Miss Art of Teaching

Embrace the value of Art There seems to be an increased misunderstanding that 'Art is easy' or 'I am entitled to a higher mark because it is just Art'. Moving up Bloom's Taxonomy: This makes me revisit the taxonomy pyramid created by Benjamin Bloom. His pyramid has influenced many educators. Higher order skills are placed at the top of the pyramid and by looking at his diagram below we can see that 'creating' is placed at the top.  Visual Arts is a subject where it requires students to   create   their own artworks and explain/communicate how they did it. This subject provides activities that help engage students to higher order thinking.  His pyramid is also a great way of scaffolding activities in the art classroom. As an art educator I still cover 'remembering' activities by getting students to identify and match things.  Students are encouraged to analyse artworks by looking at the elements and principles of design, and evaluating wha...

I've been thinking of ways to make theory more fun AND to encourage class participation when it comes to discussion time. I don't want the same students to be giving me the answers. I want the whole class to contribute. What works: I downloaded the free PDF file from 'Expressive Monkey' on Teachers Pay Teachers. The resource is called 'Ping Pong Art Critique'. It provides a list of 32 questions to help facilitate class discussions on ANY piece of artwork. For example: -What title would you give this art? -What feeling or emotion did the artist create? -Where did the artist create contrast? -Does this art tell a story? -What would you change about this art? -Would you display this art in your house? Why? Why not? You can either purchase real ping pong balls and write the questions on top or simply print and laminate the resources. I decided to save money and go with the second option. I passed out one ping pong ball per st...