This entry is an activity for Teach-Now while working towards a teaching certificate. Specific goals and requirements had to be met by this entry and is by no means designed to be an independent feature.
My First Time: Lesson Planning for 21st Century Learners
I am on the brink of student teaching. Since June (of 2015) I have immersed myself in teaching strategies; student behavior, learning and thinking; lesson construction; lesson presentations and deliveries all along with their modifications for individual needs. I will teach Visual Art infused with Art History. This is what I want to do. This will be exciting. But after observing 174 boys in the same content structure, my plans have been dashed down onto the rocks of despair and swept away by the ocean tides of a sarcastic good luck. Nope, the majority of them just did not seem to be involved. They used technology for their digital daydreaming—texting, site-surfing—and if that was boring chattering or sleeping occupied their time. The teacher’s time was consumed by managing the classroom thus postponing each activity. Oh, the immense challenge to engage. I am worried how I will accomplish to gain their interest with interesting content and engaging presentation methods.
I have taught in the past, but at a different level and for a shorter time period; definitely not to this extent and not for this level. I led weekend workshops instructing and consulting professionals how and when to use digital tools for visual art making. I have also conducting drawing and painting workshops for high school students during summers at an Upward Bound program; but, again, the time was a short hour or two out of a whole week.
This…this is a whole new level.
For the first time I will work in longer time durations with teenagers who essentially are more interested with their miniature social devices waiting for the signal to dismiss them than learning what I have in store for them. This minute existence of learning motivation worries me. Their lack of interest for art decides how I should construct a lesson.
I will have five lessons. My lessons do not integrate a lot of digital technology. The idea depends on a process of thinking that works the brain’s right half. Right-brain thinking goes beyond logic and memorization and explores creativity. This basic and generalized understanding commonly states that this half concentrates on volume, space, light, texture and a whole other set of gestalt concerns.
I am not the first to state the right brain participation; I rely heavily on others such as Betty Edwards and her established curriculum designed to exercise the right brain (Edwards).
My first lesson may not be all that complicated, but it builds from a previous exercise the students should have experienced. That is what you do as a teacher—to design lessons that build from their previous knowledge. The previous exercise designed and presented by my mentor challenged students to analyze and to discuss about a period artwork for its importance, significance, application, and art techniques all of which should show how it belongs to that particular period. For example, one technique developed during this period is perspective drawing or the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface. Students will observe and analyze Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and define how it fits with the Renaissance Era as well as how it was made by the artist. For my lesson that follows the observational study, we will explore and practice perspective drawing using the same artwork.
There will be no technology in the sense of computer screen and mouse or tablet. My lesson simply returns to the basic technologies of paper, ruler and pencil. We will observe, analyze and practice through motor construction a perspective to design the illusion of depth on a flat surface. We will use our right brains to see shapes and their relationships with other shapes and design our surfaces to map out our gestalt observations. We will learn one-point perspective drawing.
Another development in this exercise is Visual Thinking Strategy—a method designed by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine (Murawski, 2014; VTS, 2016). Visual thinking asks questions to others or yourself of what you are seeing. These questions encourage you to further define what you are experiencing. By a combination of asking these questions and motivating students to use their right brain to see, students will explore the same artwork to draw this map. The expectation is to draw the basic shapes that physically construct the framework as they see it. They should design the table placement, the receding ceiling tiles, the receding windows and doors, and the big block that defines the building interior. Students should not be expected to draw an exact replica and they will know this; I would not want to discourage the art-making-doubters from the beginning.
The next two lessons further expand on the historical analyzation and motor practice of the one-point perspective technique. The second lessons shows real-world recordings (aka photographs) showing cityscapes with that single street center in the composition stretching to a point in the distance. Other examples display country landscapes with the iconic railway track and bordering fence each pointing to that one point on the horizon. We discuss what common elements exist and how they respond with the vanishing point on the horizon. The discussion should set them with enough information to work their own perspective drawing—the third lesson.
Now students can use their imagination and create in one-point perspective using their own experience or thinking. During the course of drawing and with plenty of consideration to not interrupt flow, we discuss what thoughts they have about the technique and how they can utilize it. Students should be thinking of what they have learned during their da Vinci exploration and real-life discussions.
The last two lessons push perspective drawing into the two-point perspective. Students can experience and practice how a shift in their view can alter the physical world around them. This practice allows them to again visually think of the world beyond the preconceived icons in their memory and construct an illusion of a three-dimensional environment on a two-dimensional surface. Like the previous two lessons, we explore photographic examples with three-quarter views of a single building on a street corner and street scenes; and students work on something relevant to them translating a scene or environment they create or live in onto a piece of paper.
Yes, you say, buildings and street scenes, again?! Ah, yes, students said the same thing, too. Differentiating the lesson can mean providing alternatives, too. Not to generalize, I worked with a student body that basically required no significant learning support. I was not informed of nor did I see any student that had a need for emotional, intellectual or physical support. With those concerns considered, I provided a country farm or your name with block letters. Ah, a positive motivation returned.
Here is an amazing fact: these two linear perspectives developed from a long art practice over time before this kind of scientific thinking appeared. Are you ready for this? This technique was finally designed in 1420 (Calter, 1998). Several centuries of art and mathematical effort and exploration was required to achieve this scale of thinking—something that today we take for granted. Only history can demonstrate this interesting tale, and one that can only be experienced by learning.
Similarly to this achievement’s timeline, these lessons seemed to have taken more time to make than the time to experience the lessons. A lot of effort and thinking was required by me to design an experience considering all steps, twists, needs and students. Will it always be like this? I am hoping that future lessons will consume less time to construct. I hope there will be time for my own professional development, and just as important to have time for leisure (uh, mental) break. Who knows, maybe I dove too deep learning the history and technique and developing the exercises and variations.
Maybe I explored too much taking up time.
Maybe I felt insecure of what I knew and needed to confirm what I did know.
Maybe I looked too deep.
Maybe I got distracted by the various information.
Maybe I simply overdid it. Overall, this exercise reminded me of something. In the past, I learned that to teach you have to relearn what you know so you can understand how new knowledge can be experienced. Another hope—that professional experience will make the whole process more efficient allowing me more time for the important concentration—the students.
REFERENCE
Calter, Paul. (1998). Brunelleschi’s Peepshow & The Origins of Perspective. Dartmouth University. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit11/unit11.html
Edwards, Betty. (N.D.). Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain—The Official Website of Betty Edwards. http://drawright.com/
Murawksi, Mike. (April 29, 2014). Openthink: Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) & Museums. http://artmuseumteaching.com/2014/04/29/openthink-visual-thinking-strategies-vts-museums/
(VTS) Visual Thinking Strategies. (2016). Visual Thinking Strategies—History. http://www.vtshome.org/pages/history