Art Class: How to Transform Yourself into a Cyborg (Part I)

 

Hi! we are excited to participate in this year's SYF. The theme for 2021 is Artist & Technology. In class, we begin with some discussions first to grasp students' understanding about the theme. I've prepared some robot printouts in advance so the children can practise drawing in their sketchbooks. I encourage them to mix and match the robot parts so their drawings do not appear identical to another child's. 

This is one strategy to allow children to build confidence in artmaking. If I were to just say use your imagination to draw, I know there will be children who will be stumped in making their first mark. Besides, to fill up the sheer size of their A3-size sketchbook page with drawings is a challenge if you lack stamina in drawing. Because art classes are bounded by time, it is also no excuse for me to say my students took too long to think and therefore they cannot complete the work. Showing them some ideas and simple line work can help them to be more self-directed so that they don't have to keep approaching me to seek approval. 

In 2016, I visited the Big Bang Data in ArtScience Museum, Singapore. The show must have left a lasting impression because I saw a statue of Neil Harbisson and of course a lot of others. Neil is the world's first officially recognised cyborg and he had an antenna implanted in his skull 🤯😱. Watch his TEDtalk here.

Art Club: Chibitronics

The children will be thrilled to receive a circuit sticker sketchbook set to supplement their understanding of ‘circuits’. I'm packing the different components for individual students to facilitate distribution.

 

Art Club: Children's Workshop by Children

2 weeks ago, art club pupils conducted a workshop for children at a community library. Each of them had the opportunity to present their year-long project of making a DIY game incorporating LittleBits components. The participants also got to bring home their own LED paper twirler. It was a pity some participants did not turn up due to the morning shower. Nevertheless, it was a comfortable group that the children were able to handle. At the end of the workshop, some of them slumped on the chair and exclaimed that it was SO TIRING to teach the younger ones. Talk about teachers' routines... I'm sure the children would internalise the concept of delayed gratification.  

Last, a BIG shout out to my colleague, Candice, for sending the children's bulky artwork to the library and back to school!

Art Club: Game Makers Survey

When I was a student, my Math tutor, Dr Yeap Ban Har, told us that teachers often tell him that they don't have enough time. He advised us to look at the whole curriculum and be a more effective teacher. For example, in the lower primary Math curriculum, the topic of Time doesn't have to start only when it is time to do so according to the curriculum timeline, we can start at the beginning of the school year by applying in daily situations. I shared this tip with my students' parents on a blog here many years ago.

My English tutor, Dr Babara Spilchuk, was equally inspiring. She taught us similar concept to integrate the arts by making books, writing stories and sharing with each other. The material cost was modest yet kept us, young adults, deeply engaged and hungry for more. One thing that irks her is worksheets. She rejected worksheets, didn't believe in it and so we didn't receive any during her class. We spend a lot of time creating, reading and held discussions in her class. 

I grew up consuming worksheets so Dr Spilchuk's class felt more like a visual art class than an English class. After all, my mental schema of an English class was books and worksheets and booklets compiled with photocopied papers. 

I guess my tutor was role modelling for us not get too comfortable with a teaching style. She was also showing us that knowledge doesn't exist in isolation. After all, an integrated school curriculum has the potential to alleviate the problems of curriculum overload and fragmentation. As teachers, we can focus on the relationships between subjects to promote learning that applies to several disciplines concurrently and it may allow us to streamline curriculum.

Both my tutors' teaching has somehow urged me to conduct my mini research on integrated learning. The art club pupils have started this project since Term 4 last year. To get a sense of their readiness and their current state of mind about their projects, I conducted a survey. Below is a snapshot of one of the open-ended questions:

Next, a collaboration google document with the template below allows all the children to respond to my questions and their friends' comments together. They are also able to read other people's responses that would polish their train of thoughts and written comments. Below is a snapshot of one of the groups' inputs:

Finally, I would like the P3 art club children to experience interacting with this group of game makers so they were given instructions to approach any game maker groups and ask any questions they like. They were given a PQP (Praise, Question, Polish) feedback form to evaluate their chosen game maker group and to provide written feedback after their interaction. 

Art Club: Game Makers

This is such an apt scene from our community library - A robotic book drop. It travels along a guided path using sensors and it stops near the entrance to allow visitors to drop their returned books. Then it goes into a staff-only room where people will empty its bin and it comes out only for the cycle to repeat itself. Save the humans from the monotonous chores and hard labour.

The children are encouraged to read more to deepen their understanding of electronics. A list of books available in the public library is compiled for them. There were a lot of group discussion in the process and the projects were written as ideas first. I'm looking forward to sharing their survey result and thinking about collating their thought process. 

Batteries Storage

Art Club: Game Makers

Electronics are all around us. Take this wireless food buzzer for example. I took a photo of this at a food court. Its interior was exposed revealing the circuit board. We had a discussion of the function of electronics and its impact on people's lives.

  

Then the children worked on their ArtScience Project. To put it simply, they have to create a game that incorporates at least one art theory and one science principle that they have learnt in their regular classes. In the beginning, they were just introduced to a variety of raw electronic components and without detailed instructions, they experimented with closed circuits to acquire tangible results (e.g. lighting LEDs, turn on a small fan, buzzer, vibrators). The homogeneous groupings ensure that children from cross level and classes have opportunities to interact and exchange ideas. Subsequently, they were introduced to a more advanced electronics package to concretise their ideas. The children also had a scribe to document, plan and reflect on their ideas so that I can visualise their plans (games).

Art Club: ArtScience Project

We have just begin our ArtScience project this semester. In the previous week, we visited Art Science Museum for an excursion and to experience interactive art installations. We were also very lucky to have a pupil's father, Mr Joshi, an ex-engineer came to speak to the pupils. The point of the talk is to let pupils be aware that knowledge don't occur in isolation so it is important to be competent in different subjects. He used real-life examples in his work to explain about the importance of collaboration.

The upper primary pupils are working together in pre-allocated groups of 4. Each group has at least one P4 and P5 pupils to ensure cross-level sharing. Their first lesson was introductory play with electronic components (Batteries, crocodile clips, LEDs, small bulb, DC motor, copper tape, bulb holder, buzzer). I give them a brief introduction and told them the function of each component. With the components, they are supposed to figure out how to complete a closed circuit by lighting up LEDs/ bulbs and sound the buzzer.

If you would like to try them out yourself, head to Sim Lim Tower to purchase your electronic components! Alternative, you can enroll in Coursera.org to do a free course on Tinkering Fundamentals. There are also more information on Exploratorium website for projects with real-world connections.

Art Club: Pupils' project.

The revised Bloom's taxonomy (Fig. 1) is a framework derives by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 to categorise the order of thinking skills where the tip of the pyramid display higher order thinking. With Create as a verb (Fig. 2), Art provides a platform for pupils to display acts of planning, problem solving and meaning making for improvements or radical innovations.

Figure 1. Extracted from http://thesecondprinciple.com/teaching-essentials/beyond-bloom-cognitive-taxonomy-revised/

Figure 2. Extracted from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

While there are different versions of the design process or so called thinking process. The design thinking model (Fig. 3) by d. school, as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University is referenced as it's often held in high regard for how interdisciplinary design thinking and creativity can be taught.  

Figure 3. Design Thinking Process

There is no lack of information of Design Thinking when you run a search online. I was worried that Design Thinking or its counterparts such as Maker Movement or STEAM education are a fad so I read up on the following articles just to wrap my head around these ideas first. You can also sign up for an account on Coursera for this course, Tinkering Fundamentals to get started.

Related articles/ books:

• Petrich, M., Wilkinson, K. & Bevan, B. (2013). It looks like fun but are they learning? PDF 
• James Haywood Rolling Jr (2016) STEAM Locomotion, Art Education, 69:6, 4-5
• Don Glass & Colleen Wilson (2016) The Art and Science of Looking: Collaborative Learning Our Way to Improved STEAM Integration, Art Education, 69:6, 8-14
• Kelly Gloss & Steve Gross (2016) TRANSFORMATION: Constructivism, Design Thinking, and Elementary STEAM, Art Education, 69:6, 36-43
• Kelly W. Guyotte, Nicki W. Sochacka, Tracie E. Costantino, Joachim Walther & Nadia N. Kellam (2014) Steam as Social Practice: Cultivating Creativity in Transdisciplinary Spaces, Art Education, 67:6, 12-9
• Sarabeth erk (2016) Designing for the Future of Education Requires Design Education, 69:6, 16-20
• AnnMarine Thomas, Making Makers: Kids, Tools and the Future of Innovation. (2014) Maker Media: USA
• Wagner, T. (2012). Creating Innovators: The making of young people who will change the world. USA, New York
• Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. USA: New York
• Schell, J.(2008). The art of game design: A book of lenses. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers :USA