As we were not able to find a time for Kwame to come in person, I sent him my lesson plan and slides for a workshop I taught to my year 3 students on BA Animation. The workshop was about diversifying character design. Workshop plan and slides below:
Kwame’s feedback:
Your lesson plan has an amazing projection of thinking that is situated in the Lynda Barry syllabus approach and Lynda Stupart body concept. Both concepts of art creation are about the limits of what one draws and based on self-perception. You started the session with a collaborative drawing which is an interesting approach that most students may not have experienced before. On most occasions in art education warm up drawing is about centring the artist’s own production. It would be interesting to understand the rationale for this warm up and whether there was an intended learning.
The plan presents a really good progressive workshop in which activities encourage participant collaboration and support (in the form of feedback and discussion). It would be interesting to know if you had an in-session plan for managing time between activities. This is because when engagement is extensive amongst peers it feels like it should continue because a lot of learning is acquired during that period (Peer Learning: an Overview – Keerthirathne, W.K.D., 2020. Peer learning: an overview. International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Science, 4(11), pp.1-6)
As this is only a workshop plan, even though it has significant detail, I would like to know if there was the need to walk around the room to support or encourage any student as part of running the workshop? When you know your students very well, as an educator, your instruction is often understood clearly without any additional prompt. In short it means you are in the zone!!
My responses to Kwame’s questions:
I use collaborative drawing as a tool to take the pressure out of creation. Drawing a character together, especially as in an exquisite corpse when you cannot see the whole character until the end, allows students to be less precious with their work. Being silly together builds trust, encourages support and allows students to have a go and take the idea of “failing” less seriously. This then loosens them up creatively for individual work later on in the session.
I design sessions to be reactive and flexible to what is happening in the moment. If a particularly good or useful discussion comes up, I will make space for it to continue and cut down the time on another task. Keerthirathne argues that peer learning needs both space and structure in equal measure, as a facilitator I gage responsively which is needed at a particular point.
During the afternoon in this session I will make myself available for questions and occasionally circulate around the room. I find there is a delicate line to be trod between actively engaging with student work and standing over them which can cause anxiety. If students are not actively seeking my advice or support, I will sit down and do the task alongside them which allows me both to model the task and to enter a more collaborative learning environment, where we are all working on the same project rather than creating a more hierarchical power structure where I watch while they work.