Laughter in the classroom.

In my educational internet travels the above image popped up. As a lover of humor and generally goofy person I began to wonder if there are any resources that could help me use my sense of silliness in my curriculum. In search of literature on the refined pedagogy of the comedian I unearthed the following:

Learning through Laughter: Humor in the Classroom - a book which is sadly not in our library. Christmas is just around the corner. If any one of my 3 readers wanted to track this down and buy it for me I would be oh so grateful. :-)

http://www.humorworks.com/video.php - a video created by an author (who happens to hold a PhD in...something) about the value of humor. Haven't watched it yet, but it's on the do list.

Laugh and Learn: Humor and Learning a Second Language - not specific to teaching art but there is bound to be something I can use in there...I skimmed this document, it is full of charts and graphs, which are all very not-humorous. I will save this and my other gold nuggets above for when my schedule is isn't so...."end of the semester-y".

Do you forget things?

Being forgetful is a fact of life. I just discovered lumosity.com - a sort of gym for working your memory out. This is the sort of extracurricular activity I will encourage my students to do, because challenging your brain is always a good thing.

Are you a writer?

A friend of mine was telling about he stays motivated to complete writing by using a resource called nanowrimo. I was immediately intrigued. I wonder if this sort of resource could be modified to help students work on a longterm art project in someway.

If you're a writer and you're interested in this sort of resource, check it out:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

What are you going to do after graduating?

Are you worried or unsure of how your career will start after graduating, especially since us art education majors are continuously reminded of the unlikelihood of our employment? Well, if you are in or near the NYC area consider getting involved with Young Audiences New York (yaNY). yaNY offers in and out of school creative experiences to students at every level. This is something I am considering exploring post-graduation. Good luck!

A visual rubric in the multicultural classroom.

This visual rubric is obviously a bit elementary but I think it is a clever way to offer assessment on a visual basis (and it is certainly appropriate for the elementary level). For the secondary level it could be useful in communicating how you are grading a student with a language barrier.

Source: This image came from a great art education website I found. Check it out.http://www.thesmartteacher.com/

Adult education vs. adolescent education

As some one transitioning from young adult to adulthood - looking at the info-graphic below has left me wondering if there is any real difference between how an adolescent learns and how an adult learns. The following suggestions seem like good pedagogical practice for any age.

Source: http://flirtingwelearning.wordpress.com

Interdisciplinary cooperation and the graphic novel.

Do you remember how tedious and painful it was to read Shakespearean texts in a high school level English & Literature class? After finding a graphic novel of Macbeth, I began wondering if students might be able to glean some sort of enjoyment of the literature by creating their own imagery from a chosen excerpt.

Links to said graphic novel on Amazon:

Macbeth: The Graphic Novel

Macbeth: The Graphic Novel (Unabridged)

Transitioning to new common core standards.

Just an article I found regarding some of the reasoning behind the education standards overhaul.


Transitioning to the Common Core Standards

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/scholastic-achievement-partners/ccss.htm

http://k6educators.about.com/od/professionaldevelopment/a/Common-Core.htm

Check out this amazing teacher tool!

https://www.remind101.com/

Can you blame dentists for their patients' cavities?

We have been talking a lot about assessment in my Theory and Practice class. The following article discusses/examines factors which are highly influential on teacher/student performance, yet are not mentioned or considered in any circumstance of the educational profession. The article:
What we should be evaluating.

How much is a good teacher worth? A different aspect of quantitative vs. qualitative.

While reading through some teaching blogs on Wordpress I stumbled upon this interesting post about the monetary worth of a teacher. The post describes how teachers who save communities money when keeping students from dropping out and potentially engaging in destructive/criminal behavior (there is additional author/research information in the post for those who are interested). Initially I thought - Great! What an interesting way to consider the relevance of a teacher in a community. Soon after I became uncomfortable with the idea of placing a monetary amount on good teaching, or even the effects of good teaching. After a bit of thinking I had deconstructed my distaste for the idea to be rooted in the age old discussion of "the perils of quantitative assessment". Do we really want to place a dollar amount on teaching, is that the only language we now understand? If we can not separate the value of critical thinking from the principles of our monetary world, how can we motivate our students to believe what we are teaching has value. Isn't any quantity of a quality learning experience the most desired feature in the classroom? Ultimately, the idealist in me wants to separate the learning environment from money and numbers altogether (unless of course we are talking about mathematics). This whole idealistic thought process sort of took me by surprise, and I chuckled to myself as my "wisdom" of the inner workings of the "real world" mocked me. Regardless, I stand by the notion that the learning environment needs to maintain a component of idealism that is entirely separate from the language of our consumerist economy. It is a realistically attainable idea.

My classroom is a game...

Not only does this video advocate for the type of collaborative learning environment I mentioned in my last post, but it also applies to the subject of learning through gaming (which I am currently working with in my Theory and Practice course).

Japan has robots in the classroom!?

Foremost, I would like an interactive educational robot for my classroom. Yes! Where do I sign up? Second, reading this short article made me think of something I am learning in my Sociological and Philosophical Foundations of Education course. Paulo Freire wrote an extremely wordy and academic article that can be (overly) summarized by stating that teaching is often mistakenly thought of as a linear transfer of knowledge from instructor to student. In contrast, effective teaching happens when the learning environment is something shared by the students and the instructor. An instructor should give students as many opportunities to contribute to the learning as possible. That was the theory, and the robot put it into practice.

Is my red your orange?

This video, aside from being packed with interesting content, reminded me of a conversation about perception. How could you ever explain to another person that you are viewing the world in the same way they are? Could some one being seeing another color that you understand to be red, as something entirely different? The topic only gets more interesting with scientific explanations of colorblindness and the outrageous relationship our eyes and brain have with the world around us. Let's not cram too many tangents in here, and simply enjoy the video...

Reddit in the classroom.

What is University of Reddit's mission?

University of Reddit aims to become a community for anyone looking to teach or learn. We strive to provide an environment in which students need not pay tuition or dispense personal information.

Most of you have probably heard of reddit.com/, the self proclaimed "front page of the internet". But what you might not know is that a faction of this internet giant is using their open source platform to offer a free education forum. University of Reddit (or "uReddit") focuses on bringing opportunities to learn from the members of the community who are fit to teach. The reddit community is already well known for being a dynamic group of progressive/dedicated/complex thinkers: science enthusiasts, philosophers, mathematicians, musicians, writers, artists, PhD holders, and societal outcasts are all encouraged to contribute their thoughts. Nothing is excluded from discussion or debate by reddit's 8 million active users. Ureddit seems to be the next natural step for the community.


While browsing reddit, I have come across suggestions of creating a "subreddit" for a classroom. Many of the courses I have taken in college have used blogging services such as
Wordpress (and sure enough - this very blog!) to organize and distribute information and discussions. Why not use the versatility of a subreddit? Using reddit for its powerful networking capabilities is something we should all keep in mind while the classroom continues to utilize more and more technology. And we can certainly encourage students to participate in a ureddit course. Here is a course I found teaching Fine Art Theory!