I know this is not true, it’s hard to think and act completely objectively.  The question would better help me understand the different styles of learning and the different needs of my students.

3. Mindwork: Refine Your Question:

Unclear terms:

Self-guided learning—self-efficacy, the ability for a student to locate and manifest what they view to be artistically important.

            This would include a student’s ability to identify personal aspirations, interests, beliefs, and philosophies, their ability to set and attain short-term and long-term goals, to monitor their progress, evaluate their overall progress, draw conclusions, and reflect and correct. 

Education Philosophies:

Student centered Teaching, convergent thinking, Idealism? 

What’s missing?  The development of the question into a deeper more specific question.  I feel like it is too broad with not enough risk.

Subquestions:

Are students able to critique their own art?  Others art?

Are the students able to self-reflect and self-correct?

Are the students able to locate their own interests?

Am I able to separate my own educational experience from the experience students may need that is different than what I needed?

Am I able to adapt and change the course to meet the needs of the culture of each class over the years?

What do I like about this question?

I like that it involves giving students freedom to work within their interests so that they can be internally motivated to progress their way of thinking and their education and ultimately their artwork and ability to think conceptually and make connections.