1. Determining Objectives
To set the context for our student artists, we
shared the characteristics of our VUCA world
and phenomenon such as alternative facts and
falsehoods. We encouraged open discourse
about the students’ sense of Citizenship and
Identity, to draw out ideas relevant for an original
artwork. We also encouraged students to decide
the direction and mode of their artwork. This
gradual release of responsibility empowered
students to make considered decisions and
helped them to realise that they were not just
creating a piece of visual work, but responding
with their personal stories to the theme of Artist
and Citizenship.
2. Learner Profile
For this challenge, we decided to facilitate
our projects differently based on age groups,
academic profiles and personality differences.
These differences were intentional so as to allow
students to see, feel and experience perspectives
and personas from across the social fabric of
our community.
3. Positive Classroom Culture
We realised very early on in the facilitation
process that we had to cultivate a positive
classroom culture to encourage meaningful
participation. To do this, we sat down with our
students to create ground rules which everyone
agreed on. These became the key principles
guiding our discussions and collaboration.
Our key role as facilitators in this process, was to
ensure that every student learnt to develop pride
and ownership. Students need to feel that they
have contributed and have gained something
positive from every session. We decided that
they could make decisions on almost all aspects
of their work as long as they could justify their
choices. This provided an impetus for every
child to contribute at every stage of the project.
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4. Planning Guiding Questions
Given such an open brief, our students were initially very confused and did
not know how to react. We had to provide guiding questions to scaffold their
learning process. These questions helped to bring personal and collaborative
dimensions to the students’ thinking and artmaking process. The questions
also provided them with some form of structure to guide their work.
5. Arousing Interest
This project was not just a visual art project. It was an opportunity to allow
our students to affect change in their immediate communities and develop a
meaningful sense of identity and rootedness. To achieve this, we modeled the
research process and shared them with our students. They were incredibly
interested in the original research from their teachers and this inspired them
to generate a great research collection of interviews, vintage photos and
drawings.
In Conclusion
Our students expressed that they were able to understand and see the
purpose behind the integration of the two disciplines through this project.
This was important to us as our efforts paved the way forward, enabling our
students to see meaningful possibilities in collaborations.
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