So I got tagged in this blog meme…

Well, we can blame Cathleen Nardi for tagging me in a blog meme! Cathleen was tagged in Nancy White’s blog … and so it goes.

Strangely, it’s been good to produce eleven random facts about myself: to see how I would label and place myself in the world. I also enjoyed answering Cathleen’s questions. A small reflective moment totally right for New Year’s Eve.

So I’m passing it on – and even as I do I know that some of the people I’ve tagged below would saw off their own feet rather than join in… BUT – it’s a good way to pass on some of the great bloggers that I’ve been reading this year – so it’s win/win either way!

Random Facts about Me

I left school when I was still 16 (okay a month away from my 17^th birthday).

My first job was as a laboratory technician.

I loved going to Technical College – I found ‘vocational education’ really emancipatory – may be I was lucky.

I have made a low budget and sadly unsuccessful feature film.

With my partner, I have taken a production of Godber’s ‘Bouncers’ on a tour of Crete discos.

My mother was Belgium – and was a teenager in Brussels when it was occupied by the Nazis.

My father was from London and was involved in D-Day when really just a kid himself.

We lived in a flat above a launderette and a shop on a main road in North London.

We escaped to a caravan at the Kent coast at weekends and for the long summer holidays – this was my salvation.

I was the first in my neighbourhood to go to College – I studied Education and Literature and trained to be a secondary school teacher.

I actually taught English A’levels to adults in the evening.

Questions from Cathleen Nardi (http://cathleennardi.wordpress.com/):

1. Where do you go when you want to think?

I walk to think and to de-stress. I can walk in London, I can walk in the countryside – and best of all I love to walk by the sea.
2. What is your comfort food?

Chocolate… cakes … chocolate cakes!
3. What do you do when you want to relax?

I always used to read to relax – I also love to watch video – most recently I have taken to MOOCs to relax.
4. Name one thing on your Bucket List.

I am lucky enough to do a job I enjoy – better than a bucket list!
5. Why is education important to you?

Like all loves, education is flawed, it can be unfair, it can be corrupted (by bad policy) – but it offers space for energy, excitement, potential, engagement, change…

6. What is the Boldest Act of Defiance you’ve ever attempted?

I think making a feature film with my partner. We were both the first in our families to get a degree – but making our film was the moment when we felt we had gained a ‘voice’. It was so transgressive to do this thing – we lost our house because of it – and still it was the best thing to have done!
7. How do you problem solve?

I wrestle with a problem for a while. I may write about it – I may brainstorm – if it is a really tricky one – I go for a long walk and hope that it becomes clear as I tramp over hills… This usually works.
8. What is the last thing that you made?

This week I have been painting quite a bit. I ‘blind draw’ something and then watercolour it; but also this week I made a collage. I tried a picture of my papa – of when he was holding me when I was just one month old. I tried to get his face – and the texture of the background behind him. I got the background okay – and his hair was excellent – but not the face…
9. What is your favourite piece of art in your home?

This sounds terribly solipsistic, but my favourite piece at the moment is the first collage that I did for #artmooc. I had never made one before and I really got into it. I thought of a small poem that I had written as I chose my pictures and then placed them on the board… It is a dense piece – I made it out of dull newsprint pictures to suit the mood – and most people do not like it… But I love it.
10. What’s is the most creative thing you’ve ever done?

Trying to live life for joy and with no regrets.
11. What would be the title of a book about you?

Memoirs of a working class zealot.

Questions from Me:

1. What do you love most about your life?
2. What is the best thing you have ever done or made?
3. What is your favourite book/author/film?
4. What is the secret of a happy life?
5. What cool thing have you discovered recently?
6. What are you currently fascinated by?
7. What is the secret of your success?
8. What is the source of your joy?
9. What is the most creative thing you have done?

10. What is the latest thing that you have made?

11. What would you most like to make or do?

Now It’s Your Turn: Tag –You are IT!

1. Eloise Sentito: http://esonlearning.wordpress.com/ @ESonlearning
2. Andy Mitchell http://andydmmitchell.blogspot.co.uk/ @AndyDMMitchell
3. Emily Purser http://uncontente.weebly.com/   @erpurser
4. Willa Ryerson http://wryerson.wordpress.com/  @willaryerson
5. Debbie Holley  http://drdebbieholley.com/ @DebbieHolley1
6. Amy Burvall  http://www.amyburvall.com/ @amyburvall
7. Rajiv Bajaj  http://www.rajivbajaj.net/ @rajiv63
8. Rick Bartlett http://drrbb2nd.blogspot.co.uk/ @rbb2nd
9. Kelcy Allwein http://kelcym.wordpress.com/
10. Angela Towndrow http://angelatowndrow.blogspot.co.uk/  @angelatowndrow
11. Maddy  http://mymoocadventure.wordpress.com/ @maddiekp

When you are tagged…

Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
Share 11 random facts about yourself.
Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.
List 11 bloggers.
Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you, or anyone on the above list… and Pass it on!

At the very least, check out the bloggers I’ve listed – they have all inspired and informed me this year…

And here’s hoping that 2014 brings us all much joy.

#artinquiry: week 4: the Project: Image mediated dialogue: B&W documentary style photographs from the sixties to seed art as inquiry: what is successful peer mentoring?

Instructions:

Your Final Project for this course is to take the concepts we have explored each week and create a resource that you can incorporate into your teaching. The project outline has been structured to allow you to tailor the content to the context in which you teach so that it can be most useful.  The goal of this final project assignment is to give you an opportunity to practice with the concepts from the class in a forum where you can share ideas and get feedback from your peers.  The required peer assessment process will also give you the opportunity to see the ideas that others come up with.  Be creative!  This is your chance to apply the course concepts to real-world situations.

The brief itself was buried somewhere in the site – I did not find it – but fortunately Kelcy Allwein did and shared it in our FB site.

I know that there will be many great projects that harness the brief much more successfully than I – for example Dave Barr’s lesson and resources – on a Roman bust: http://innogenesis.info/2013/08/teachers-guide-for-inquiry-based-art-learning/

But, here are the questions – and my answers to them. I’ve left the Peer Review questions in…

Your assignment is to select an artwork that you would like to use as the starting point for an inquiry based lesson in your classroom. 

1. Subject Area: Peer Mentor Training – lesson *Art as Inquiry*

Class size – 12 students expected - Journalism students.

2. Intended grade level range: 

Third/Second year University students (UK).

3. Artwork Selection: 

For this activity I would not use one artwork – what I will use are a range of A4 photographs that I have and that have been printed on to ordinary office paper. The photographs were taken in the 1960s, they are Black and White and documentary in type. The images in the photographs include railway tracks, loaded carts pushed by struggling ‘peasants, young people walking hand in hand, a young girl smoking, footprints in the sand, goods on a market stall, African masks, a tree in a desert, an old woman cradling a baby, a sculpture in the distance – possibly an African sculpture, puppets, head dresses, a man cycling carrying an overloaded basket… The ‘point’ is to have a completely diverse range of images that in no way obviously pertain to the question that I set the students.

4. Artwork Title: the artworks are various

I will be using a selection of A4 photographs – I cannot upload the pictures of them here because I am currently on vacation and they are in my office at work… BUT – the images here are not the point – they could be pictures of *any* artwork – the point is to use them as a launching point for student inquiry into another topic. That is – I am using art as inquiry into student expectations, hopes, fears and beliefs about peer mentoring.

5. Artist – various

The artist is not the point, neither really is the picture or the pictures… the point is the student inquiry into why they have chosen a picture and what it might mean to them in the context of the field of study…

6. Date – 1960s

I have a collection of black and white photographs from the 1960’s they are documentary in nature and capture the flavour of a different time to this one. This is useful for this means that today’s students will have no obvious links to the pictures and will be able to use them to explore their own thought processes.

7. Materials:

• The A4 photographs – a whole collection of them – there are many more photographs than students.
• ‘Reflections’ sheet – with questions: ‘What is successful peer mentoring? What photograph did you choose? Look again at your photograph – what do you see? How does this photograph answer the question, ‘What is successful peer mentoring?’?

Evaluation Phase: Is the artwork developmentally appropriate?

Theme/Connection to Curriculum: Briefly describe the theme or connection to the curriculum:

I will be training students to mentor other students. I do not want the students to teach the other students – nor to tell them what to do or not to do… I want the mentors to support inquiry in their mentees – and to give their mentees space to ask questions – but then to think about the answers for themselves. I want this process to help the potential mentors realise the power of inquiry – and the power of the open-ended question. I want them to see that there are many answers to one question – and many different ways of seeing the world. I want the mentors to use art as inquiry – and to think about using art to seed their own thought processes – both in the training session and in their future practice as mentors, as students and as journalists.

As they interrogate their own picture choice – literally exploring in more detail what is in a picture – then considering how it answers the question that I have set them – I am hoping they go on a journey of discovery.

As we build on the initial photograph choice and discussions – I hope they appreciate the value of listening – and of considering what other people have to say. I hope they experience and understand the nature of listening…

Thus the point of this activity is the way they interact with their artwork – and then the way they discuss their artwork with others. This PROCESS of art as inquiry is designed to model the mentoring relationship that I am trying to prepare them for…

The B&W documentary style pictures that I will use will feel perhaps familiar in that these are journalism students and the photographs are documentary in nature – at the same time, they are distanciated from the students’ own experiences and I hope this strangeness enables them to see differently – and frees them to discuss with less certainty…

Evaluation Phase: Does the artwork that was chosen clearly relate to the theme/curriculum connection

Include three open-ended questions related to the artwork in the sequence they would be presented: 

1. Please choose a picture that answers the question: What is successful peer mentoring? NB: This is not a trick – I have not buried the one ‘right’ picture in the pile. The point is to find the picture that speaks to you – that answers the question for you. Please take your time to look at all the pictures – and NO you cannot choose more than one picture!
2. Now that you have chosen your picture – please look at it again. Take time to really *see* your picture. What literally is in there? Describe your picture in no more than 45 words.
3. Now look again at your picture. How does it answer the question: What is successful peer mentoring?  If you wish – make a few notes on your Reflection sheet…

Evaluation Phase: Are the questions open-ended? Do the questions support the theme? Do the questions invite multiple responses?

Include 3 bullet points of information about the artwork that is related to the theme/curriculum connection:

• They are all B&W documentary style pictures
• They are pictures taken in the 1960s – they are not of immediate meaning to my young, multicultural students
• They are on a range of subjects – again they are not immediately relevant to the life experiences of the students that I expect to engage in this activity. They are not on the topic of peer mentoring. Thus for them the meanings are in fact open ended – even if when they first engage in the activity they may think that the meanings are closed and obvious.

Evaluation Phase: Does the information support the exploration of the object? Is the information relevant to a conversation about the object?

Include an activity (multi-modal approach) for this artwork and include the following:
1. Brief description of activity: What will the students do? (i.e. writing, drawing,

movement):

* Looking – thinking – brief writing

First the students will be invited to choose a picture that to them answers the question: What is successful peer mentoring? They will then be invited to look again at their picture and really *see* it – they will be invited to write a description of their picture in no more than 45 words. After that – they will be asked to consider how their picture answers the question – and make notes if they wish.

* Pairs – discussion – comparison – thinking

After this phase – students will be asked to pair up and share their pictures and their readings and the meanings they are drawing from the pictures.

* Pairs – writing two six word essays together

Following this they will be asked to answer the following questions – in writing – six words only per topic:

I hope peer mentoring is:

I hope peer mentoring is NOT:

* Plenary1: Sharing the writing

In pairs – show your pictures and read out your two six word essays… Discuss.

* Plenary2: Reflecting on this process of art as inquiry: discussion

What have we/you learned about peer mentoring through this very open-ended process? How do you think this will help you in the peer mentoring that is to come?

2. Directions: How will you introduce this activity and what directions will you give your students?

I would say:

To start our day of peer mentor training, we are first going to engage in an art activity. I am going to ask you to explore the photographs over there – and for each of you to choose the *one* picture that for you answers the question: What is successful peer mentoring?  This is not a trick – there is no one right answer picture buried in there. The point is for you to find and explore a picture that answers the question for you… Once you have all chosen your pictures – I will ask you to think about your individual choice in some depth – and with some writing – and then ask you to discuss them in pairs – and to engage in some very concise writing about them. We will move on to two final reflections in a plenary – pulling the activities together to help us think about being successful peer mentors.

3. Goals: What are your goals for including the activity in the conversation?

The goal is for students to explore peer mentoring from a completely fresh perspective. The artwork that each student chooses will help them inquire into their own preconceptions about peer mentoring – at the same time they will be invited to extend their original thoughts – first by describing the artwork in more detail, which should help them see it afresh… Then in thinking about how their picture does answer the question…

As they engage in pair work on the artworks chosen – first in discussion – then in really condensed writing – they are modelling successful peer mentoring practice as they articulate that practice.

The two plenaries should help draw the whole session together – one being a ‘lessons learned about peer mentoring’ – and the other a meta-reflection on the activity as a whole in relation to peer mentoring…

I think this whole activity models art as inquiry in a creative way!

Evaluation Phase: Does the activity relate to the artwork? Are the instructions/prompts clear? Is the activity developmentally appropriate?

*** Acknowledgements: I have not invented the idea of using images to start a conversation about a topic to be studied. I was introduced to the practice by a colleague at work, Dave Griffiths; I was given my B&W documentary style photographs by another colleague, David Jacques. What I have done here is to really think about how to use the 'close looking and seeing' part of #artinquiry to bring new life this this 'image mediated dialogue' process... I have also utilised the very short writing activity from the course - but adapted it so that my students will be writing two six-word essays seeded by their reflections on their artworks - and answering questions on the topic we are starting to study. ***

Next - peer review!

#artinquiry: New lessons for practice: Kelcy Allwein on El Anatsui’s Bleeding Takari II; Ary Aranguiz on tech tools and lesson plans; and Cathleen Nardi’s SlideShare on Art as Inquiry and Inquiry as Learning

This #artinquiry MOOC has provoked much thought and active engagement - and as always I've learned so much through the blogs and other posts from colleagues in the MOOC - so this week my blog post takes a different slant - and shares some of what I have learned from my friends... 

Kelcy Allwein - teaching El Anatsui
First, here's Kelcy’s great post on her artwork and how to teach it:"I chose El Anatsui’s Bleeding Takari II because of my interest in both installation art and artwork that is created through found objects.  As I researched Anatsui and looked at other installations of Bleeding Takari II, I was awestruck by the fluidity of this medium that comes from metal bottle caps yet seems as supple as fabric.   When you first see the thumbnail, Bleeding Takari II appears like an oil painting.  Yet this artwork changes each time it is installed somewhere so that there is the possibility for multiple interpretations just from the changing folds, shadows and pooling of the red caps… 
 
I can see a wall and its impact when I look at the Bleeding Takari II.  It speaks to me of a wall where many have shed their blood to climb it or tear it down.  It is reminiscent in some ways of the walls between East & West Germany during the Soviet era when East Germans were shot trying to escape by climbing over  the wall.  The bodies are not there in this artwork but it seems scarred with their blood.  While Anatsui took inspiration from three cities; his current country of residence (Nigeria) has a great deal of  violence that harms many who try to tear down literal and figurative walls to freedom.  But I like that Anatsui says that walls do not block the imaginative view (some of his other artworks show that clearly).  This is where I would put the focus of my questions to my students." 
 

El Anatsui was born in Ghana and now resides in Nigeria. The MOMA online display states that 'El Anatsui creates sculptures that allude to contemporary consumer habits and to the history of colonialism in his home nation and in his current country of residence, Nigeria'.  However, I think it is much more than that especially after looking at the Brooklyn Museum exhibit (on through Aug 18) and listening to him speak  - as well as my own experience in working with found objects that people touch personally.  On the exhibition page for the Brooklyn Museum, they state:

'El Anatsui became interested in the notion of walls as religious, political, and social constructs after visiting three cities whose histories have been shaped by such structures: Berlin, Jerusalem, and Notsie, a city in Togo from which his Ewe ancestors claim descent. Gli can mean “wall,” “disrupt,” or “story” in the Ewe language. “Walls are meant to block views,” Anatsui says, “but they block only the view of the eye—the ocular view— not the imaginative view. When the eye scans a certain barrier, the imagination tends to go beyond that barrier. Walls reveal more things than they hide.(http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/el_anatsui/#!lb_uri=gli_detail.php)'

Teaching Anatsui:

"I would start by asking a series of questions at different distances from the Bleeding Takari II.  The first vantage point would be 15-25 feet away so that was not easy to see the materials that make up the artwork – instead you get a sense of the whole picture where the wall seems readily visible.   Here I would ask the students to look at it for a few minutes and then ask what they thought the story was behind this artwork and how it made them feel.  If no one brought up walls, I would tell them how El Anatsui used walls for inspiration from three cities – Berlin, Jerusalem and Notsie.   I would then ask about the walls in those three cities (and prepared to give additional information as needed) and how those walls have impacted people in various ways.   Before we moved from here, I would also ask the students what material they thought the Takari was made out of.   However, I would not share this information yet but see if they could make it out as they moved closer.

Next we would move as close as possible to the Bleeding Takari II.  I would ask the students to look at it from all angles including the side. If possible, I would ask them to touch the artwork – to feel the bottle caps – to look at how they are placed on the floor.  If not allowed to touch the artwork, I would have a small handmade sample available.  I would also have several other photographs from other installations of the Takari to show that is indeed malleable and changeable.   I have included one that I found through Google image search.  I would ask their thoughts on how the artwork is constructed and if they knew what the materials were (I would tell them at this point if no one realized it was bottlecaps) and how it was constructed (how the bottlecaps were woven together).   I would also ask if they felt the same feelings now that they knew how the artwork was made and whether they saw any new stories from a closer point of view.

Then we would move back to the first spot 15-25 feet away and I would give them the quote from Anatsui about walls not being able to block the imaginative view.  I would ask them to think about this quote as they look again at this artwork and then describe how they feel it opens their imagination."

References:

El Anatsui: Art and Life, by Susan M. Vogel http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3791346504/wnycorg-20/

Brooklyn Museum Exhibition webpage “Gravity and race:  Monumental Works by El Anatsui”, Feb 8 -Aug 18, 2013 (Includes a video interview with El Anatsui.)

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/el_anatsui/# 

MOMA webpage

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A5%7CG%3AHI%3AE%3A1&page_number=47&template_id=1&sort_order=2

Interview with Susan Vogel and El Anatsui  (scroll down to select the specific podcast)

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2013/feb/15/

Alternate Installation of Bleeding Takari II showing a variation in the folds

http://www.art21.org/images/el-anatsui/bleeding-takari-2008 "

Additional ideas, resources and links from Ary Araguiz and Cathleen Nardi

And some great additional ideas for using art in the classroom – and thinking about using art in the classroom from Ary Aranguiz and Cathleen Nardi – without whose blogs and other posts my life would have been a lot less interesting:

Ary’s great ideas for using art in the classroom - as inquiry and as critical thinking:

http://alltheworldisamooc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/momas-mooc-global-inquiry-around-art.html?

And her tech tools suggestions – and lesson plan:

http://alltheworldisamooc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/digital-tools-to-design-art-museum.html?

Cathleen’s excellent PPT on how to prepare for and think about using art as inquiry:

http://www.slideshare.net/cnardi/art-inquiry-in-any-classroom

CODA: And here’s one we made earlier: friendship quilt as reflective practice

In a project that I was on (www.learnhigher.ac.uk), 2005-2010, we decided that as well as the formal end of project report, we would produce a friendship quilt that covered each of the 20 areas that we had been studying. Each one of us made a piece that reflected our experiences of working on the project and Pauline Ridley, of Brighton University, put the whole quilt together. I imagine doing this at the end of the year with a group of students. Each one makes one reflective piece - then we get together to sew the quilt - and perhaps film this sewing ... at the end we would have a quilt and a reflective documentary of the year...