I picked this chapter because I though it would be useful in gathering some ideas for the final project, as well as for future lesson plans in teaching.

This chapter related to my prior knowledge and experience of art and art education in that it explored a great deal of learning through play, which a lot of classes I’ve had emphasize as being important to encourage as a teacher. It also demonstrated relating projects to the students’ personal interests as well as societal issues in order to create a deeper connection and understanding in students learning, which is also a key concept that I’ve learned from art education. They was much prototyping and iterating, as well as peer review/ feedback and collaboration with peers, and the documenting of work/process which by now we are used to as an integral part of our class experience. It related to my knowledge and experience of art in that the students went through brainstorming and planning/ sketching processes, which is the basis for practically every art project.

I would like to apply this planning process to my future classroom activities, whether orthographic, isometric, or other sorts of planning sketches, and I also think that this could potentially be incorporated into my final project. The cyanotype, ugly Christmas sweaters, and casting with silicone molds projects stood out to me, and are all definitely something I’d like to use in my future classroom. When they used conductive materials and Scratch to make “techno ugly Christmas sweaters”, I thought it was a fantastic way to engage students and make what they’re learning relevant. The use of cotton balls on the LEDS when making these sweaters inspired me for potentially incorporating cotton with the LEDs in my final project. I was really intrigued with the casting with silicon molds; this is familiar to me as I’ve casted in ceramics, but I’ve never used silicone before. Likewise, although I am familiar with Plaster of Paris and love to use it because it’s so versatile, I have never worked with Resin or Paraffin Wax. The end results were faster than 3D printing but looked similar. I think this would be great to explore with students. I was also interested in CircuitScribe, a conductive ink kit, and would love to incorporate conductive ink or graphite into a project since they’re already familiar art materials/mediums. I think it would make the maker/ circuits aspect much more welcoming and less intimidating. I also would like to incorporate a concept discussed into my class, that of the importance of providing students with materials/resources to succeed but the independence to figure out what to do with it; as stated in this chapter, the “balance between instruction versus exploration”.