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East Coast/West Coast Art Educators Home
East Coast/West Coast Art Project
The East Coast/West Coast Art project, a collaboration of two middle school art teachers from opposite ends of the country and their higher education partner, is currently in its seventh year. For the past six years, the teachers studied how their students construct problems and make meanings through collaborative activity. Initiated two years ago, the East Coast/West Coast Art Educators wiki uses a technological environment to address the call for 21st Century learning skills such as communication, collaboration, creative problem finding and problem solving, critical thinking and technology. As such, the wiki develops community among art education majors and middle school teachers and their students as they communicate about contemporary artists and instruction in the schools. The wiki is not open to the public and has no advertisements.
Art education majors at the higher education institution produce slideshows about contemporary artists in multicultural contexts and their Big Ideas; these slideshows are then sent to the middle school art teachers to use with their students. Middle school art students continue to research selected artists and work in teams or individually to create interpretations of their research in visual and written form. The art teachers use lessons learned from previous years as they help their students work in teams to create their own assignments. The wiki has allowed students at both levels to upload photos and videos of their research and artwork. Additionally, wiki threads allow students and teachers to interact with each other, ask questions, and respond to the work. A third technological advance in this project, initiated last year, is the introduction of video conferences between the art education majors and 8th grade art students. Video conferences bring students face to face, building more "social" into the community.
This project addresses a need to involve art students in constructing personal meaning in art making. Constructivist teaching encourages students to set and solve instructional problems. Constructivist learning leads to self-learning where knowledge construction is the focus, where real-world problems are socially negotiated, and thoughtful reflection on experience is emphasized (Petit, 2002; Vygotsky, 1986). In this context, the two art teachers serve as mentors to their students: rather than being teacher-directors, they are guides and sounding boards. The emphasis, then, is on self-directed individual and team exploration and reflection; subsequently, students must grapple with and make meaning of important issues related to their own lives.
johnsonm@newpaltz.ed |
Latest page update: made by johnsonm@newpaltz.ed
, Mar 13 2010, 3:13 PM EST
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| johnsonm@newpaltz.ed | What's new? | 0 | Mar 13 2010, 10:20 AM EST by johnsonm@newpaltz.ed | ||
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Thread started: Mar 13 2010, 10:20 AM EST
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Hi Lorraine. What's new? Are you using the wiki this year? Will you be in Baltimore? We are presenting a session about it on the Friday afternoon of the conference. Best regards, Margaret
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| LorraineBNH | East Coast/West Coats | 2 | Sep 17 2009, 9:02 AM EDT by SculptMeB18 | ||
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Thread started: Aug 13 2009, 9:39 AM EDT
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How exciting to have this great way of connecting with other art educators. I look forward to communicating and collaborating with all of you. I would especially be interested in talking with middle school teachers to share ideas and inspiration. I want to begin a new project with a small group of kids doing a possible installation project. Any ideas??
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