Classroom: 2010 Annual Review (1 of 4)

[This post is the first in a series of four looking back at my classroom in 2010.]


A week ago yesterday was the was the first day back to school in Halifax, VA for high schoolers, and Monday was the first day of spring semester college classes (albeit abbreviated by the weather).  I've got a 'New in 2011' post planned for later this month, but before we're too far into the year that is I wanted to take a quick look back at the year that was.

The format (and this exercise itself) is inspired by Chris Guillebeau's excellent Annual Review from his Art of Non Conformity blog.  Even broken into four parts, this is MUCH more brief than he practices, but I focus on his two fundamental questions, and also generalize as much as possible between my secondary and post-secondary classes.

What Went Well?

• Google Based Solutions - Google Docs and Google Blogger have been an overwhelming success.  They are free, fast, ubiquitous, and functional and they make it possible for me and my students to do more and better work.  There are an intimidating number of free and paid options out there, but Google works for me and for my students.  They've provided solutions to the challenges of teaching paperless, too!
  
  I used Blogger to create simple and functional weblogs for every course (links to my college courses) where I could communicate with my students, post office hours, share interesting content, and easily link to course documents.  It is not as participatory as some closed CMS options, but most students have found it useful and functional.   (Daniel Pink even posted to a student presentation about his work on our Creative Thinking blog!)  It does require a bit of time to train students to look there, though.
  
  
  Same goes for Google Docs.  I was already moving nearly everything to the cloud in my own work habits (poor Pages is so rarely launched now!) but making, accessing, and distributing items has rarely been easier.  I don't fight the minimalist design aesthetic Docs imposes (which can border on the anaemic; if you like lots of pictures and fun stuff in your communications with students you will have some massaging to do), but for drafting and sharing assignments (including quizzes) easily and quickly Docs is hard to beat.  Students have told me (once they get the hang of it) that they enjoy the freedom from MS Word and Powerpoint and the ability to get at their files from school, home, and even grandma's house.  They can also use it for storage to upload files of nearly any format.  I like the commenting features as well where I (and my co-teacher) can easily leave feedback much richer than either of us could on a printed page.
  
  
• Field Trips - I am a BIG fan of field trips.  I think they help contextualize the world for students who all too often study it in a remarkably bare and antiseptic institution.  Since the very first semester when I began teaching, field trips have been a regular feature of my classes.  We are fortunate to enjoy the generous support of local sponsors for our classes, so we have been able to take students to Richmond, VA each semester for a First Friday, a night each month when galleries and museums coordinate openings and receptions.  While in town we tour VCU's art program, the VMFA, several of the galleries on Broad and Main Sts, and always eat at Five Guys Burgers & Fries.  We took our biggest group yet last fall with students from 3 different classes.
  
  
  
  In 2010 we also stretched our vision big time and took a small team of high school and college students to New York City for a design trip.  I envisioned the trip as a way for students interested in creative careers to tour a modern mecca for creative professionals seeing museums, art shows, creative firms and honest-to-god, out-in-the-wild working creative people.  That trip was a huge success –we met the editorial staff at Core77, had a workshop at the 5th avenue Apple store, visited MOMA, saw the Armory show, and enjoyed a movie and pizza in Times Square– and I am happy that we will repeat it this year.

• Co-Teaching - Because I teach in a sort of nebulous world between the public school system and the community college system, I was joined in my high school classes in 2010 by a co-teacher from the public school system.  I was intimidated to invite another instructor into the classroom to share lesson plans and authority with me (wouldn't you be?), but that partnership has worked very well and even grown into a friendship.  Roy and I have settled into an easy partnership sharing grading responsibilities, project design, and instructional duties.  His background in the printing industry complements everything we cover in graphics and the students and I benefit greatly from his 12 years teaching in the public school system.  He's not one to rest on his laurels though, and has quickly explored and adopted new technology (now an admitted Apple fanboy!) and teaches me new stuff as often as the students.
  
  
  In the classroom, that partnership has been invaluable in maintaining a positive attitude (it's nice to not feel alone with 21 students!), allowed us to expand the program (two blocks now), and improved the ability to serve students in and out of the classroom.  I'd even like to expand this collaborative approach to other classes in the program I administrate, and as I understand it, there's precedent way back to the roots of our inspiration in the Bauhaus where classes were regularly outfitted with two instructors, one a theory guy and the other a craftsman.

• Creativity in the Classroom - I frequently say that the mission of the program I both teach in and administrate is to develop creative and sustainable human capital for our region, and I believe our focus on creativity makes a significant difference in the lives of our students.  Students in my classes (and those taught by my program's faculty) have several opportunities in class to express and explore their inherently creative nature, something which I hear (and see) has pretty much been drilled out of a generation or two of America's future leaders (to our peril).
  Every class I teach has an ART or HUM prefix, so of course creativity plays a central role in coursework.  Students use divergent and convergent thinking to arrive at their own unique solution to a project's challenge, e.g. 'Illustrate a personally meaningful quotation using Typography and Color' or 'Remix pre-existing movie footage to create a trailer that changes the context of the movie (say, from comedy to horror).'  Because there is no definitive 'right' answer to many of the projects presented to students, there is opportunity to challenge high-achievers and give a voice to previously marginal performers.  Two very good things come out of these types of projects:
  
  
  • For students used to taking state-sponsored Standards of Learning tests and constantly pressured to know "this is going to be on the test," coursework that requires them to make an argument, explore something unique or express an idea is a refreshing challenge.  Artistic and design thinking wrestles with ambiguity in a way no SOL can (If only life had questions whose every answer was known!) and additionally fosters personal growth (what do I think? how do I say that?), social development (what will others think? how do they tell me?) and analytical ability (why does/doesn't this work?).
    
    
  • I see students every semester who are labeled by the school system as "at risk" or "IEP," "weird" by their peers, or, even worse, "stupid" by themselves.  These same students are also very clearly bright!  I am happy to tell them this in class and to challenge them with a different kind of schoolwork which makes sense to them and speaks to their own particular style of learning.  When students who have written themselves off or who look at school and education as something merely to be endured text me links to art they've seen, email articles they read and found interesting, or share work they're proud of via Facebook links on my wall --that demonstrates engagement and resonance with the material!

So there's a quick review of what I think went well in 2010.  Stay tuned for the next 2010 Annual Review post (2 of 4) on What Did Not Go Well.


Meanwhile, what went well in your classroom last year?  Please share your comments!

~MrC