Teaching Strategies
Reminders of procedures, routines, and safety habits can never be over-emphasized. Everything that is to be done well and eventually expected of students needs to be taught, modeled, and repeated. All those procedures were once new to everyone.[29] We might forget it sometimes, but everything that we do was new to even the most accomplished teachers at one point.
As with so many things in education, my first words of advice are not to get discouraged. I cannot emphasize this enough. Although my classes are used to some level of discussion at the beginning of every project and the beginning of most classes, I will be aiming to go a bit deeper into these discussions. Even though every project has some element of other disciplines, I will be making an intentional effort to go more in-depth with making cross-curricular connections with social studies and literature elements during this unit.
We all, at some level, resist changes to our routines and ways of thinking and adding another task, routine, or procedure to any practice can feel like a cumbersome uphill battle. Coordinating and distributing the physical supplies of art making can alone become a major task and now we are adding yet another layer to the process. I implore you not to get too stressed or entangled with the specifics and to let the class discussions steer your instruction within the framework of the unit. Leaning into what my students are enthusiastic about has rarely ever led to anything other than greater ‘buy in’ and excitement around the project. I encourage experimentation but also suggest keeping to a schedule and working within the predetermined frame.
For this unit and its discussions, I will be trying a new framework and technique for our discussions based around Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats method that Professor Ferguson introduced to us during seminar. Developed in 1985, De Bono’s method has a parallel thinking framework which separates our thinking into six distinct categories. It was implemented as a way for groups (usually corporate) to work through a thinking process more effectively and efficiently by putting on a different hat when moving onto each different mode of thinking. De Bono represents each hat by a different color; however, I plan on adapting the method based on the way that Professor Ferguson adapted it for class. Due to the weight and connotation of certain colors, it might be easier, even for elementary students, to break down the method to the actual words that are associated with every hat. The white hat becomes the information hat. The red hat will be thought of as the feelings hat. The yellow hat will be represented as the positive thoughts hat. The black hat will become the cautious hat. The green hat becomes the creativity hat. While the blue hat will now be the overview hat, the hat that sums up everything. I am excited and a little nervous to try this new technique, but I will take my own advice, not resist change and try to not get discouraged.
If I can procure sketchbooks and journals again, we will be using those for our daily documentation of our progress. This will include notes from discussions and research, drawings, and any other pertinent information and planning exercises. The sketchbook/journals will be our reference tool and will guide us during our culminating project. These should not be thought of as finished project but as a document of our ideas and artistic process. The sketchbook/journal is a living and evolving artifact of the process.
During regular warmups, I will remind students that our journaling and sketching is similar to a musician warming up with scales or an athlete warming up before going into play. What we do as a warmup or during discussion is not to be viewed, in any way, as a polished product for display, but rather as reference and practice material for the bigger project.
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