As an art teacher, most of the work done in class is project based. Creating artifacts or projects are part of the constructivist/constructionist theories. (Laureate Education, 2010).
How does an art teacher use generating and testing hypotheses in an art classroom?
One way is through experimental inquiry and even systems analysis. Every time an artist or student mixes a color when doing a painting it becomes an experiment. What happens when you add a little white or black to a color? What happens when you mix complementary colors? How do you make brown? We can chart the changes in color and make predictions about the color.
Problem solving can also be useful in art. How do you change colors or add a design to a weaving without making a knot?
We can even use historical investigation when studying different artists, artistic styles, and art movements.
One of the difficulties that I see with using some of these strategies in art is in how to incorporate computer technology into them. There are many ways to incorporate technology when working with historical investigation but what about charting color?
My thoughts so far are to use a word program and use different font colors when explaining color change. Another idea is to use a grid in the same way?
Any other ideas out there?
Diane,
ReplyDeleteI like how you explained how an Art teacher uses 'Generating Hyposthesis' in the classroom. I am sure that you have probably experimented with the 'paint' program. I doubt if it allows you to mix colors but you could certainly create a color wheel of some sort and be able to print it out.
Cathy,
ReplyDeleteI have thought about how to do a computer generated color wheel, but I have not had time to research the "hows" yet. I'm sure that I could do something working with a pie graph.
Diane
Diane,
ReplyDeleteWhat ways have you incorporated technology while doing historical investigations in your class? I remember taking Art Appreciation in college and only see a slides of famous art works.
-Matt Nusbaum
Matt,
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways I am incorporating Historical Iinvestigation in my class is to give my students a "Hot List" with various artists names, styles of art, and titles of art works. I reserve one of the computer labs and allow the students to surf the net until they find an artwowrk or artist that interests them. They then have to write a short biography about the artist and the artwork they chose. They must cut and paste a picture of the artwork in their paper and also include a personal opinion or reason they chose the artwork. Hopefully they will cite reasons such as composition or the Elements of Art and Principles of Design as part of their reasons.
Diane
It sounds like you have a lot of great ideas for how hypothesis and constructivism relate to you as an art teacher. You have so many possibilities as an art teacher for technology integration. There are many sites that can be used to teach art concepts or allow for hands on practice. I found one during my undergraduate art education course that I liked. It allows students to practice color mixing (at an intermediate level) without the cost of all those expensive paints. I also used this with a sensory student once because he did not like to touch paint or be around it, but he could use the computer to mix colors. http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/experiments/colorgame/ Hope you can use it!
ReplyDeleteKimberly,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information, I will check it out.
Diane