Welcome Back!

On Wednesday, students will return for another great year at Worthington Hills.   Less then a week! And as I prepped at school this morning, though there is still much to do, I couldn't help but become more and more excited with each smiling face I saw skipping down the hallway.

For this first post, I wanted to explain the reason for switching websites and give some insight into what we will be focusing on this year in art.

In our class, we emphasize the process of learning and creating over the final project.  I wanted to switch to the blog format to better showcase all the ideas, challenges, inspirations and discoveries that happen along the way to a finished work of art.  I say showcase, because that's what I want to do; elevate all of these moments of learning in their importance.  Sometimes, when we only look at a photo of a completed project, we miss out on all the learning that happened along the way.

In congruence with focusing on the process, we will be working to make thinking visible this year.  Students will be developing their creative thinking through the skills of fluency (generating many ideas), flexibility (taking an idea and changing it into something new), originality, and elaboration.  We will also be focusing on thinking like artists by focusing on asking questions, reflecting, collaborating, play imagination, making connections, experimenting, and persisting through failure.

A major inspiration for me was the Teaching for Creativity Institute I attended this summer at the Columbus Museum of Art.  Here is Columbus Museum of Art's Cindy Foley talking about the importance of art education as a medium to develop students who think like artists.

Here's to trying new things this upcoming year, whatever that may be, and being comfortable with that ambiguity!


Thanks to the Columbus Museum of Art and to the book, Making Thinking Visible for inspiration.