@aruh2 - Tumblr Blog

Many educators believe that children need to learn emotional intelligence to reach their full academic potential.

EDU 600

I love this! @gabriella-coll, it reminds me of the lesson we taught about problems.

A new father embarks on another big journey: teaching at a startup charter high school in Brooklyn.

AED

As we rapidly slip into a purely digital age it's nice to remember where it all started and why it is so great. Thank you so much for all the amazing comments,…

It could just be my photo background, but I loved this.

It's not uncommon to see popular education strategies become muddied by people who don't understand them well.

EDU 600

This is worth the read!

The Facebook CEO and his wife will deploy billions to improve schools using technology. Critics warn of the dangers of freestanding solutions.

EDU 600

I will be curious to see how and if this is actually used to expand education.

Pindar Van Arman is a painter — and a software designer. His latest project? A portrait-painting robot. Its paintings "dance on the edge" between creations by humans and machines, he says.

AED: Creative classrooms

A focus of mine in college was appropriation. This article brought me straight back to the endless discussions I had about appropriation. I spent months researching and reading about Sherrie Levine’s work with Walker Evans photographs(http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/267214).

How would you discuss appropriation art with your students?

kakent-blog

Finding the Right Balance

CREATIVE CLASSROOM - I appreciated our discussion today on limits/guidelines/ parameters/restrictions in the art room.

I really do believe life is all about balance. You can have too much of a good thing. I liked what Ian said about how he feels students respond more creatively when they have a few restrictions or parameters placed before them in a given assignment. It does force you to be more creative and step outside of your comfort zone when you are required to try new media or new concepts in your art projects.

I also believe that learning to be part of a larger whole and learning to follow directions are important pieces in the puzzle to becoming capable adults. I’m not advocating for creating robotic people who don’t know how to think for themselves, but we do need to learn how to function within a community and/or society - we need to know how to function as part of a whole. We are not individuals operating in isolation, we are part of a whole and need to learn the basics of acting as such.

hannah-stathis-deactivated20170

AED 600

Speaking to my own experience I think I could have greatly benefited from having some restrictions when I was attempting to create something meaningful for my thesis during my time as a photography student. Ian’s comment really hit home for me in this sense. After having struggled to create something meaningful as opposed to trivial I don’t feel particularly proud of the work I displayed for my thesis show. In some ways I think the prompts Dr. Bey has offered us for the different experiments and presentations we completed this semester offer a good balance of freedom and restrictiveness. Although many of us felt they were maybe too open ended I noticed that they elicited similar results amongst all of us. Not similar in the sense of product or even idea generation but they allowed us to connect common topics to our own lives in order for us to make our own meaning based on our own lived experiences. Of course providing such open ended assignments to youngsters might only elicit chaos but with that being said I think younger students are more capable than we sometimes give them credit for. Jane has seen cars and buses before and knows that the wheels go on the bottom, so why not let her represent something a little different than reality in her artwork?

aruh2

I agree! I thought a lot about the work I created in college, particularly my thesis, after this conversation. While I was proud of the work I created, I didn’t feel particularly pushed or driven when I was creating it. The works I choose to include on my website, or in my portfolio, are almost all projects that restricted me in some way. The prompts from these projects were open enough for each student to take the project in a completely different direction, but restrictive enough to frustrate me and my classmates to no end. We were forced to find creative ways to work with and around the restrictions. It is our job as educators to find the sweet spot between restrictive, frustrating, and open ended.

thegetty

This is #HistoricalSerial One (historical) story told week by week. Told by me, the author of this manuscript.

On recent travels through the county of Hainaut, a land with a vibrant and valiant chivalric history, I discovered a story I could not resist but write down.

In a rather ancient abbey in Hainaut, at least by today’s standards (it’s the High Middle Ages now after all), three raised tombs lay together. Curious to see two women beside one man. Who lay buried here?

Those of the monastery shared with me that these graves were of two noble and courageous ladies flanking on either side, their noble husband, who was married to them both at the same time. (Noble? To have two wives at once?)

Inscribed on the tomb it read “Gillion de Trazegnies”, a knight by trade. And the wives? One, the daughter of the sultan of the far off land of Egypt. The other? A woman from this land of Hainaut.

How were these three entangled in life and how did they end in the afterlife linked side-by-side-by-side? It’s my duty as the author of this tale to share this story and the fate of the one and only, Gillion de Trazegnies.

Who was Gillion? A dastardly bigamist or devoted husband? True valiant knight or fast-talking traitor? Next week on #HistoricalSerial.

aruh2

AED

This is a really interesting way to present information! Students may not understand the reference to serial, but I wonder what kinds of projects you could have students work with that dealt with information presentation? It would be interesting to see how a group of highschool students went about interpreting or recreating a podcast.

teded

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” - Ferris Bueller

From the TED-Ed Lesson Would you opt for a life with no pain? - Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald

Animation by Avi Ofer

aruh2

EDU 600

This sounds like a really interesting lesson, (It sounds like a lesson hannah would write!) This would be an interesting question to pose along with the book “The Giver” What Kinds of lessons do you think you would create based on this question?

vox

Memory researchers say most students don’t have a clue how to study efficiently. Watch the full video to learn more tips.

npr

Tips for anyone studying for finals this weekend. -Emily

AED

Presentation 2: School Art Recalled

The solar system model is something that brings me right back to elementary school. One reason I chose this project was because when I was growing up it was commonly a project done in science class vs. the art room. I could have an idealistic view of this, because I haven’t actually experienced life as a full time art teacher yet, however, I feel like a great project could be created though the science and art departments working together. I love interdisciplinary projects, however that may sometimes be harder to implement. Even if working with other teachers or departments does not work, there is something to be said for trying to link you projects in the art room to other disciplines and student lives in general.

When I was researching this project I came up with so many projects that talked about how exciting it was that their students would experience artistic freedom by being able to paint the planets. However I couldn’t find many examples that didn’t lay out the exact shape and size each planet had to be, and provide explicit directions for each student to create the exact same thing. Of course students need to learn that planets are different sizes, and the size and mass interact with its gravitational pull and orbit etc. However, I think there can be many new and interesting ways to explore this with students. I came across one article that plotted the distance between planets by walking through a large field and marking each planets spot spatially. This would be great for a visual learner who has trouble grasping the concept of distance.

Our solar system in general is such a fascinating concept, what types of projects would you do with your students that helped them learn about the solar system? I think a project about designing the perfectly suited race of people for each planet would be really interesting. It would require students to know or research the living conditions of each planet, and be able to discuss them.

AED: Shrine Project

I really enjoyed this project. The shrine that I created around myself looks random and disorganized and overwhelming. Maybe that can tell you something about me in general. I wanted the presentation of my shrine to be overwhelming. I keep most letters and objects I acquire from different people and events, not because I want a memento, but because I feel like throwing it away is saying that the experience was not worth keeping. I keep these things in a box (pictured above) along with discarded negatives and old test sheets from when I worked in the darkroom.

I think the experience of going through these objects, and building a shrine around my personal identity helped me see who I was, and how I got to where I am. As I said before, the overwhelming seeming explosion of objects looks random, and that is partially the point I was trying to make. The objects and images I chose to include are the things in that box that are most important to me. In fact, I chose to display it on top of my dresser because even that holds meaning. The dresser has been passed back and forth between my sister, my mother and myself, and originally belonged to my great grandma Audie (Audrey), where I got my name, and my nickname.

Each object I included in my shrines link to an experience I’ve had. When I look at each object I am flooded with memories about it. Not all of the objects link to good memories, some, such as the funeral program (the picture of the bridge in the middle of the mirror, surrounded by red flowers) still fills me with gut wrenching sadness, and shame for not knowing how to be there for my best friend when her mother suddenly passed away. However, many remind me of happiness, and make me slightly sad, because those experiences have passed. For example the yellow ticket with a 175 on it brings me back to the first trip I took to New York City without my parents. I went with my three close friends to see the daily show live. Of course the trip was exciting, however we took the trip right after I found out I had been accepted to FIT, so I knew I would be moving to NYC in 4 months. The memories I have from that trip are more linked to the feelings of anticipation, excitement, and fear about NYC rather than seeing the daily show live.

The experience of sorting and displaying my memories to define myself was overwhelming. I think the final project only makes sense to me, and I think that’s okay. However I will try to explain the layout for clarification as I did when I presented it. The objects on the the left side of the dresser all link to memories of my mother and that side of my family. This includes objects from the town I grew up in as well as memories with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. On the right side are memories and objects that link to my father and the relationship we have. I included pictures of his parents that remind me of visiting New Ulm, MN as I grew up, and also signify the relationships I missed because of death or family circumstances. Finally the middle are things that define me, and are either simply linked to me, or my close friends.

By approaching math as a creative endeavor in young children, parents and educators can cultivate some of the skills that are valued in advanced mathematics.

This is so cool, and not how I remember my math education at all!

Lesson 9

EDU 602

Collaborative Narrative!

I loved this lesson! I was really worried the students would push back against so much writing time (10 minutes) however; they really embraced it and came up with some really unique and different stories. I think the final step of the lesson could have been done differently. We had the students pull one sentence from each of their stories, and combine them to create one class story, We then asked the students to paint their sentence in the story. I think if we had asked them to draw a scene or the portion of the story that included the sentences placed before and after their sentence, they would have focused more on the class story as a whole. When they did the drawings I think they were still focused on the individual narratives they had written.

Other than that small change, I think this lesson was great. There was a lot of imagination, and individual and group thinking and work that went into it. The students really enjoyed visually portraying the characters they created, and it was amazing to put it together at the end and see that they had created such and interesting class mural.

Lesson 7+8: Faceoff!

EDU 602

Week 2:

We definitely went into this lesson with some stress. Gaby and I compiled the supplies requested by our students, but we were concerned about time constraints. However, this turned out not to be an issue, so all that energy we put into worrying about it should have gone somewhere more productive! Our first class was definitely tighter than our second, but all of the groups worked really well together. They came in with a working mindset, and focused for the whole class on their characters makeup and costume design. The worked amazingly well by negotiating different rolls such as makeup artists, prop design and costume design.

I was so pleased when a student expressed how exciting it was for her that this was a realistic job that she could eventually end up doing in the real world, and was something she was really interested in perusing.

Our second class actually completed their characters early, so I was excited when the lesson expanded into mini photo shoots where I discussed with the students the importance of poses. I asked them to direct the model and explain their choices in poses and directions. I also asked them to pose with the model and we got some amazing photographs, such as a student acting as a minion under the evil fairy’s cape, or the group of students lying dead at Dr. Dieselmans feet. It was amazing to see the students interact with the models and experience the excitement and learning with them!

Lesson 7+8: Faceoff!

EDU 602

Week 1:

This lesson has been in the works since the beginning of the semester. Gaby and I were both extremely excited to teach this lesson, and so happy we have a lab like the Saturday art workshop where such a lesson is actually possible. We began by having a discussion with our students about costume and character design in the entertainment industry. For the first week we asked our students to come up with a solid character design, and provided them with a checklist of things they needed to have finished if they wanted to successfully implement their designs on the live model the next week. We asked students to brainstorm created next class. We required them to have a complete character, a name, a list of materials, a character sketch, and a finished inspiration board by the end of the first class, to make sure they would really be prepared for the second week.

One scenario I encountered this week that I wanted to touch on in my reflection was how much computer access helped one group. A few of the group members were missing, so it fell to one student to create the character, sketches and inspiration. He came in a bit late, so I worked closely with him while Gaby guided the other two groups through their character development process. The student I was working with was having trouble with the sketch. He was struggling to display his thoughts through drawing and I could see him getting frustrated. We had offered access to computers to all the groups so I suggested we do some Internet research. The minute the student had access to different pictures his whole character design began to take shape and expand. This is a great example of UDL. He was having trouble expressing himself, so he used another platform to develop and present his ideas.

Lesson 6

Designing Machines

EDU 602

After such a great lesson on mindfulness last week, Gaby and I were concerned we had peaked. We had writers block and couldn’t think of a lesson to follow our discussions and activities about mindfulness and meditation the week before. We began to talk about our mindfulness lesson and some of the things we had discussed with our students. One thing that we focused on in our discussions was how to use mindfulness to help us accept and work through problems. Gaby and I were planning some kind of machine building project for the class after big show, but once we decided to focus on problems we wanted to teach the machine lesson right after our lesson on mindfulness.

Our students had been doing such a great job handling materials appropriately and responsibly we deiced to give them access to everything. I had been saving up cardboard boxes for this project, and my roommate, and ESF graduate student, helped trash pick some old desks from the ESF building for the students to use. While the lesson was about designing machines, we also placed a lot of the focus on discussing problems. The machines we had the students design could do anything. We had some more realistic machines, for example a brain powered prosthetic leg, and some more magical machines, like a robot that turned trash instantly into flowers, and a brother-punching homework doing robot.

I think this lesson was a success. Our students really enjoyed creating the machines and some of the more soft-spoken students really came out of their shells when we asked them to confront a problem they were passionate about. We really emphasized the purpose of discussing problems, and accepting them, even if we cannot find an instant solution.

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