One of our most popular centers, this one even has hot glue guns! Here is the place you can come by to explore ideas related to cardboard and paper construction. We have engineers who design airplanes, catapults, space craft, boats, robots and a multitude of other futuristic creations.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Invention Center!
One of our most popular centers, this one even has hot glue guns! Here is the place you can come by to explore ideas related to cardboard and paper construction. We have engineers who design airplanes, catapults, space craft, boats, robots and a multitude of other futuristic creations.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
The Block Center
Our children love to work in the block center. It is a place where mysterious, adventure filled environments can be created. The block center is always busy where construction crews and designers engage in creating cities of the future and recreate battle scenes from recent history and the distant future. There is always a story to be told here, problems to be formed and solved. The block center is one of our most important centers in the NPE Art Room.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
IU South Bend Conference
We had a fantastic conference at IUSB! My sincerest thanks goes to Norman and Dr. Micheline Nilsen for inviting me to participate in this wonderful event!Dr. Marvin Bartel delivered one of the most important keynotes I have ever listened to: "Learning and Assessing Imagination as Intelligence." The gold nugget of his presentation? "Children are the designers and engineers of the adults they will become." Translation? The kinds of early childhood learning experiences available to children are so important. Using and refining one's imaginative capabilities during the developmental years is so important for intellectual growth. Creative and divergent thinking capacities are refined during this critical phase.
I am so happy I am a choice based art teacher (Thanks Clark, Kathy, Diane and John!). I would not want to be anywhere else right now.
In the picture above, Miriam Marcus, a choice based art teacher who teaches at an urban high school in Flint, Michigan (pictured third from the left), shared with me the challenges and joys of employing choice pedagogy with her students. One of the stories she shared with me about students she taught knitting and crocheting was amazing. Her students create all kinds of hats, blankets and other clothing articles and accessories with wooden sticks and dowl rods.....those kids are working on their art all the time and it means a great deal to them to be able to use their new found knitting and crocheting skills. Students are creating art from a truly personal context. I was truly humbled after talking with her.
I was also able to meet other art teachers from Indiana, Michigan and N.Y.! Many folks were very interested in the choice approach after our presentions. I was more than happy to spread the gospel. What a great conference.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
IUSB Art Education Conference Info
Visual Arts in Education Conference Friday, March 27, 2009
sponsored by the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts, Indiana University South Bend
Abstract: This conference invites art educators and classroom teachers to a professional
day including presentations, roundtable discussions and studio activities. It engages the "issues
of the day" regarding assessment, qualitative learning, art across the curriculum and making the
arts inclusive.
day including presentations, roundtable discussions and studio activities. It engages the "issues
of the day" regarding assessment, qualitative learning, art across the curriculum and making the
arts inclusive.
Program
8:45- Meet and greet - coffee
9:00- 11:45 morning session in Northside- Recital Hall
Welcome: Marvin Curtis, Dean of the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts
Presentations:
Learning and Assessing Imagination as Intelligence
Marvin Bartel, Ed.D, Art Education, Emeritus Professor of Art, Goshen College
Art and the Mental Processes
Mary Beth Di Gann, Art specialist, Perley Art Academy, South Bend Community School Corporation, Teacher of the year, 2000.
An Introduction to Choice-Based Art Education
Clyde Gaw, Art teacher, New Palestine Elementary School, Indianapolis
Art Education Association of Indiana- Chair Arts Advocacy Committee
Round Table discussions with presenters.
12:00 Lunch (provided for teachers)
1:00-3:30 Afternoon session in Fine Arts studios
Studios:activities and demonstrations to “take-to-the-classroom”
Nyame O. Brown, artist and University of Notre Dame faculty
Bruna Wynn, artist, designer and art teacher at Clay H.S. South Bend
Alan Larkin, artist and IU South Bend faculty, printmaking
Ron Monsma, artist and IU South Bend faculty, pastel drawing
Digital image workshop:
Downloading visual image resources (bring USB drive)
Registration: Teachers and educators may register by e-mail. nnilsen@iusb.edu
A certificate of attendance will be provided to teachers.
Contact: mnilsen@iusb.edu
Micheline Nilsen, Ph.D., Visual Arts Coordinator, Assistant Professor of Art History
Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts, Indiana University South Bend, 1700 Mishawaka Avenue, South Bend, IN 46634-7111
This conference is free and open to the public.
Visual Arts in Education Conference Friday, March 27, 2009
sponsored by the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts, Indiana University South Bend
About the presentations:
Learning and Assessing Imagination as Intelligence
Marvin Bartel, Ed.D, Art Education, Emeritus Professor of Art, Goshen College
Art learning is a complex multifaceted endeavor that Prof. Bartel calls “Flying Lessons.” He compares common art learning and assessment methods in terms of power to inspire, to influence a student’s thinking habits, and to develop an imaginative mind. He presents the strategies for critiques, grading and teaching achieved in a “studio classroom culture.” How do students become prepared and informed; how do they become inspired to imagine, to materialize, to elaborate, and to refine authentic and evocative artwork?
Art and the Mental Processes
Mary Beth Di Gann, Art specialist, Perley Art Academy, South Bend Community School Corporation, Teacher of the year, 2000
What is the current research relating to the benefits of visual arts for students and integrating teaching visual arts throughout the curriculum? In her presentation, both informational and experiential, Mary Beth Di Gann shares her experiences as a teacher at a “magnet” school of the arts, a founder and director of Community Kids Network (an after-school program featuring the arts) and a curriculum developer
An Introduction to Choice-Based Art Education
Clyde Gaw, Art teacher, New Palestine Elementary School, Indianapolis, IN, Art Education Association of Indiana- Chair of Arts Advocacy Committee, interdisciplinary curriculum implementer Choice-Based Art Education fosters imaginative and creative growth by motivating children through the method of teaching for artistic behavior. Choice teachers frequently integrate language arts, technology and other subject areas within this teaching method. Clyde Gaw writes “Nothing in education is more powerful than authentic, student-directed, student-centered learning experiences constructed from the bottom up.” He presents how this innovative “art education concept allows students opportunities to take
ownership of their art experiences from conception to completion with teacher acting as classroom manager, environmental designer, art expert, facilitator, and student mentor.”
Studios - hands-on activities and demonstrations to take to the classroom
Nyame O. Brown, artist and University of Notre Dame faculty and Bruna Wynn, artist, designer and art teacher at Clay H.S. South Bend Community School Corporation
Together Nyame Brown and Bruna Wynn conduct a workshop related to their teaching experiences with community based art programs in the city of Chicago. They will show student artwork and demonstrate some contemporary methods of “non-press” printmaking.
Alan Larkin, artist and IU South Bend faculty, printmaking
Ron Monsma, artist and IU South Bend faculty, pastel drawing
Digital image workshop: downloading visual image resources (bring USB drive)
Monday, January 26, 2009
Dynamic Learning through the Visual Arts
The viability of art education programs are entering a critical phase in many school districts across Indiana and the United States. As state revenues decline and school budgets, presently cut to the bone, shrink even further, many decision makers responsible for shaping curricula may be tempted to marginalize programs vital to creative growth experiences necessary for fully developing the intellectual capacities of our children .
When I think of most of the educational activities in today’s classrooms, I think of student’s intellectual development facilitated primarily by listening, reading and writing linguistic and mathematical forms of symbolic information. Children spend much of their time in school completing paper and pencil selected response work sheets designed to prepare them for high stakes testing events. Learning in most 21st Century classrooms today require children to place a high priority on information processing. Don’t get me wrong, it is the role of our educational institutions to impart knowledge and skills upon our young learners. The problem is this: human beings are hard wired to think and dream with a multitude of sensory information in addition to using their visual imagination. It is hard to promote creative growth and divergent thinking capacity if children are deprived of learning experiences that do not stimulate these areas of the human mind. Creativity will be a critical component to the success of our future citizenry. Higher level thinking skills related to creativity cannot be developed within our children if they are deprived of experiences that promote such forms of learning.
Within our schools, the art room is that unique place where children are allowed to experiment, imagine, create and express personal ideas using a myriad of visual forms, artist materials, techniques and technologies. Much of visual arts education learning requires students to execute the steps to represent and convey ideas in two, three, or four dimensions. This requires individuals to develop the ability to focus their attention on a vast array of quality control details. The assembly of these qualities within an art work requires a synchronization of consciousness with imagination and the sensory, emotive and cognitive realms.
David Ausubel, the influential American cognitive psychologist defined meaningful learning as experiences where learners actively interact and interpret information and are engaged in substantive mental operations with the educational content they are to learn. He could have been describing the artistic process when he made this statement. Art teachers do not boast when claiming visual arts learning experiences can lead to transformational change within their students.
Scientific research by Nobel Laureate, Eric Kandel showed that stimulating sensorial activity boosts long term memory formation in neurological structures by the extra production of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Neural networks are strengthened and expanded when learners are engaged in stimulating, meaningful experience. Scientists and researchers using the latest medical imaging technology report rhizome like bundles of neural pathways interconnected throughout the human brain, illuminate like Christmas tree lights when subjects are engaged in meaningful activity. Likewise, the neural pathways are dimmed when cognitive activity is passive or repetitive.
From an educational perspective, Kandel’s research means regular opportunities for visual arts experiences can lead to increased cognitive capacity and expand learning and memory capability in the human brain. The hands, eyes, ears and body are the agents of cognition. Educational settings and experiences where students are reduced to passive recipients of knowledge produce learning experiences that are inadequate and unsatisfactory to learners. Regular visual arts experiences in our schools matter because without them, educators run the risk of providing a schooling experience that goes into one ear and out the other. Children thrive in school environments when they have access to the fine arts.
A citizenry populated with creative, divergent, imaginative thinkers will be most beneficial to this state’s future prosperity. Ideas and intellectual property dependent upon visual thinkers will become assets in the new economy of the 21st Century. The refinement of the imagination as developed through the visual arts will provide future designers, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators, professionals and others with the creative edge they will need to compete in an increasingly competitive and uncertain future. Brainstorming without perceptive, imaginative counterparts becomes an exercise of inconsequential group think.
References
Center on Education Policy. (2007). Choices, Changes and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era. Retrieved 01/11/09 from: http://www.cep-dc.org/
Driscoll, M.P. (1994) Psychology of Learning for Instruction,
Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Eisner, E. W. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Gajdamaschko, N. (2005) "Vygotsky on Imagination: Why an understanding of the imagination is an important issue for schoolteachers." Teaching Education, 16(1), pp. 13-22.
Gaw, C. (2008) “A Rationale for the prevention of future failures of imagination,” Retrieved 01/14/09 from: www.clydegaw.blogspot.com
Kandel, E. (2006) In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.
Greenspan, S., Shanker, H. (2004) The First Idea: How Symbols, Language and Intelligence Evolved from Our First Ancestors. Cambridge, Mass. De Capo Press
Winner, E., Hetland, L. (2007) Art for our sake. NAEA News, 49(6). Reprinted with permission from the Boston Globe.
When I think of most of the educational activities in today’s classrooms, I think of student’s intellectual development facilitated primarily by listening, reading and writing linguistic and mathematical forms of symbolic information. Children spend much of their time in school completing paper and pencil selected response work sheets designed to prepare them for high stakes testing events. Learning in most 21st Century classrooms today require children to place a high priority on information processing. Don’t get me wrong, it is the role of our educational institutions to impart knowledge and skills upon our young learners. The problem is this: human beings are hard wired to think and dream with a multitude of sensory information in addition to using their visual imagination. It is hard to promote creative growth and divergent thinking capacity if children are deprived of learning experiences that do not stimulate these areas of the human mind. Creativity will be a critical component to the success of our future citizenry. Higher level thinking skills related to creativity cannot be developed within our children if they are deprived of experiences that promote such forms of learning.
Within our schools, the art room is that unique place where children are allowed to experiment, imagine, create and express personal ideas using a myriad of visual forms, artist materials, techniques and technologies. Much of visual arts education learning requires students to execute the steps to represent and convey ideas in two, three, or four dimensions. This requires individuals to develop the ability to focus their attention on a vast array of quality control details. The assembly of these qualities within an art work requires a synchronization of consciousness with imagination and the sensory, emotive and cognitive realms.
David Ausubel, the influential American cognitive psychologist defined meaningful learning as experiences where learners actively interact and interpret information and are engaged in substantive mental operations with the educational content they are to learn. He could have been describing the artistic process when he made this statement. Art teachers do not boast when claiming visual arts learning experiences can lead to transformational change within their students.
Scientific research by Nobel Laureate, Eric Kandel showed that stimulating sensorial activity boosts long term memory formation in neurological structures by the extra production of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Neural networks are strengthened and expanded when learners are engaged in stimulating, meaningful experience. Scientists and researchers using the latest medical imaging technology report rhizome like bundles of neural pathways interconnected throughout the human brain, illuminate like Christmas tree lights when subjects are engaged in meaningful activity. Likewise, the neural pathways are dimmed when cognitive activity is passive or repetitive.
From an educational perspective, Kandel’s research means regular opportunities for visual arts experiences can lead to increased cognitive capacity and expand learning and memory capability in the human brain. The hands, eyes, ears and body are the agents of cognition. Educational settings and experiences where students are reduced to passive recipients of knowledge produce learning experiences that are inadequate and unsatisfactory to learners. Regular visual arts experiences in our schools matter because without them, educators run the risk of providing a schooling experience that goes into one ear and out the other. Children thrive in school environments when they have access to the fine arts.
A citizenry populated with creative, divergent, imaginative thinkers will be most beneficial to this state’s future prosperity. Ideas and intellectual property dependent upon visual thinkers will become assets in the new economy of the 21st Century. The refinement of the imagination as developed through the visual arts will provide future designers, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators, professionals and others with the creative edge they will need to compete in an increasingly competitive and uncertain future. Brainstorming without perceptive, imaginative counterparts becomes an exercise of inconsequential group think.
References
Center on Education Policy. (2007). Choices, Changes and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era. Retrieved 01/11/09 from: http://www.cep-dc.org/
Driscoll, M.P. (1994) Psychology of Learning for Instruction,
Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Eisner, E. W. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Gajdamaschko, N. (2005) "Vygotsky on Imagination: Why an understanding of the imagination is an important issue for schoolteachers." Teaching Education, 16(1), pp. 13-22.
Gaw, C. (2008) “A Rationale for the prevention of future failures of imagination,” Retrieved 01/14/09 from: www.clydegaw.blogspot.com
Kandel, E. (2006) In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.
Greenspan, S., Shanker, H. (2004) The First Idea: How Symbols, Language and Intelligence Evolved from Our First Ancestors. Cambridge, Mass. De Capo Press
Winner, E., Hetland, L. (2007) Art for our sake. NAEA News, 49(6). Reprinted with permission from the Boston Globe.
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