Week 2
BLOG POST #1:
Strategic Modeling: Balancing Structure with Choice
“My goals are to create situations where all students feel that they
have a clear understanding of a framework that can guide them in their
work. This means there is some modeling that I will do for a whole class and
some modeling that I will share only with students who are struggling. The
continual dance is to find examples to share that provide enough information
for students to move forward while maintaining their own, individualized
processes of creation” (Block, 2013).
As an ART TEACHER, I found this part of the article to be the most
meaningful. With every new project that
we create in class, there are many levels of student understanding, engagement,
and interest. Although I think it is
important to teach to the lowest student in the class, I have found that if I
don’t give the students in my classroom the time to figure out a process of
their, on a given project, than we end up with a lot of very similar projects
with very little personal expression.
Early in my educational career, I found myself “spoon feeding” all of
the students, even when I didn’t need to.
With experience, I have found that the students actually do better on
projects where the guidelines are not as precisely “spelled out”. This forces the students to come up with some
of the creative process on their own and it has definitely enhanced the artwork
production in even my lowest level classes.
Reference:
Block, Joshua. “Strategic Modeling: Balancing Structure with
Choice.” Edutopia. Science Leadership
Academy in Philadelphia. 28 Oct. 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
Hi Phillip,
ReplyDeleteI also commented on this article after I read it. It's interesting to see how these concepts can be applied to education in any discipline. I applied the information to my role as a dental hygiene educator, while you did to teaching art. Nice work.
-Sam
I have to agree with you on "spoon feeding" the students with all of the information presented. However, I feel it becomes more beneficial for students to actually learn from their mistakes and discover new ideas on their own. I do like the idea of giving students some opportunities within a certain project so they can show their abilities to be creative and discover new ideas. Thanks
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