Mindfulness in the classroom...

This is our very last blog challenge, and that is a bit of a bummer. I think that is why I've been avoiding it, not wholly on purpose though, tiredness and other assignments also took precedence. I hope this still counts though, think it miiight be a tad late now. But let me get to it: 

The challenge was to consider Foley (2014) and Wills (2015) and "meditate on the meaningful involvement of learners in your classroom". What I think they are getting at has something much like mindfulness. (And may I just say, the idea that contemplation on a next lesson may occur at my pillow and not necessarily at my computer - resonates with my soul). 

...so, there is something there, in that when you get students to mindfully engage in an activity there is an emotional shift, and I believe that this emotional shift might have something to do with why they might remember better, understand better, think more clearly and even better apply critical thinking.   

From here.

I think how we do things, how we allow our learners to do things, has a tremendous influence on what they take from your lesson, from your subject, from their learning experiences. I like the idea of making a mindful involvement an intrinsic part of class culture. So much so that even when there is a disturbance in the mindfulness, the learners, so used to being aware and mindful, will notice and things will basically run it's course naturally as Wills (2015) says. 

...A mindful artist...
From the interweb...

This is my favourite challenge: 

"...discover the mundane moments and tasks in your own classroom that are just waiting for your creativity to transform them into mindful learning opportunities." (Wills 2015) 

As an art teacher.... which mundane moments could I turn into mindful learning opportunities.... certainly cleaning the brushes, cleaning the working areas. I'm falling into the deep end here but we can visualise the brushes as babies we have to take care of, be gentle but clean thoroughly. Handle with love and care. Cleaning up after a practical section. That can also take some creativity into turning it into a mindful learning opportunity. 

I am drawn to the idea of learners cleaning their school, so even just in the art classroom, that might be the best South African teachers could maybe 'get away with'. But in Japan it is the way it is, the ethos, if you like, that learners, (ALL of them!), clean their classrooms and schools (including bathrooms and hallways and stairways and what have you...) every day, the last 20 minutes before going home. My kinda-sorta-one-day sister-in-law, from Japan, said that is how it was at their school as well. It is the common standard in Japanese schools. I think it is a beautiful way of teaching kids to respect what is theirs and think mindfully. It is their school, after all. So just like that, I would try find creative ways to involve learners in cleaning their art work stations, and tools. 

I think important would also be, as Wills says "fearless contemplation on what is and is not working in the classroom". This I think should involve the learners. There should be an always-ongoing discussion of sorts of what works for them and what does not. Together with the mindfulness culture in class, their would be an honesty culture, and an ongoing growing and evolving and thinking culture that we would constantly be making our lived practice in (and outside of) our art classroom.

How exactly, you ask?

From here.

I think this is something to go ponder about, frequently with note taking, (dream journal, anyone?), and I think I should blog about it some more in future when I think of some awesome ideas. I have a feeling though, that actual teaching will do wonders for my creativity to flow and seeing what really does and does not works in my classroom with my learners... 

Till later then, it's been fun...

From... the interweb...

Turning the teacher-student dynamic on its head...

Firstly, it's after 6 pm.... again. 

From here.

So after watching The Independant Project and reading Hamilton (2014) these are my thoughts...

This is talking about turning the teacher-student dynamic on its head. When reading things like this I keep thinking okay but where do we, as teachers, fit into this? If this is the future, do we still have a place? If the purpose of teaching is not about your subject matter but about encouraging and motivating kids in their own becoming of who they want to be, and who they are meant to be, we still have a place in this new world. But as they say today many teachers are limited by standards, to me that means curriculum driven, and that is simply not enough. IF we were to teach children in the way children learn, and the way the children of today are on iPads before they can even properly walk or talk, I’d say that yes, there is a potential for technology-mediated self-directed distance learning. NO doubt about it.

Just looking at the Independent Project (2011) as such a pure example of the burning desire, within our children, to learn that is in so many situations oppressed in the school systems with their rigidness and rules, and these kids went and turned it upside down and started an initiative because they wouldn’t let flawed school systems take away their joy of learning. And as teachers in the becoming it is our calling to awaken the joy in children again, how do we do that? Speak their language. Give them the tools of their generation. Give them the opportunity to create their own tools, ask them what their ideal digital pedagogies are, and let them teach us how they learn so we can provide them with what they need in their becoming. If this is not our purpose, I don’t know what is.

A component of this student-directed learning must be making; creative and imaginative repurposing and renewing of old tools, concepts, and methods, and invention of new tools, concepts, and methods. Driving this relentless progressivism is the question: what technologies don’t exist, but could?

- Hamilton (2014) -

I think that tech-mediated self-directed distance learning does not mean taking away classroom teaching completely, but I think it is a way to go beyond the curriculum and encourage students to engage with new content on their own turf. It would be a way to bring back the joy of learning and breed creativity on a whole new level, and a way of cultivating the minds of tomorrow in a dynamic ever-changing creative whirlpool of approaches. Approaches that won’t necessarily be up to us, as teachers, but to the students as our teachers. I say we should be what they need, not what the system says we should be. Go beyond the curriculum. Go beyond our turf to theirs. So that we would live in a world where kids were taught how they learn and you would see it in the world and in humanity, because awesomeness, awesomeness everywhere.... 

#SocialMediaIt

Good afternoon *cough*evening*cough*, my fellow digital pedagogues in training, all ye digital P's and digital Po's and also, of course, everyone else!! 

So this week we had to read Davis (2014) and Provenzano (2015) and translate all their words "into [magical] ideas for [our] own curriculum specialisations". The PGCE pace is picking up at exponential speeds, and technology, oh technology....I know how many of my fellow student colleagues may be feeling right now, it goes a little something like this: 

From here.

But lets just take a deep breath (or twenty), we can do this! I totally feel what Davis says about ignoring social media equates to us not living in the reality of today - basically stop pretending that you're in the 21st century. BUT it IS the 21st Century, Welcome One and Welcome All! It's 2016 and we are young and alive, we need to keep up with the digital times cause if we fall behind now, imagine us in 10 or 20 years.... It'll be THIS all over again:

From here.

Actually, I think some of us feel like this now already! But let’s think… How shall we use this sorcery to our learner's advantage? My main focus curriculum study choice subject is Art, and I immediately think Instagram, blog, twitter posted notes....

Instagram:

I #LOVE Instagram, I even have my own account, check it out at sanmarivanwykfineartist. I think it’s a great visual tool for art students. I love the idea of the scavenger hunt, I imagine if we did a certain theme like identifying the subject matter and style of a painting, I would do a daily or weekly challenge like #figurative, also using a hashtag to link our class together, and then they can be on the look-out at home, around school, around their community and they must post at least one example with the hashtags. This will also help them develop the identifying skills they need and I can see if they get something wrong where they are struggling with and I can address those aspects then in class or extra classes. This is a high order though, concerning the requirement of a smart phone and I realise it won’t always work out exactly like this in all schools. But in situations where there are no smart phones, I can supply children with a little booky, glue, scissors, pens and piles and piles of art magazines and give the same challenge in class. Hashtags included. We can call it our #PaperInstagram.

From here.

Tweets as posted notes: 

This could be valuable in learning all those technical art terms. We can have different kinds of pictures of artworks pasted all around the class and learners can write short tweet like descriptive terms and sentences and go stick it up around their chosen work. We can then walk around and discuss these terms and add new ones as we go along. This is an exercise that can be repeated throughout the year within many different themes to help learners get use to the new language they are learning in the subject.

Blogging:

I would love to use the tool we are using weekly in our Digital Pedagogy class, doing exactly THIS (I am writing a blog after reading articles, engaging with them and thinking further and then engaging with other students about their thoughts etc.). In an art context for learners who are new to the art world, this would be a great way to get them to engage with the work. Especially if it is not counted for how perfect their responses but if you can see that the wheels are turning in their heads and they are thinking about the work and trying to figure it out and connect dots. It is a great and valuable tool. But WAIT! NO need to throw out the paper with the bathwater in our new technological world!

From here.

Yet again, even if it is in a classroom with kids with no internet at home or computers, I can hand out short readings (related to a current study theme in class) or material about artworks, or art criticism, or even art magazines and tell them to pick an article and engage with it on a piece of paper. They then hand in all there papers and either I can shuffle them and hand them out and then on another piece of paper they can engage with the work they are reading from someone else. It can be a lesson in how to respectfully engage with someone else’s work, in how to conduct yourself in public, in how to be honest without being mean, most of all, how to critically think about a subject, and about someone else’s opinion on a subject, and on their own thoughts on a subject. 

In conclusion...

Which social media strategies and/or devices would I like to use one day and implement in my lessons in order to encourage and help learners to engage and also to make learning easier and make the work part of their life worlds?

From here.

I’ll stop here for now though, cause you know, 400 words has come and gone long ago. But so many more options, and thoughts to go think about this. You know, in-between our Intro to Educational Research group assignment, preparing a lesson plan (ek glaskas volgende week –WooHoo!), our Governance assignment….and picking my Mom up from the airport tonight! YAY!!!!!