OK, I'm halfway through my year of implementing TAB/choice-based...
By December, I had made a few observations:
the GOOD - I have a number of students who are highly motivated & creating amazing work, work at a level that I have never seen from them before. It’s been amazing to see these students soar! In the past, students may have developed an idea for art making, but I was usually still making the decisions about media, size, etc. Now students were solving those problems as well.
the BAD - I knew I would have some students who would struggle with this, and I did. Students who like to just “zone out” and then throw something together at the last minute, didn’t do well with this format. I was finding a few students trying to avoid moving on to the next level. (Because a level means you have to think & plan & carry out an idea) These students sat for too long without getting started on anything. And, it was turning into an issue to have to keep prompting these students to make a choice and get started.
I also noticed with everyone that as much as we all think we want to ’do our own thing’, everyone enjoys times when the whole class is doing the same thing once in awhile. I noticed that in early December, when we had our student teacher. After 3+ months of choice, students seemed to really enjoy coming back together to do the charcoal lesson.
I was able to have some discussion with a few of the 4th & 5th grade classes about these observations, and they had some good feedback. Most recognized that having choice ALL the time sort of loses its motivation. They seemed to agree that bringing back a little more structure would be a good thing.
Moving forward, here’s the plan:
We will focus more on the T.A.B. idea, less on the choice-based idea.
This means that we will start a unit based on one of the artistic behaviors, with some activities as a whole class. These might include learning about an artist, brainstorming, mini-lessons, media/techniques… short lessons that build up to the theme (artistic behavior). THEN students will work independently on a project that demonstrates the theme. I’ll give them a couple of weeks to work independently, then we’ll regroup & start a new unit together.
In January, we’ve started our unit, “Artists Tell Stories.” Students seems motivated as we start. We’ve done the first two activities and are ready to start a sculpture lesson, then we’ll see how they carry that out into their independent project!
Observation - in the professional literature, T.A.B. and Choice-based always seem lumped together. I'm finding that they are really two completely different concepts, and doing one doesn't mean you are doing the other.
I'm all for Teaching for Artistic Behaviors!
By December, I had made a few observations:
the GOOD - I have a number of students who are highly motivated & creating amazing work, work at a level that I have never seen from them before. It’s been amazing to see these students soar! In the past, students may have developed an idea for art making, but I was usually still making the decisions about media, size, etc. Now students were solving those problems as well.
the BAD - I knew I would have some students who would struggle with this, and I did. Students who like to just “zone out” and then throw something together at the last minute, didn’t do well with this format. I was finding a few students trying to avoid moving on to the next level. (Because a level means you have to think & plan & carry out an idea) These students sat for too long without getting started on anything. And, it was turning into an issue to have to keep prompting these students to make a choice and get started.
I also noticed with everyone that as much as we all think we want to ’do our own thing’, everyone enjoys times when the whole class is doing the same thing once in awhile. I noticed that in early December, when we had our student teacher. After 3+ months of choice, students seemed to really enjoy coming back together to do the charcoal lesson.
I was able to have some discussion with a few of the 4th & 5th grade classes about these observations, and they had some good feedback. Most recognized that having choice ALL the time sort of loses its motivation. They seemed to agree that bringing back a little more structure would be a good thing.
Moving forward, here’s the plan:
We will focus more on the T.A.B. idea, less on the choice-based idea.
This means that we will start a unit based on one of the artistic behaviors, with some activities as a whole class. These might include learning about an artist, brainstorming, mini-lessons, media/techniques… short lessons that build up to the theme (artistic behavior). THEN students will work independently on a project that demonstrates the theme. I’ll give them a couple of weeks to work independently, then we’ll regroup & start a new unit together.
In January, we’ve started our unit, “Artists Tell Stories.” Students seems motivated as we start. We’ve done the first two activities and are ready to start a sculpture lesson, then we’ll see how they carry that out into their independent project!
Observation - in the professional literature, T.A.B. and Choice-based always seem lumped together. I'm finding that they are really two completely different concepts, and doing one doesn't mean you are doing the other.
I'm all for Teaching for Artistic Behaviors!