Teaching artistry

I taught my first art lesson today. Ever. Passing colleagues were a little surprised to see me teaching in the art room, completely out of context. Normally I'm found teaching a session on educational theory or psychology, or information and communication technologies. Teaching an art lesson is therefore a little outside my comfort zone. And yet, earlier today, I found myself surrounded by students with easels, wielding pencils, as we conducted a drawing class.

The drawing session was a part of our BA degree in Education Studies, and the module we were teaching - 'Creativity in Education' - which encourages students to explore through embodied practice the theoretical and practical relationships between education and creativity.  Throughout the year we will be exploring creativity through a range of activities, including dance, photography, video, music, and art. During the module the students will be asked to keep a reflective blog or video diary. At the end of the module they will present their work as a creative portfolio, and the final session will see a public performance of their work. Many of the sessions will involve some aspect of learning by making, a powerful pedagogical method also known as constructionism.

I say the drawing session was outside my normal comfort zone, because it is quite a departure from my normal teaching topics. And yet those who know me will recall that when I was younger I studied fine art and graphic design for a couple of years at Hereford College of Art. I have never stopped being an artist. Whether painting a water colour landscape (my favourite medium) or making a new slideshow for a talk, I always try to portray my ideas creatively, in a manner that is pleasing to the eye. Although I have never given an art lesson before, it seemed fairly natural to me to do so now. With the students we explored a range of drawing activities, from conventional still life drawing, through to speed drawing, where the objects were constantly changing. Of particular interest to me, as always, was the conversation I had with the students as we were working. Many also admitted to being outside their comfort zones as they participated in the drawing exercises, because they professed no skill or expertise in art. Their willingness to engage spoke volumes, because ultimately, the session was not about learning how to draw, but learning an appreciation about how creativity can be applied to classroom layout, curriculum design and teaching. One aim of the module is to encourage students to think creatively about education, using their imagination, and exploring a variety of perspectives on how creativity can be unleashed in the current school systems.

Most of us would acknowledge that teaching is an art as well as a science. There is a certain artistry that educators need to acquire and practice if they want success in the classroom. Teaching is a performance, and those who are creative are constantly able to reinvent lessons, resources and spaces. Creative teachers tend not to worry too much about barriers or constraints, but are constantly seeking solutions and new ways to do things, to improve and enhance learning. Too often, teachers and learners are constrained by their environment, time, school culture, legislation or simply not having access to appropriate resources. Probably the worst barrier to good teaching and learning though, turns out to be lack of imagination.

"Anything can make you look, but only art can make you see."

Image source


Teaching artistry  by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learning with robots

In a previous blog post I wrote about learning by making, and discussed the theory of constructionism, which holds that we learn through immersing ourselves in, and engaging with situations. Not to be confused with constructivism (the theory first proposed in its cognitive form by Jean Piaget, and in its social form by Levrenti Vygotskii). A lot of research into learning by making was conducted by Seymour Papert, with notable learning tools such as the LOGO programming language being developed. As far as Papert is concerned, learning in this manner is important because it is a departure from transmission models of education, enabling us to construct and reconstruct knowledge in our own unique ways. One of the first uses for LOGO was to enable children to program a floor robot, giving it instructions to move around the room and perform simple tasks. This remains a very effective learning device - children love the idea of robots, and enjoy being able to control them. When used in conjunction with other talks, floor robots such as Beebot can become very powerful in introducing children to new ideas and new skills, and can encourage them to experiment, learn from their mistakes and develop higher cognitive processes.

This video demonstrates how the theory can be applied to scaffold children's numeracy skills



Learning with robots by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Learning by making

The transmission model of learning is still dominant in education. Whether you are in a primary or secondary school classroom, or in a lecture hall or laboratory in a university, you will almost always see the teacher or lecturer directing proceedings, often from the front, usually 'instructing' their students in some way. You may also witness other, underlying pedagogical models playing out, usually where students are asked to do some group work or find out for themselves through individual project work. Whilst these approaches to learning are often more effective for personalised and collaborative learning, they tend to be kept to a minimum in most cases, because teachers like to maintain some level of control over their students, and finite time and resources constrain them. So passive reception often becomes the dominant mode of learning in traditional environments.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was involved in nurse education, I introduced a project where students were given an entire day to create a 5 minute video on a subject directly related to their course. In groups of threes and fours, the student nurses were sent out to conceive their video, script and storyboard it, decide on roles, procure their props, scout out shooting locations, record their video, and then edit it. Then, during the final hour of the day, each group introduced, showed and discussed their 5 minute video. Many of my colleagues were sceptical about the value of this kind of approach to learning. They argued that it was a waste of time when the nurses could be studying their text books, writing their essays, or practicing how to give injections into oranges. I countered that the students were, in fact, engaged in a very high level of cognitive activity where they were engaged in learning by making. It wasn't until a few years later when I discovered the work of Seymour Papert (now one of my Facebook friends!), that I was able to build a theoretical framework around the nurses video project. In his theory of constructionism, Papert argued that we build mental representations of what we learn, and that the situated nature of where we learn influences and strengthens that representation. In other words, we learn by doing and building within relevant environments, and that authentic tasks can be very powerful in support of that situated learning.

At the time I showed my colleagues that the nursing students were learning numerous skills that they would later be able to transfer across into their professional practice. To successfully complete their video project they needed to be able to solve problems, create content, construct artefacts, take decisions and make critical judgements, work together as a team, divide their labour and select appropriate tasks, manage their time, think creatively, negotiate difficult situations, consider ethical issues, work with finite resources, successfully bring a task to completion and reflect on their practice. How many of these skills could be modelled and situated within a classroom in such a short period of time?  The very act of constructing something tangible allows students to test out hypotheses, learn from each other and solve problems as they progress. Abstract ideas and concepts become concrete and are situated in real life contexts. These are essential skills for 21st Century working. It is for these reasons that making things is a central part of all my courses, and whether it is a video, podcast, blog or any other digital artefact, students gain ownership, and invest their energies and their ingenuity into making and presenting it. In so doing they are constructing their own versions of knowledge and developing the skills they will later need outside in the world of work.

Photo by Ah Zut


Learning by making by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.