Category Archives: 517: Visual Arts Research

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The past week has been rough. Most of my graduate work has been put on the back burner as well as some of my work “to do’s”. I had an eight grade student at my school commit suicide. He was an honor student on the basketball team that had–not only home life issues– but was being bullied. After an event where he ran away from home, he found a gun and took his life. It has shocked much of our school, and this past Friday, and Sunday I spent at the candle light vigil and wake. Seeing my students torn apart, and in tears has been quit hard. I have grown to love these kids as if they were my own; and, I just want to hold them and support them and tell them time will be the only thing that can distance them from the immediate pain. Much of the staff went the funeral this morning, and I helped out the other teachers at my building by subbing in on their classes. My mind has not been where it needs to be, and I know find much of my own tasks daunting.
With all this said, I have been trying to get out to take more pictures, but my time I generally spent making installations for my art show. Being at school is hard. Both buildings are undergoing depressing circumstances. I feel as though I can not deal with either. I find it hard to complete the tasks I have to complete. I hope to find some progress in the work load, but I am afraid spring break might be the only time I have to catch up. The next two weeks I will be struggling to keep my head above water.

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Memo 3

Brette

 

I’m trying to develop a self- guided curriculum for four, individual students where the role of the teacher (ME) takes on more of the role as a co- learner and collaborator. Reading about the philosophy of the Reggio Emilia approach has really motivated my research as well.  Currently, I am forming lessons based on my students’ interests but also trying to developing long term projects as vehicles for future teaching within this specific population…  I’ve been carrying out lesson plans with selected students, moving towards individual IEP goals, while also developing specific objectives. Im also looking to present, clear and adaptive devices for my students through exploration of materials I have available and also allowing for more of choice based learning. It can be  really difficult trying to realize the countertransferences and being able to recognize when my kids need emotional support in class. Before beginning these lessons, I really researched and assessed the characteristics of the disabilities and also am trying to form  extensions that continue to challenge this population. I have also been keeping a behavior journal documenting difficulties I encounter on a daily basis.

With my ED student ( as Wexler suggested in her book) I asked him to write about a memory in his sketchbook, specifically a place … and then connect the memory to a sensory experience by making an identity box. He did not want to do this- he drew a picture and then wanted to work with the scratch boards and hatching tools. I did present him with some visual examples of the identity boxes but he completely dismissed the idea. The end result was a contoured drawing of a girl, his sister, who had committed suicide. I feel that he did however identify himself aesthetically although he chose another material to work with …. The end result was an emotional manifestation but he is very proud of this work. I am planning on continuing working more with this student through drawing exercises that exhibit personal outcomes that are meaningful to him.

My ADHD student is working on printmaking currently-  he was not in school today so hopefully we can continue the carving tomorrow.  He has become obsessed with celebrities lately, so I am doing a pop culture/ andy warhol independent project with him. ( More pictures to come, there is a Danny Devito piece that is actually really hilarious.) He will be using individual print blocks to create portraits and also learn about the pop art movement while integrating elements of color theory.

I have been struggling with my AS student for most of the semester. Wexler suggest “ shadow drawing”… and I tried to introduce a sign language lesson where you draw the contours of your hands overlapped, cropped etc…I pulled up the sign language alphabet on the smartboard and tried the guided release of responsibility. I completely lost him….  

In science that day, students were examining a deer heart together… he really expressed that we wanted to leave and go to see it, so I allowed him. Then, something clicked in my head,  Da Vinci’s early works, his medical journals especially.  The next day we researched some facts about Leonardo in class, such as he designed the first drawings for airplanes, submarines etc, we looked at drawings of fetuses.  I think this really got his attention, he actually put his phone away for the first time all year when I asked! I also presented a short video about Leonardo, I had his full attention right there.

This particular student is fascinated with anatomy… and the only subject he actually seems remotely interested in science. I borrowed the science teachers skeleton that week and asked that he design a composition using bones as the subject matter. I let him pick the media, he chose to use charcoal. What happened next was pretty intense, over a three day period he produced a organized composition, very realistic and included his thought process within the artwork! He chose to incorporate some facts he had learned around the contours… 

I have researched and found that many autistic individuals are usually non-verbal, however this does not mean that they are incapable of communicating. Hopefully, I can continue to reach him through a creative outlet that allows him to facilitate his own choices within his artworks…. I must say I am really pleased with the outcome.

More writing to come later.. Need to discuss my LD lessons…
“ All knowledge emerges in the process of self and social construction” – Rinaldi

 

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Today was the day of my field trip. The kids were really excited and they got to see some really awesome things. I have been so consumed by the hreb stuff and it was nice to see it pay off, and be approved the day before we went. I had the students photograph and email the pictures to me. I’m going to start graphing and noting what they photograph, and tomorrow, we are going to start to draw from these images. We were even given pieces of palette to draw on. The Green Palette wants them back to make a communal art piece with them. So far things, are going well. I’m busy, but I’m excited to start logging data and get to the finish line. Here are some images that the kids took. They liked both business’s, but I think they got different things from both.  

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I currently am in the process of getting ready for my next visit to MoMA- this includes looking more at exhibitions that are on display and preparing questions to address in my next visit. I only got to go to MoMA once in March unfortunately, but I am planning on going back there at last 3-4 more times by June. Doing the 2nd visualization really got me thinking about specific observations to make/keep note of while I am at the museum and that has certainly helped in preparing me for my next visit.I am continuing to use photographs as direct observations, but am planning on visually tracking my observations while actually at MoMA.

I am also continuing to utilize the digital resources offered by MoMA and looking closer at specific ways pedagogy is based. I have found in particular that when teaching educators, MoMA encourages inquiry-based learning through open-ended questions and room for interpretation. Yet at the same time, I have also found some descriptions at the physical site of MoMA that give direct information about the work/artist and that is leading me to consider the role that inquiry-based learning has and in what type of environment it should be offered (in a formal, educator-led setting or a casual, open setting for everyday viewers). It certainly leads to thinking more about my own pedagogic approaches and when I utilize specific learning techniques/approaches versus when I do not.

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I’ve been moving along with my research in my sketchbook. I have spring break coming up next week and just spent the last weekend by myself in Massachusetts painting and journaling. Its a very different experience when you are alone. Recently, I painted at a friends house and she asked “How do you do that?!” when she watched me paint. I responded with “I don’t know! It’s almost as if my brain shuts off because you’re here.” Other people distract me, they occupy my thoughts unintentionally. I can still paint, but I was painting from an image. So this was different. When I’m painting something new or from my imagination, I can’t talk to anyone. They can’t be around because I can’t separate the thoughts. They can’t be organized. Kind of like when I try to do math in my mind. It gets jumbled up and I get flustered. That’s one thing I’ve noticed since spending the weekend by myself. When creating my own paintings, I need to be alone. When recreating an image, I can still focus when other are near me or talking to me because I see it, I don’t need to visualize it. I’ve also been very stressed out lately, which got me in a painting funk. I didn’t want to create anything. But the temperature is rising and I just need to be outside!!!

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Jennifer Brannigan
3/30/17
Data Visualization

For this first data visualization, I decided to map visually my students understanding to the key concepts of two-point perspective and its key components. As a wrap up activity, I asked students to chart where they thought they might be in each category. The first category was vanishing points and the midway, i.e finding the center to where everything begins to pull back into space and to one of the vanishing points, the second was placing objects in a two dimensional space, and the third was the horizon line. For these three categories, students received three post-it notes. They were asked to initial the back, so that it would stay anonymous. Once they did this, they were asked to one post-it note under each category. They had three options for this also. The first- I understand this 100 percent, the second- I understand some of this, 75 percent, and the third- I really don’t understand this at all, less than 50 percent. Students charted themselves on their own personal bias, and they were asked to be honest so that I could better help them.

Once students mapped their post-it notes, I took them down section by section and listed their names so that I could see where everyone was feeling confident, or not understanding what we had been doing. This was for my own personal data collection and use, and it helped me better understand the key concepts that I had to re-teach for the next couple days.

For the actual visualization, I started with one cerulean blue wash. Blue being clarity, and my presence in the classroom. I originally put two colored washes, but didn’t plan of planning things out as far as background color in connection to what I actually graphed and collected in terms of data.On top of these ink washes, I started to make a different rectangular marks for each one of the sections. After I completed these marks, I went back and created dots around these marks. Each dot represents the number or class that each student is on. For example, one ring= freshman, four=senior.

With this visualization, I was able to see that my sophomores, except for one student all understood the three concepts at 100 percent. Which tells me that they way that I teach, or the way that they understand what I am teaching are almost perfectly aligned. My freshman were mostly in the 100 percent to 75 percent range. I had only two students under “ placing objects in a two dimensional space” say that they didn’t understand this concept at all. One student has a 504 plan, and the other has an IEP.

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For my second visualization, I wanted to directly visualize and represent part of my experience visiting MoMA and relate it to the ideas of engagement of the viewer/visitor, and resources immediately available (two key points from my lit review). I found as I made the visualization, I began to consider how the colors I use can contribute to the imagery of data I put in. Next to each exhibit title, I included a colored line that is representative of my experience and feeling while in the exhibit itself (“Revolutionary Inside” was particularly overwhelming). Creating this visualization also made me have to look closer at how information was presented to the viewers and any times that visitors were either encouraged/discouraged from interacting with the art and how so. I think as I continue to visit MoMA and continue these types of observations, I will also be able to better compose the data.

I was really inspired by a project I recently found called Dear Data (interestingly enough, it was recently acquired for MoMA’s permanent collection). I thought it was interesting how the images from each post card came together as both an individual image, as well as a collection for data/observations. I am interested in further studying the way that the data that the two artists observed is transformed into imagery for my own observations at MoMA.

 

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For my second visualization, I created a web of words that are related to my research topic of Place and my literature review information. The five big ideas within my literature review are memories, environment, the classroom, interdisciplinary value and place-based education. When dealing with place, these five words are closely related to how students can perform better within their classroom and community. I have been learning a lot about place-based education and how understanding the students community and  personal memories can lead to students that are more engaged and interested in the work they are doing. I kept the same format as my first visualization, placing the big ideas in their own colored blotches of paint and the words that are associated with them within the blotches. They are also specifically placed. Some words are in the middle of blotches while others are closer. I did this because, based on my research, I feel that they work together to further my research.

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Mentions the colors in their art work as a positive 1111111

Mentions their content as a positive 11111111111

Mentions drawing as a positive11111

Mentions the washes or painting as a negative 1111111111

Mentions everything as a negative 1

Mentions drawing as a positive11

Mentions fixing certain components 11111111111

The tallying above is from a written assignment that I asked my students to work on this week. This is right after we started to get into our Julie Mehretu inspired art works. Students were asked to pick a place, and abstract that place with layered drawings, light washed of acrylic paint and finally adding details back in. I asked student to write about five sentences for the following prompts 1) Write about all the positives that you have been seeing in this work, what have you enjoyed or liked about your work this far. 2) Write about all of the negatives that you have been experiencing within this work. Once I had all of the students work that were in class that day, I started to read through them. I took notes of the commonalities that I was seeing and after I made the categories that are above. I found that students listed about fixing things also, which was not asked from them.

For my corresponding visualization, I tried to make it more concrete than last time. I decided to use objects that looked like air molecules. I thought about how we are all breathing and moving constantly and that the only thing that is similar to all of the students places that they picked, was air. We all need to breath. I made the molecules larger if there were more tally’s that were in connection to that idea. I then, colored all of the positive molecules bright colors, and all of the negative colors dark. This way I could, and the viewer could, make connections to what was the most popular theme for both and whether or not it was a negative or positive response. All of the red circles are freshman responses and all of the blue circles are sophomore response. Unfortunately my senior has been out for about a week and hasn’t been back. On the paper I also placed all the positive responses on the bottom and all the negative on the top. I tried not to leave anything up to chance so it congruent to the data I collected.

This project is also in connection with my literature topics that I have been exploring this entire time. I am looking at visual culture impacts on students and their responses to these ideas. Although it is not present in this data set, it is present in the artwork that students are completing in class. Community and place is a large portion of everything that I have been doing and is present in the research that I have been collections and the literature review in which I have gathered all my information to help aid this project.