Guo Xuanyun

Art Teacher

Frontier Primary School

Xuanyun has been teaching Art in primary schools for 4 years. She is the Art Coordinator in Frontier Primary School and is overseeing the curriculum and aesthetics development of the children. She has been a STAR Champion for the W3 cluster since 2013 and was also in the 2013 SYF Art Exhibition Organizing committee. Persuing art and reflecting on her experiences since young, Xuanyun understands the struggles of a typical student in a Singapore school during art lessons. She is constantly reflecting on how the school’s art curriculum can be most effective yet positive, memorable and enjoyable for the pupils.

BACK

Date: 27 Feb 2015

Venue: National Design Centre

Time: 3:00pm – 5:30pm

The National Design Centre was an eye opener for me. I enjoyed my tour around and realised how much the design scene in Singapore has advanced over the past 10-15 years. There is so much support given to Singapore designers now and The Prototyping Lab @ NDC offers a springboard for budding designers to create and learn seamlessly! When I was touring The Prototyping Lab, I saw the vast tools and equipment and immediately thought of my friends who would be interested. I could not wait to share my experience with them.

Date: 22 Mar 2015

Venue: Hilton Hotel

Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm

HELLO! We are finally in New Orleans!

Earlier this afternoon, Vivian shared her research on collaborative dialogue with the rest of us. In the comfort of our hotel room, she presented her paper on ‘Student Engagement: Collaborative Inquiry in the Art Classroom’

In her sharing, she highlighted the need for students to engage in meaningful dialogue purposefully. She also mentioned the importance of the teacher as a facilitator to guide and not tell students what to do. She shared with us her successful and failed experiences to engage the students in collaborative dialogue. Her many attempts and different exploration methods intrigued me. She tried small and large group dialogues and provided the freedom of choice of having guiding questions. What I felt was commendable was her constant thoughtfulness on improving the students’ capability of having purposeful dialogues.

A Caring Environment

She also stressed on the importance of a caring environment. With good Teacher-student Relationship, students feel non-threatened to discuss ideas with the teacher or even with fellow classmates. Such leads to higher engagement levels and productive conversations can take place naturally.

After her sharing, Ira introduced something called the ‘Ladder of Feedback’. In short, it is to give feedback in a particular structure / sequence that establishes a culture of trust and constructive support. We practiced the 4 steps:

Clarify
Value
State concerns
Suggest

and wow, feedback was so natural and real.

In a flash, 2hrs had gone by.

Good night all! It’s time for bed and another exciting adventure tomorrow!

Time: 12mn.

Vivian sharing her paper in the hotel room

By the river near the hotel room

Date: 23 Mar 2015

Venue: Young Audiences Charter School at Kate Middleton

Time: 8:00am – 11:30am

Rise and Shine! The time now is 8am and the flowers in the garden are in full bloom. The weather is great and the team is filled with energy! This is our first school visit and I’m really excited!

Our First School Visit!

Today we woke up really early and headed to Young Audiences Charter School at Kate Middleton (YACS). When I first heard the name of the school about a month ago, I imagined a grand hallway with rich kids filling the entire gigantic school building.

We reached the school building by cab albeit the tiny drizzle. There was neither a grand entrance like in the Hollywood movies nor rich children coming out of their expensive cars. We were greeted by this.

Yes, we are from SINGAPORE!

I liked this better than grand entrances. Nothing wayang-ful yet I felt a little more important. In this industrial building housed a humble school.

The moment I entered the building, I could sense the warmth and felt very much at home. We waited in the school library and heard the Principal make his morning speech addressing his students. The speech sounded way better than my opening sentence for this blog entry that I tried to imitate. I simply loved his version!

Lesson #1: Why so serious? We can create an embracing culture by talking in a less solemn or serious way.

The school visit was really a fruitful one. I felt a sense of connection and could not wait to share my experience with the primary schools in Singapore.

Colourful murals, artworks, posters and scribbles all around

The environment

Though the building is old, cramped up and dark, the atmosphere was pleasant and vibrant.

There was great use of space with minimal money spent. Students’ works filled the corridor and the walls of the school.

Lesson #2: We do not need money and expensive furniture to create a learning environment.

Lesson #3: It is inspiring to see children’s work displayed all over the school in this particular manner.

Lesson #4: We can have mini celebrations of student’s success by displaying their authentic work. This makes students, teachers and parents feel good while walking around the school.

Example of a Gallery sheet

There were Gallery sheets for every kind of display. These are informative sheets that explain how the work of art is linked to the academic subject and also more about what the children did to achieve the experience. It was perfect for teachers and parents.

The rapport

Throughout the 3 hour visit, many things were happening at the same time. It was consistent that the rapport between the staff and students is very strong. We could see this from the spontaneity of the students and the responses from the teachers.

Lesson #5: TSR is important. (Teacher-Student Relationship) It can build a culture.

The Curriculum

This is my favourite part.

The school uses the Arts to teach the other subjects.

To put it simply, let me illustrate some examples.

During curriculum time

For English, I observed a drama class with the purpose of teaching a personal narrative writing lesson. Nouns, adjectives and adverbs were seamlessly taught through body actions and movement. Sentence structure was also ‘taught’ through reflection after each mini drama activity. I used ‘taught’ because it was not the kind of explicit teaching with the emphasis on subject verb agreement, but more of casual reflection of activity through discussion and rephrasing of sentences that linked pretty well to the rules of writing.

In the world of Mathematics, dance could be used to teach fractions. In other instances, Art Reflection Time, which was called ART for short, (e.g. using see think wonder strategy) was linked to consolidating a math topic. My favourite math lesson today is the topic of addition that was taught using rhythm and beats with drums and shakers. The students were 100% engaged. Can you imagine that I was secretly hoping that I could beat that drum too! During my time, a lesson on addition had plenty of emphasis on the addition symbol.

Lesson #6: We don't always have to put emphasis on the subject title (or math rules/ grammar rules/ all sorts of rules) to teach the subject effectively.

Next, I observed how the teachers were able to elicit responses out of students naturally. And the best part I felt was the effective questioning techniques that led students to the 'A-ha!' Moment. This is a set of skills that teachers need to acquire. I must say that not all teachers in the world are capable of doing so. It’s really important though, to be able to carry out some questioning techniques.

You can read more about Harvard Project Zero and Artful Thinking from my favourite website here: http://www.pzartfulthinking.org/index.php

Lesson #7: The plan could be great, but the lesson could be far from good. See #8.

Lesson #8: Though curriculum designing is a team effort, no matter how perfect it is, the individual teacher must be proficient, endearing, and able to carry out a discussion and respond to children’s responses effectively.

There were many anecdotes that I gathered from this visit that I'd love to share but for now, let me touch a little further on the aspect of curriculum planning and designing. It was an eye opener to find out that the team gets to meet at least 75 minutes each session, 4 times a week. The idea is similar to our Timetabled Time (TTT) but with many more sessions. However unlike us where all the level teachers come together, In YACS, teachers and teaching artists come together to brainstorm ideas to bring the subject to life through the arts. (Teaching artists are artists that do not necessarily have pedagogy background)

The team comes together to answer our questions

That said, from the school visit, I picked up that it is critical to keep in mind that collaboration should not be a forced connection. The team must be absolutely sure that they are practicing the curriculum learning outcomes at the academic side and at the same time from artistic side.

Lesson #9: The arts infused must be genuine.

I cannot stress further that doing a colouring piece for an English class is not a form of collaboration or integration because students must learn something about art yet aids another strong academic component.

I quote from one of the teachers in the school that the arts and hands might just be fun and nice but the students might not learn any art form.

For example, singing the ABC song does not teach u anything about music.

The teacher also mentioned that it is good to have (that ABC song) but in YACS, they want great.

Lesson #10: Ponder on the meaning of the word collaboration. Do you want it good or great?

So really, lesson or curriculum planning is not as easy as it seems, especially if there is a purpose to collaborate. It takes 1 person to clap, but a team to create a kallang wave.

Let me end of my entry with a picture of cone man during play time.

Date: 24 Mar 2015

Venue: Isidore Newman School

Time: 9:00am – 12pm

Another school visit!

Today we went to Isidore Newman School. It is a Private school and judging from the location and neighbourhood, it is a vast difference from YACS that I visited the day before. I’ll let some pictures do the talking.

This school is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The field, the ceramics studio, The Greenie House, the theater and the gallery are so professionally done; I wouldn't have thought that this is for children and teens.

You can read more about the middle and high school from the other pages so I’ll focus more on the elementary school.

Creating the vibrant environment

In my entry above, I discussed about the displaying of students’ work that inspires. The display also brought about a very conducive environment.

In Isidore Newman School, the displays are quite different. With huge walls and long hallways, the displays were mostly finished and grand. I felt that the massiveness brought out this grandeur feeling of achievement.

Through observation, I learnt a lot about displaying artworks to value-add.

1 is good. Massive is great.

But sometimes, 1 is the best, especially to add emphasis.

Ceilings are great too, whether 2D, 3D or mobile

Staircases do just fine too!

Comparing both school visits, I thought about the differences and similarities in the showcasing of artworks, amount of effort needed to put up the works, costing, target audience, purpose and function. The different styles of displays one chooses really depends on many considering factors.

The school teachers work independently. Depending on your comfort level, teachers are free to design their own curriculum and teach pupils what they want, in whatever style they like. There are pros and cons with this method that the school adopts and we can think about this further, and compare with YACS who adopted a very different approach. With Victoria (the teacher in the photos below), she impressed me with her art room environment and instructional methods. She portioned her room for different purposes.

Notice the patterned curtains that added function and beauty to the room. Cupboard doors are less inviting to open as compared to curtains. They could be drawn sideways instead of outwards and this really cuts down on excess space usage!

I end my blog entry with a picture.

I wish I could bring this back to my classroom. How convenient. Hands full of glue or paint? Use your foot to get the water running. I suppose 6 to 7 children can use this sink at the same time. . Great for tiny Singapore because it saves space and cleaning up time too!

Date: 26 Mar 2015

Venue: NAEA Conference

Time: 9:00am onwards

First General Session

Tim Gunn gave a great First General Session on his long experience as a teacher and his deep passion for education. Famous for “Project Runway”, he talked about his career and an educator, teachers who have inspired him and his commitment to encouraging the next generation of artists and designers.

The stories he shared gave affirmation to my job as a teacher and many questions to think about.

Tim Gunn mentioned: Taking that ‘snapshot’ during the first few days of a new class and figuring out how high can one raise the bar for the students is important.

Perhaps moving forward, it is time to always look back and forth at my lesson plan and make revisions while we constantly reflect on the methods used to raise the bar for individual students. It is important to note that each child has the capability to excel at different standards and we should stretch this further.

He also mentioned his experience during season 1 of Project Runway. He was helping a designer who had a minor threading issue. The producer saw this and got him to the corner to question him. The producer explained that if he helped that designer, he would need to help every designer for every episode of the show. I thought about his experience and also reflected on the advices given by other experienced teachers. They encouraged me to give more help to the weaker ones because they needed more.

In positive light, I would keep Tim Gunn’s experience in mind and put in extra effort to make it a point to help the whole class. That means the better students get as much help as the weaker ones to raise the bar.

Lastly, he recalled an advice: The whole world does not need you to make a t-shirt. Look at the vast area that needs creativity and innovation. Somehow it shook me a little because putting it into an educator’s context, teachers definitely have the capability to look at the vast area. However it is often that we get carried away or tied down and ended up making a beautiful t-shirt. Could we be more effective in steering towards our goals? Could endless counts of meetings be cut short when we constantly remind ourselves that the whole world does not need us to make a t-shirt? Could we perhaps think less about the nitty gritty or nitpick on tiny matters and move on to something bigger?

Next Generation Video Game Console Design

I enjoyed this session too. It was a simple, direct, casual and very authentic sharing by Cynthia Gaub. This Best Practice lecture was about engaging middle school students in a design project to draw a next generation console. The focus was on designing a console and this suits students who are very into gaming. The details of the lesson could be found on www.artechtivity.com

The lesson unit comprised not just of a console design but also

controller and accessories design
game box casing
advertisement to introduce the imaginary company as a whole
a group presentation
a specific component for each student.

Students could use a variety of programs such as paint, sketchUP, powerpoint or even the basic pen and paper. The use of ICT as a tool to draw 3D was not explicitly taught to the students. However, some were self-directed to use it as they were engaged and wanted their console design to look real. So depending on the individual, they could choose to use other programs to sketch their designs.

Links to English

I like that the advertisement and final presentation linked to the English Language and presentation skills. The choice of vocabulary words to buy-in consumers is important, so as the tone, voice, confidence and drama techniques used to ‘sell’ the product. Students get to acquire these skills naturally through a real-life scenario.

Not Standardization: Curriculum and Core Values in Next Generation Standards

Olivia Gude was very inspiring. I was impressed by her presentation skills. Her session was so condensed and she made a ‘dry’ topic on curriculum and core values so interesting and easy to digest. I enjoyed her session so much that I did not scribble any notes because I did not want to miss any of her slides. Her slides though wordy, was impactful and visually communicated with effective animation that emphasised on the main ideas.

Keywords:

Enduring understandings. Connect. Create. Present/ Produce/ Perform. Respond. Connect.

Focus on the Big idea about/ on art and culture

She also introduced some images by Kunst Aufraumen about tidying up art.

and finally, I could not get this out of my head

“Oh no the brushes have been stolen”

This sentence might mean nothing to an average person but to me, I have learnt that contextualising a lesson with just a simple sentence makes a huge difference to the children’s attitude, understanding and knowledge towards the particular lesson.

Thank you Olivia Gude!

Designing Curriculum for Engaging Students in Art-Based Discussion and Questioning

In this session, Erin Branham emphasised the value of having students converse about a work of art.

We also tried our hands at answering questions on 2 particular images. It was pair-work with the person sitting beside you and afterwards, a discussion among the participants in the session.

Conversing about a work of art encourages close and critical looking. The process of speaking generates more ideas and this makes students aware that a work of art had a history or life. With no right or wrong answers, students get validation.

Encouraging student conversations about art would mean to teach students how to respond to one another, probe each other to say more, to clarify what they meant and to agree or disagree with one another.

I found this session very useful. I thought about the images used and whether students would have prior knowledge on the subject matter. I also thought about the clarity (quality) of the image. Should it be ambiguous or clean? Would something too abstract make students lose interest in the conversation? If there is a whole list of conversation starters out there, would there be a list of conversation killers too? How can we encourage the uninterested students to join in?

Date: 27 Mar 2015

Venue: NAEA Conference

Time: 9:00am onwards

Design Thinking for Elementary Art

9am to 950am

Eileen Fitzgerald and Grace Hulse conducted a session on ways to craft meaningful architectural, product, book arts and animation design problems through a creative process that leads students from identifying a need to generating products and prototypes.

Students designed bikes and logos for their bikes. Looked at http://www.china-bike.org/ and important elements of logo design. They also ‘pitched’ their bikes to companies by writing letters to them (English lesson) and skype their final designs to kids in another school as a critique session to round off the whole project.

I also learnt about Joan Gaither and map quilts made out of fabric.

Image from google search

This session introduced a huge project. The pupils and teacher drew the neighbourhood on fabric by projecting Google map on the fabric. Individual students drew their ‘home’ and these were scanned and printed on to the fabric. Roads and trees were painted and masking taped onto the fabric. This project reminded me of my social studies lesson almost 20 years ago. I was primary 5 and my teacher required us to draw our ‘house’ and the route from home à school. I had no idea what to do. There were no google maps at that time. I drew a block-like maze in the ‘math model-drawing method’. If there were more design thinking involved and a possible extension to the social studies lesson, perhaps we could have a chance to be Joan Gaither!

Needless to say, there were many other great design lessons shared in this session. This made me very excited! Throughout the whole session, I had so many ideas running in my head. It is time I sit down to put my thoughts onto paper coherently!

Curriculum Slam! Assembling Comprehensive Contemporary Art & Design Curriculum

11am to 1250am

The Curriculum Slam event program and details could be found here: Event program and details

A very comprehensive session by 11 educators from across the continent. The speakers shared about their experiences, lessons and influences on art education. I enjoyed this session thoroughly, as these educators shared about issues and lessons that could not be found in textbooks. The speakers were very engaging, thoughtful and real.

Principles of Possibility: Considerations for a 21st Century Curriculum

Playing

Forming Self

Investigating Community Themes

Encountering Difference

Deconstructing Culture

Reconstructing Social Spaces:

Steve Ciampaglia’s Hip to Be Square: Creating 8-Bit Art Games with Scratch resonated with me. It brought me back to the 1980s – 1990s and it never strike me that children of the 21st century would be so engaged in creating 8-Bit Art Games now!

Come to think of it, my students kept trying to strike a conversation about minecraft. I use to wonder why are primary school students so interested in minecraft. The box-like and pixelated animation reminded me of the pac-man game that my dad played when he was bored and the Galaga game I took turns to play with my elder brother.

Combining the Old and the New = ________?

“Because of its ease of use and bitmap drawing capabilities, Scratch is the perfect programming environment for creating and teaching 8-bit art games.” Keeping that in mind. I should try out Scratch too!

The Art and Design of Reggio Emilia Classrooms

430pm – 455pm

In this session, Tracey Hunter-Doniger shared how the Reggio Approach teaches through art and design. Examples were shared directly from Reggio Emilia, Italy regarding: curriculum, assessment, the role of parents, and art and design

What is Reggio Emilia?

from lonelyplanet.com

It is a city in northern Italy.

“Since World War II the town of Reggio Emilia, Italy has employed the hundred languages of children and positioned art and design as a mainstay to their early childhood educational practices.”

Google more on the Reggio Emilia Approach to read more =)

You could also read what Tracey wrote about the Reggio Emilia Approach here: Notes on Reggio Emilia Approach

Does the Reggio Emilia approach reminds me of Montessori? Superficially yes, because both are very different from PAP kindergarten. I haven’t physically been to Reggio Emilia or Montessori to experience it myself so I do not have much to contribute about but there are many articles online to read about the differences.

One one hand, I wish my future children could have the opportunity to learn under the Reggio Approach. “Every room is equipped with an atelier or a mini art room because art is the central focus of every stage of development in Reggio. Besides basic art supplies, the classrooms contain mostly recycled, and natural elements. Very little supplies are store bought such as markers or toys. The pedagogical design of the Reggio Approach is for children to imagine the possibilities of their world and learn through their experiences.” Doesn't this sound like heaven?

On the other, I wonder if children who learn through this approach have any difficulty adapting to the MOE primary education system here. I mean, of course there would be difficulties, but would the children be able to transit well? Would they be deemed mischievous in class? Would they feel confused?