Saturday, December 1, 2012

Constructionism in Action
It has been a week of project building, reflection, & assessment. It has been a week of learning.  Images of the week include students manipulating ink onto paper side by side with those manipulating pixels using Adobe Photoshop software. These students were working in the classroom while others were in the hallway staging artwork and lighting to document their work digitally for AP Studio Art Portfolios and My Big Campus blog critique. Image development and critical review occurred at the beginning, during, and at the conclusion of activity that in some cases extended into the night (Or, during student learning in other content areas). 
The students though appearing at first glance to be loose and less than constructive were engaged in their learning process.  The preplanning and understood expectations set the stage, along with constructive and instructive guidence The combination of collaborative and introspective, hand built and digital investigation methods appeared to be on track for a successful learning experience. The tie in for continued success for this constructive experience is with continuation of the process of learning reinforced by the dialogue that will take place between students and peers seated next to and across from each other via social network. The collaboration that follows will create the “promotive interaction” (Pittler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Melonoski, 2007, p. 140) of a social environment were the students can support both personal and group advancement within their creative and cognitive development.
Now if I could only get the students to do a thorough cleanup of physical and digital workspaces before they move to different work locations.  …. Artists!
References:
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Cooperative Learning. In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works (pp. 139-154). Denver, Colorado: MCREL.