Final Technology Integration Plan

NATURAL COLLABORATION:

Building with the Five Elements of Art

Andy Goldsworthy

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION MATRIX

The lesson plan I chose to work with for this final project uses the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy to increase student understanding of the five elements of art – line, shape, color, form and texture. Students will gain in-depth comprehension of the five elements of art and demonstrate their knowledge by creating and documenting their own artwork, requirements of the NJCCC standards. The lesson provides opportunities for students to integrate environmental art and technology usage, individual work and collaboration, and includes multiple forms of assessment to optimize their success and ensure achievement of the NJCCC and NETS-S standards. It should be assumed that computers, a printer, basic word processing software and internet access are readily available within the school.

Days 1-2: Access Information

Several strategies will be used to orient the students to the work of Andy Goldsworthy. The teacher will provide an introduction to the five elements of art and an overview of the lesson's components. Next, students will use Artcyclopedia to research Goldsworthy’s work and begin to identify how he uses the five elements in the creation of his art. Students will acquire a deeper understanding of the artist’s purpose and methods by reading a brief biography using the Read-Write-Pair-Share method, then view a portion of Rivers and Tides, a film about the artist on a Smartboard. Information gathered from all sources will be reviewed and categorized in a large group discussion, followed by a teacher demonstration of the art project students will create.

Days 3-4: Analyze & Evaluate

Students will begin to analyze the information they have learned about the five elements of art through Goldsworthy’s work. They will use small One Minute Answer Circles to review and assess each others understanding of the five elements of art with their peers. Responses will be shared, discussed and clarified as a large group. Next, the class will scour the school grounds for natural art materials and possible locations for their sculptures, the products of which will help assess student understanding of material and process requirements. Students will experiment with artistic arrangements of the materials they have collected and keep a record of the results with sketches, in order to make evaluations regarding their final art design. They will continue to consult Artcyclopedia and the other resources used on days 1 and 2 to reference Goldsworthy’s work as needed. A brief question and answer session and peer critique to identify the five art elements in the sketches will ensure that students have acquired the knowledge necessary to move to the next steps.

Days 5-6: Produce

At this point in the lesson, students will be prepared to use what they have learned to produce their own art. They will construct their sculptures, document their work photographically using digital cameras, then use Adobe Photoshop to crop and manipulate lighting in their images. Students will each write a brief narrative for their piece, which describes and supports how they incorporated the five elements of art as well as the relationship between their art and the environment. They will print a composite containing the manipulated photograph and typed narrative to keep in their art portfolio. Next, students will collaborate as a class to produce an art slideshow presentation consisting of one digital photograph and the accompanying narrative from each student. They will produce this using the presentation software in Google Docs as a homework assignment.

Day 7: Communicate

Students will communicate their knowledge and usage of the five elements of art and evaluate their own work as well as that of their peers. The collaborative student art show they produced will be presented via Smartboard, with each student providing an oral narration to coincide with their digital slide, describing how he or she created his or her artwork, the elements of art which dominate the work, difficulties they encountered throughout the lesson and how they found solutions. Students will be assessed on the visual, written, and oral and technical components of their portion of the presentation. Classmates will listen to the speaker respectfully, ask relevant questions and provide constructive feedback to their peers throughout the presentation. A class discussion will be used to close the lesson, and students will complete and submit a self-assessment of their own learning from this lesson using a teacher-created form on Google Docs.

The lesson plan used for this project was edited and enriched according to NJCCC and NETS-S standards and course requirements. It may be viewed in its unedited form here: Original Lesson Plan - Natural Collaboration.

Just When I Thought I Was Finished....SPACE?

Ok, so I already posted some final thoughts about this semester, but I read an article this afternoon that I absolutely must share: NASA's dwindling budget: Why has America stopped reaching for the stars? "Space travel inspires us to dream about tomorrow, says Neil deGrasse Tyson. So why did we give up?

The space shuttle Endeavor made its way to NYC yesterday. My mother watched its televised progression up the northern seaboard with such delight, you would have thought she was actually on board the spacecraft. We had a brief phone conversation about how her generation was much more enamored of space travel than mine is. This afternoon I was flipping through The Week magazine and stumbled upon this article, and it flipped my opinion of the necessity of the space program. I love when something stops me in my tracks and makes me think.

Dr. Tyson's article will naturally appeal to astronomers, science and mathematics enthusiasts, economists and politicians. But educators? And me, the pre-service art teacher? Frankly, anyone who cares about the future success of the USA should read Tyson's article and reflect on where they stand in regards to space exploration.

Scroll back up, click the link and read the article. It's not that long, and Tyson's writing style is enjoyable.

Creativity. Imagination. Innovation. Those are three things which Tyson claims will propel our country not just into space, but back into economic stability and growth. Those three qualities are why we live the way we do today in regards to technology and media. Those are also three things that the arts cultivate intrinsically - the ability to release the imagination in order to come up with creative ideas which become innovative possibilities and realities.

Share comments on how your subject area supports the future of our country!

Final Thoughts

Spring 2012 has been a busy semester of growth and progress for me. I feel prepared and excited to begin student teaching in September. I know what I want to improve upon or explore further over the summer regarding education and lesson planning, and I'm looking forward to having time to resume my own art production which has suffered greatly over the past few years.

Last week I was revisiting the teachings of Sir Ken Robinson (check out the link if you are not familiar with him!), particularly thinking about creativity and how our students will be living and working in a future we can neither see nor imagine, yet we are responsible for training them now. Technology is already an integral part of our daily activities and social lives. No matter how tricky it may be to incorporate it meaningfully into the classroom, we would be doing our students a disservice by failing to do so. Essentially, we would be denying them tools for a successful future of their own. I hope we will use our training and creativity to make public education everything we wish it had been for us. 

Some of us have come to support and/or respect each other's ideas, and I've started a blog so we can share student teaching experiences, remain networked for the job hunt, and generally help each other out.... keep in touch and good luck!

http://lauraevansart.weebly.com/blog.html

Environmental Art & Technology

I was recently searching the internet for a safe, exciting method for students to create bas relief sculpture for an 8th grade lesson plan I was writing. I came across the attached lesson plan during my search, and decided to share it with all of you art education majors in CURR 316. While I did not choose this method for the lesson I just wrote, I really liked how the plan incorporates environmental awareness, sculpture and technology in the form of digital cameras and usage of Photoshop. The teacher also created a slideshow of completed student work, but I would change that and have my students create the slideshow themselves. Using Google Docs, each student can upload the digital photo of their work and design their own slide, then the full class slideshow can be viewed in class for critique, feedback and discussion. It was nice to find that real working teachers are finding ways to incorporate technology into their art classes.
ENVIRONMENTAL ART & TECHNOLOGY LESSON PLAN

Interactivity #5

For this interactivity I interviewed my cooperating Fieldwork teacher, who teaches preschool through fifth grade art in the Rockaway Township district. She said she had heard of the NETS, but was not familiar with them herself. Her school has not yet implemented the NETS, and she did not know whether or not her district had begun to. She had no idea how the NETS would be used since she had not seen them prior to looking at the material I had provided for her, but she thought professional development would definitely be necessary for implementation.

While I was conducting the interview, an Assistive Educational Technologist (A.E.T.) for the district came into the room to fix my co-op's computer. She overheard our conversation, volunteered that she was familiar with NETS due to the nature of her job, and offered to be interviewed as well! She verified that NETS had neither been implemented in that school, nor anywhere the district, but she did not know whether or not implementation had begun in the state at that time. When I asked how she thought the NETS will be used when they are implemented, the A.E.T. said that the curriculum will have to be entirely rewritten to include them. The Rockaway district just finished rewriting their curriculum to reflect the newest NJCCC standards, so she said that resources needed to include the NETS will definitely be professional development, funding, access to necessary equipment, but mostly time. Since she has been involved in revamping curriculum at the district level, the A.E.T. said the time investment of the re-writing process and training educators is commonly underestimated. She did not expect her district to accomplish integrating the NETS until at least 2014 or 2015.

Rockaway school district does not offer technology initiatives for student media literacy at the elementary school level. Most of the technology that exists in the school supports teachers rather than students, with the exception of iPads for some students with learning disabilities, and those are used only in occupational therapy according to the A.E.T. I was  not surprised at my cooperating teacher's responses to my questions, since I knew from spending time with her that she does not use much technology in her classes, with the exception of her computer and digital projection equipment. I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak with the A.E.T. about the NETS, and was surprised at her concern with the time required to implement major curricular changes. I never would have considered how long it takes to successfully integrate new standards if I had not spoken with her.

As a future educator, I would encourage my fellow staff members to become familiar with the NETS-S and NETS-T. Knowing that they will be implemented in the future, it makes sense to learn them now. I have seen faculty members organize mini workshops, for example, Rockaway elementary teachers held a workshop on Pinterest recently. I would look for a colleague to conduct a NETS workshop with me, so we could all look for ways to begin incorporating NETS sooner, using the link below as an example.

Click here to see my Interactivity #4 Spreadsheet with NETS-S included

Making Activities Meaningful

In my TFL1 course this week we had the rare opportunity to talk with, among other people, the Principal of the middle school where our class meets. He told us that the greatest challenge teachers face is constantly adjusting to meet the needs of all of the different students in their classes. The ability to do this does not come naturally - it requires major preparation, and even seasoned master teachers who have more experience and isight will continue to try to accommodate all of their students throughout their careers. He was kind enough to share many of the things he looks for when interviewing candidates for teaching positions within the school. A huge deciding factor for him was what he called the "big three" factors in lesson planning and alignment: 1) Goal; 2) Activity; 3) Closure. I'll summarize his description for those of you who are in different TFL sections.

1) GOAL - Lesson plans must have a specific, measurable learning objective, articulated clearly to students.
2) ACTIVITY - Engaging learning activities that keep students focused, make sure students know why you are having them do the particular activity. If you don't know why you included an activity, it is meaningless (and should be omitted from lesson!)
3) CLOSURE - Always, always, always effectively close the lesson and align it to the goal.

Now that we are approaching the end of this semester, lesson planning and assessment are definitely starting to come together for me. Alignment is a huge percentage of a unit's success. But what actually caught my attention was the principal's discussion about activities. Art lessons can have any number of engaging activities, and through CURR-316 we are asked to find meaningful ways to incorporate technology to support learning objectives. Believe me, I have found some really incredible technologies that will have applications in the art classroom. However, the selection of any learning activity must make sense to the students - they must be able to understand why that activity or technology is helping them reach their learning goal. In short, listening to this principal speak gave me the motivation to make sure the activities I build into my lesson plans are always meaningful, whether or not they happen to incorporate technology. It was a welcome and relevant reminder that in the end, we must both set and plan how to achieve the goal!

Technology Bringing Kids Closer to Classic Art

My six-year-old got off the school bus Friday afternoon holding a library book wide open in front of him. It was about electricity, and he spent the weekend asking friends, neighbors and grandparents if they had any of the components to contribute to his "project." Wouldn't you know it, by Sunday afternoon the little guy had built his first working circuit in the garage, and he can tell you clearly why it all works (and figure out what's wrong if it's not working) - keep in mind that this is a kindergarten student with limited reading skills! It was a reminder that self-led learning is often the most meaningful, but usually missing from public schools.

I found the following article while just browsing through some readings this morning. The author shares how his daughter, then his entire family, embarked upon a self-led exploration of art making, art history and critique quite by accident! Using nothing but the internet, the entire family is now researching and selecting their favorite artists to study through reading and making art in a similar technique. This family is learning about different time periods, countries and cultures, and even diseases while pushing their own abilities to experiment with art. The best part its that they are using a FREE technological resource that is literally at the fingertips of most Americans. Will all teens or tweens be on fire about art? Probably not, but they can find something that they share an interest in.Can all young people explore what excites them, such as music, literature, science, math or electricity via the internet? Absolutely, and as the author of this article wrote, "the internet is filled with distractions, but if used wisely and focused, the world is truly at our fingertips." My next step will be to help my six-year-old look up more simple electrical experiments on the internet, and to make sure I can design a chunk of time in my future classroom to let my art students explore on their own and share what they learn.

TECHNOLOGY BRINGING KIDS CLOSER TO CLASSIC ART