We often teach our students that they can send powerful messages through their artwork. What if your students took this one step further to use their art to directly impact their community and the environment? Empower your students to use their art beyond self-expression and harness it as a tool to raise awareness and inspire action! Introduce environmentalism and visual activism to make real-world applications that are sure to hook students and transform them into changemakers.

Give back to the environment with two visual activism strategies and discover three fascinating artists leading the charge!

Strategy 1: Embrace sustainable art practices with recycled materials.

Upcycling and sustainability in the art room begin with the materials students use. It encourages students to think critically about waste and budget and think creatively about material manipulation and transformation. This focus reinforces to students that their artistic decisions can have a positive environmental impact and further enhance their art’s message. 

Provide structure and support with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals offer a framework for addressing environmental challenges. For example, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production encourages reducing waste and using resources wisely. It would be a great tie-in to a paper-making lesson using scrap papers. Incorporate the SDGs into your curriculum to make your lessons more impactful, expose students to new connections, and create cross-curricular activities. 

Check out the following three resources for ideas to embrace sustainability in your art curriculum:

1. Zero Budget Art Room
2. How to Embrace Limitations to Tap Into Creativity With Your Students
3. 12 Ways to Be Environmentally Conscious in the Art Room

Strategy 2: Design thematic projects to explore environmental issues and tap into students’ interests.

Introduce environmental issues in student artwork through the use of themes. Break down big topics into easier-to-digest themes for students to select from. For younger students, focus on simple concepts that they encounter every day, like recycling. For middle school students, introduce more complex initiatives like climate change or deforestation. For older students, allow more abstract issues, such as resource depletion or environmental justice.

Garner support from teachers in other content areas to enhance the depth of each project and reinforce the interconnectedness of learning. Another way to gain support and inspire students is to bring in guest speakers who are environmental scientists, local activists, or community leaders. Facilitate guided research from multiple perspectives so students can learn more about their topic. This is a great opportunity to discuss strong research skills and how to be a responsible digital citizen.

Once students have information on their topic, it’s time to brainstorm! Reflect on what stance they want to take within their topic and what they want to prompt the viewer to do. Sketch ideas that convey their messaging and consider how upcycling and sustainability in specific materials can detract from or support their idea. Show them the artists below to highlight what other artists are doing in the field and get them to think outside of the box before diving into their final creations.

Discover three environmental artists sparking change!

Note: Artists are arranged in alphabetical order by their last name. Peruse the links below and consider how these artists and works fit into your district and curriculum parameters to determine if they are a good fit and appropriate to share with your students.

1. Mel Chin

Mel Chin’s Revival Field explores bioremediation, which uses plants to remove toxins from contaminated soil. His work, using plants to heal the earth, focuses on overlooked communities that suffer the most from environmental harm. Chin’s work is a model for how art can show an audience a solution to a real-world problem. 

Classroom Application:

Create seed bombs to take this concept to your students and their neighborhoods. Seed bombs are small balls of soil with seeds that you throw into underutilized spaces to promote plant growth. Students can create two seed bombs each—one to keep and plant themselves and one to donate. Gift the second seed bomb to a local community clean-up initiative. This allows students to help with re-greening efforts in their community. 

2. Olafur Eliasson

In Ice Watch, Olafur Eliasson moved ice from Greenland’s glaciers to city centers. It made climate change a real experience that people had to face every day. His work turns environmental data into a physical, interactive display that you cannot ignore. It forces people to confront the impact of climate change and take action.

Classroom Application:

Make a stop-motion animation that documents a natural process of change, like an ice cube melting or organic material decaying. Students will photograph the gradual transformation from the same spot, visually tracking each stage as it unfolds. The more sequential photos they take, the smoother and more fluid their animation will be. Use a stop motion app or simple slideshow presentation to arrange them in order. This activity challenges students to think critically about how small, incremental changes can accumulate over time.

3. Maya Lin

Maya Lin’s What is Missing? is an environmental memorial that highlights biodiversity loss and climate change. Through art, science, and data, she raises awareness of species and ecosystems at risk. Lin’s work highlights the damage happening to the environment right now. It reminds us of loss and why we should push for a more sustainable future.

Classroom Application:

Design postcards to raise awareness about an endangered species or ecosystem. Students research their subject matter and draw it on the front of the postcard. Students write a short advocacy message about the importance of their issue with one way the recipient can help. Students mail the postcard to a friend or family member to spread awareness to someone they love and advocate for action. Use the Postcard in Earth Biomes Lesson in FLEX Curriculum for a full list of supplies, standards, objectives, and step-by-step instructions.

Art has the power to not only raise awareness but to drive real change. By incorporating eco-friendly themes and practices in your art room, you empower students to make a difference. Show students how to use their creativity in upcycling materials with sustainability in mind. Embrace environmental themes to practice solid research and communication skills. Introduce the three artists above to broaden students’ horizons with what’s possible with visual activism and how professionals are sparking change. Mobilize your art curriculum so your students will make a positive impact on the environment for years to come!  

How do you incorporate sustainable practices in your art room? 

Who is your favorite visual activist to share with students?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post Make an Impact: Helpful Environmental Service Learning Ideas in the Art Room appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool for creativity and education, revolutionizing the way we approach both artistic expression and learning. You can use AI tools to make your job easier and enhance learning for students, but good results require good prompts. Prompt engineering is the art of crafting precise instructions to guide AI’s output. Much like a skilled teacher guiding a student, effective prompt engineering involves providing clear context, setting specific constraints, and iteratively refining instructions to achieve the desired outcome.

Engineer prompts and wield AI tools like a pro with the ideas below.

What is prompt engineering?

In the realm of visual art, AI is the ability of computer systems to mimic human creative processes. This can involve generating text, images, sounds, and more. A crucial aspect of working with AI art tools is prompt engineering, which involves crafting precise written prompts to guide AI’s output. Much like instructing a student, a well-crafted prompt can inspire AI to generate specific styles, subjects, or emotions, while vague prompts may lead to unpredictable results. A strong prompt will provide clear context, constraints, and objectives.

Consider these two different prompt examples:

1. Vague: Give me ideas to improve observational drawing skills.
2. Specific: Act as an experienced art teacher. You are working with a group of third and fourth-grade students seeking to improve their observational drawing skills. Give ten different activity ideas to help students improve. Each activity should focus on just one or two elements of art so students can prioritize specific skills to target. Include ideas for differentiation.

Provide context for more relevant results.

Context is key when it comes to crafting effective AI prompts for art. The more information you provide, the more likely AI will generate content that is appropriate, challenging, engaging, and relevant to your curriculum and students. Plus, it can help AI make connections and suggest activities you may not have considered!

For example, if you’re asking AI to generate questions for your students, it will need to know a lot of information. You can enter the following excerpt: You’re an experienced art teacher. You are doing an in-class review game with key ceramic terms around the stages and kinds of clay. Write the questions at a 9-10th grade level and include a mix of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank. 

Set constraints.

Setting constraints for AI tools is a crucial step in ensuring the generated content aligns with educational goals and safety standards. For art teachers, this could involve specifying the source material for AI to reference. Try limiting image searches to reputable museum websites or educational platforms. This ensures that AI is pulling from reliable and curated sources and will decrease the likelihood of inappropriate or inaccurate content.

When looking up artists and artwork, you can set constraints to specify the style, medium, culture, and time period. Consider the age and skill levels of your students and then set grade-level or scope and sequence constraints. By carefully defining these boundaries, you can harness the power of AI while maintaining control over the learning experience and ensuring a safe and productive environment for students.

Teach to AI as if it were a student. 

When you present a lesson to your students, you provide them with clearly defined criteria for success. That is also a great practice for working with AI! Take the same approach and explicitly state what you want the AI tool to create so it can compile its best results. Remember that AI is a tool and only as good as the user’s skill, intelligence, and approach.

If you told a student to simply “paint a landscape,” you would probably get a flat painting with minimal detail. If you wanted your students to create a successful landscape, you would provide criteria such as including a background, middleground, and foreground, atmospheric or linear perspective, specific color schemes, and smooth gradations. Along similar lines, telling AI to “generate an image” will likely result in some strange pictures as it “guesses” to fill in the blanks. 

Approach AI with a growth mindset.

Remember, AI tools are young learners and still have a lot of room to grow. If the first output isn’t exactly what you envisioned, don’t give up. Most AI tools offer options to refine and iterate, much like providing constructive feedback to students. You can request longer or shorter responses, tweak the tone, or simply generate more results based on your original prompt. 

Even a simple edit to your prompt can make a significant difference! Think of each iteration as a learning opportunity for both you and AI. With each interaction, AI learns from your feedback and will gradually improve its ability to understand your needs. So, embrace the power of “yet” and keep experimenting!

For instance, after using AI to generate art activity ideas, ask it to create memorable phrases of key ideas. AI will remember the context and information from the previous prompt, so your added prompt can be shorter. Try: Give me a short phrase to tell students with each activity to help them focus and remember key concepts. The phrase should be clear and use kid-friendly language.

If you’re curious about integrating AI and want to learn more, check out AI in Art Education. This graduate course provides practical strategies to develop communication, creativity, and critical thinking in a tech-evolving landscape.

AI is a powerful tool you can mobilize with prompt engineering. AI can assist in everything from compiling engaging lesson ideas to providing personalized feedback. AI tools cannot replace your expertise, but they can serve as a great personal assistant. AI can also help you to refine your ideas or consider new perspectives. Just like you would teach and approach a student, make sure AI understands your situation and goals by providing context, constraints, and criteria for optimal success. Give it a try and see what you and AI can accomplish together in your next art lesson!

What AI prompts give you great results?

What problems do you wish AI tools could solve for you?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post How to Train Your Robot: AI Prompt Engineering for Art Teachers appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming education, and the art classroom is no exception. From generating creative prompts to assisting with lesson planning and assessments, AI offers a wealth of potential to streamline tasks and enhance the learning experience. However, like any powerful tool, wield AI with careful consideration. As art educators, it’s crucial to strike a balance between embracing AI’s benefits and ensuring responsible use of this technology. Responsible use means safeguarding student data, adhering to district and school policies, and keeping your brain and skills sharp. If you’re new to AI, start by learning what it is with an overview of its benefits and challenges. 

Learn about the transformative power of AI tools for planning and assessment and their potential to both enhance the art experience and hinder artistic growth.

Program AI to answer tedious student questions.

We all want to give our students individualized instruction but sometimes we’re short on time. AI can assist and act as a tutor for your students. Questions about foundational art skills and techniques are easy for AI to take care of. Set up AI with an automated prompt sequence! After AI answers a student’s question, it will ask the student if they have any further questions. It will repeat until the student says they are finished. You can basically program a color mixing tool without having to learn code!

Try a prompt like this: 

Create a color mixing tutorial. You will ask what color the user wants to make. Then, tell the user how to mix that color using only turquoise, magenta, yellow, black, and white paint. Use terms that an elementary student can read and understand. Tell the user color ratios indicating how many units of each color to use. Then, give the user a bit of advice on how to apply liquid tempera paint well. Finally, ask if there is another color you can help them create. Repeat this until the user indicates they are finished.

What should you consider when AI answers student questions?

AI tools are becoming increasingly reliable at generating factually correct information. However, the answer you get will only be as good as the instructions you give and the information it’s pulling from. As the expert, always check for accuracy. Let AI help students with simple tasks related to foundational art skills and techniques. Save deeper and more conceptual processes like analyzing and evaluating artwork for your nuanced facilitation. For example, you may try the color mixing prompt above while students are painting, but go back to more traditional forms of checking understanding at the end of a color theory unit.

Create tools for assessment.

For many teachers, creating objective assessments in a highly subjective content area can be a daunting task. Once you have determined your success criteria, use AI tools to aid in formulating the rubric or an assessment checklist. You can also generate questions and writing prompts for additional activities like quizzes or review games. AI can phrase things as a story problem, riddle, multiple choice, or fill-in-the-blank. AI can generate text at any grade level to adjust the same assignment for any class. Whatever you’d like AI to do, describe your goal as clearly as possible with any components you want included.

Here is a sample prompt you can modify to align with your goals:

Create a rubric for assessing student artwork. Assess the following categories: planning and preparation, appropriate use and care for tools, neatness of the final product, and innovation. Grade each of these criteria on a four-point scale, with 1 being beginning, 2 being approaching, 3 being secure, and 4 being exemplary. For each of these four categories, write a description that includes artwork characteristics. Lay out the rubric as a table with the numbers in the top row and each of the categories in the first column.

What should you consider with AI assessments?

AI-generated rubrics and checklists may give you a starting point, but AI tools are not experts when it comes to your curriculum. AI does not have the insights into your students that you do. You know best the areas in which you are looking to see student growth. Review and edit all AI-generated documents to make sure they align with your curriculum and are appropriate for your students. Of course, there are many customizable resources to streamline assessment that do not involve AI. Try the Plug n’ Play Rubric or one of the many student-facing assessments in FLEX Curriculum. 

Make your documents more accessible.

Art teachers are responsible for teaching hundreds of students with a variety of needs, levels, and backgrounds. AI tools can help you quickly and easily modify text to make it more accessible. Try translating instructions into a different language, converting text to speech, and generating summaries of articles at different reading levels. Save yourself the time of manually pulling these resources yourself and put AI to work to help meet all of your students where they are. Remember to review and edit all AI-generated documents to ensure they are appropriate for your students. 

What should you consider when using AI for accessibility?

Double-checking a translation to ensure it is faithful to the original text can be difficult. When using AI to translate text into a language you do not speak, consider running the translated text through a different chatbot asking it to translate the text back to English. Review both versions to check for accuracy.

Discover artists to diversify instruction.

All art teachers have favorite artists they keep going back to. Add a fresh twist to your lessons and use AI to help you discover new artists and artworks! Tell your favorite chatbot the core concept and grade level for the lesson. Then, instruct it to give you 10 diverse artists and artworks to show as examples. 

What should you consider when using AI to discover diverse artists?

AI models rely on data collected from the internet. It is important to be mindful of the perspectives, power structures, biases, and limitations inherent in that model. Remember that AI is a generative tool, which means it can also make up people, artworks, and other bits of information. This is why it’s imperative to double-check any results before bringing them to your students.

Get suggestions to liven up your lessons.

Many art teachers are the only art specialists in their buildings. Being the entire art department can be liberating when you have autonomy! On the other hand, it can also mean you’re missing out on valuable collaboration. Everyone benefits from getting other perspectives to refine ideas and solutions. AI tools can serve as a non-judgemental brainstorming buddy. Use it to help you consider different approaches and input lesson plans that are starting to feel stale. Give AI the learning targets and ask it to give you five new lesson ideas based on those objectives.

What should you consider when using AI tools to plan a lesson?

Just like when you write your own lesson or use one from another art teacher, it’s good practice to test the lesson before trying it with students. There are wild stories out there of AI-generated plans with incredible errors, like when AI told a user to put glue on pizza! Plus, only you know your students, art room, and teaching style best. Use your experience and knowledge to take what you need and toss what you don’t from an AI-generated lesson. 

What else should you consider as you integrate AI into your practice?

AI can provide powerful tools to make many aspects of your job easier, but too much of even a good thing can be harmful. Teaching is an art form and it is important for every artist to develop and maintain the skills of their craft. As such, use AI tools to supplement your repertoire and streamline routine tasks. Continue to rely on your wit, wisdom, experience, and expertise! 

If you’re intrigued about integrating AI and want to learn more, check out AI in Art Education. This graduate course provides practical strategies to develop communication, creativity, and critical thinking in a tech-evolving landscape.

Note data and privacy concerns.

Also, when using AI tools with and for students, there are concerns regarding data security and privacy. AI tools harvest massive amounts of data online. It generates responses based on probabilities modeled using that data. The models also “learn” from user input, meaning that the AI tool records the information you type. Never input any potentially sensitive information. Do not use student names, identifying details, or images of students in any of your AI prompts.

Keep up-to-date on laws regarding AI.

AI tools are rapidly evolving. School administrators will update policies to help educators navigate the new tools as they arise. Lawmakers are also working to craft legislation to address potential AI concerns. As of the time of this writing, 17 states have already enacted 29 laws regarding AI, and more are sure to come. It is your responsibility to take initiative. Stay up-to-date on current trends and updated policies in both your district and school, and globally, nationally, and statewide.

Harness the power of AI tools to not only make your job teaching art easier and more efficient, but also more creative and inclusive. Approach AI with a critical and discerning eye to prioritize student data privacy, adhere to ethical guidelines, and maintain a strong foundation in traditional artistic skills. Ultimately, AI should serve as an empowering ally, augmenting the human touch that lies at the heart of art education. 

What instructional tasks would you like to try passing along to AI?

What concerns do you have about the use of AI?

The post Ways AI Can Make Your Art Teacher Job Easier for Planning and Assessment appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Are you ready to explore the deliciously creative world of art? Get your appetite ready because we’re about to delve into the role of food in the art room! Art teachers often incorporate food into lessons in many ways. Food can be used as a subject for still-life drawings or as a plate for printmaking. Because of this, it’s important to be aware of the potential impact on students who may not have access to regular meals. 

Food is a key ingredient in historic and current artmaking. Let’s investigate the role of food in art history, the benefits and implications of bringing food into the classroom, and seven practices to consider as you plan.

Why is food significant in art history?

Understanding the significance of food in art and its impact on students is crucial. Food in art is not a new concept and has been the main subject matter since Prehistoric cave paintings. However, part of our job as art teachers is to be aware of broader contexts so we can aim to be as inclusive as possible. Continue reading to discover how deep food goes in art history, and therefore, the art classroom and curriculum.  

Historic Artwork

Food has left its tantalizing mark on the canvas of art history. Throughout time, people made art about what was most important to them. For the earliest group of people during Prehistoric times, each day was about survival. This is depicted in cave art with the primary subject matter being animals they hunted.

In ancient Egypt, food offerings in art were a way to honor deities and ensure their favor. In Japan, they used a fish as a printing plate for gyotaku prints to preserve the memory of a catch. Fast-forward to the Renaissance and Baroque periods where the development of still-life painting flourished. Artists captured the beauty and symbolism of various delicacies in meticulous detail. Giuseppe Arcimboldo pushed the boundaries by painting portraits composed entirely of fruits, vegetables, and other foods. 

Modern and Contemporary Artwork

Skipping ahead a few more centuries into the Pop Art movement, food was used as a symbol for consumer culture and mass production. Artists like Claes Oldenburg created larger-than-life sculptures of food. Wayne Thiebaud celebrated the simple pleasures of life through whimsical paintings of cakes and pastries.

Frida Kahlo incorporated food as a metaphor for personal struggles and cultural identity. Judy Chicago challenged societal norms around femininity with culinary imagery. Contemporary artists like Tisha Cherry or Lauren Purnell use snacks and leftover scraps of food to compose compelling collages and sculptures. Because food is so intertwined in art history, it’s natural for these artists, artworks, and techniques to make their way into the art curriculum. Before you start planning the next lesson, let’s touch on how food can impact our students.

What are the benefits and implications of bringing food into the art room?

Our students today are no different—food is just as important to them now as it was to the artists of the past. Unfortunately, for many of our students, food is a scarce commodity. Food insecurity is when students have limited amounts of finances or resources to access enough food. In the United States, more than 38 million Americans experienced food insecurity last year and 1 in 6 students come to school hungry. Full, hungry, or somewhere in between, there are educational benefits to bringing food into the art room. And, as the reflective art teacher you are, there are also a few things to be on the lookout for as you foster an inclusive art studio.

Benefits

Food provides a captivating subject matter to spark students’ imagination. The vibrant colors and intricate details found in food offer opportunities for experimentation. Students can work with composition, perspective, and color mixing. We saw examples above of artists who used food as inspiration in their own work. Using food in the art room creates dynamic and engaging exploratory studies and final artworks.

Here are some other benefits: 

• Develops observational skills and attention to detail.
• Promotes cultural awareness and appreciation.
• Relates art to students’ daily lives.
• Allows for sensory exploration.

Implications

To create a classroom where as many students as possible feel safe, consider the impact of food insecurity on students. AOEU Associate Professor and Curriculum Specialist, Theresa Haugen, explains there can be negative effects of hunger in art class. For example, she shared a story of a student who came up to her after class and asked if they could eat the fruit from the still life. 

Here are some other behaviors that may stem from food insecurity or hunger-related fatigue:

• Doesn’t seem interested in the lesson or working.
• Requests to stay in the art room during lunch instead of going to the cafeteria.
• Absent from school due to frequent illnesses.
• Inability to concentrate, especially on tasks requiring fine motor skills.
• Appears tired or lethargic.
• Acting out.
• Complains of a stomachache or being cold.
• Declining academic performance and lower grades.

What seven practices can art teachers consider?

When incorporating food in the art room, art teachers may find themselves at a crossroads. You can avoid the use of food altogether and offer alternative materials or subject matter. The other path involves embracing food in the art room and providing food or snacks for students who are hungry. But how do you determine which route to take?

Here are four pointers to reflect on before diving into the tips below:

1. Research the student demographic, including how many students receive free or reduced meals.
2. Chat with the school’s professional counselors to see what resources are available and when to refer students to them.
3. Start a dialogue with your department chair and administration to garner support.
4. Look at your lessons from different perspectives to ensure as many students as possible can access the content regardless of home life, background experience, and more.

1. Know your students and their backgrounds.

Building relationships with your students is always important. Part of relationship building can be understanding cultural, religious, and dietary backgrounds. Ask your students to share fun facts about themselves, rope in your administration for the data portion, and connect with the health office or school nurse for known allergies. This knowledge will help you avoid causing discomfort or offense when using food in the art room. For example, some students fast during certain months for religious reasons. They may choose to abstain from consuming food or drink from dawn to sunset. This can inform when you plan a food unit so as many students as possible can participate. 

2. Incorporate alternative subject matter.

There is nothing better than using real objects in a still life because it helps students capture more detail and it makes the experience more authentic. However, if there are students experiencing food insecurity, it can be very challenging for them to spend an entire period (or unit!) looking at food they are not allowed to eat. Theresa suggests using different organic objects such as flowers, acorns, or shells in lieu of food.

3. Make your own faux food.

Create a double unit where students sculpt their own faux food using clay or toilet paper. Then, use the food sculptures as your still life for a drawing or painting assignment. This shows connections between different mediums. Combining two- and three-dimensional art forms also hones artmaking skills and techniques.

4. Add a designated snack time and snack cupboard.

Some students may rely on school meals as a primary source of nutrition. As such, it can be insensitive to munch on a granola bar in front of them while they are trying to concentrate during studio time. At the secondary level, many students bring their own snacks to school and pull them out whenever they want.

To avoid making students who are hungry feel uncomfortable and left out, consider designating a five-minute snack time. Not only can this help break up longer periods, but it can also provide your students with the quick energy and social boost they need to get through the rest of the class. A designated snack time also fosters a sense of community as everyone chats and eats together. Be sure to adhere to your district and school’s food guidelines and ensure students wash their hands and tables before consuming anything.

To make things even more fun, you may occasionally provide themed snacks to go with the unit at hand. A student-favorite activity is to create color wheels with frosting and food coloring on cookies or cupcakes. Whatever you decide, double-check with your administration and school nurse before your lesson to ensure you are following district and school guidelines when it comes to food and allergies. 

With administrative permission, make a designated space in your room where students can bring non-perishable items. Ensure the cupboard, drawer, or plastic tub is safe from any unwanted critters. Explain the purpose of the food cupboard to your students. This can be a good opportunity to bring awareness to food insecurity with sensitivity and intention while fostering empathy and social responsibility. Reach out to local organizations including grocery stores and your PTA/PTO to provide donations of cereal bars and granola bars. 

See secondary art teacher, Tasha Newton’s, snack drawer in the video below.

5. Design and create a community garden.

Engage students in a project where they design a community garden. You can do this on school grounds or elsewhere through a local organization. Consider collaborating with the science or horticulture teachers for interdisciplinary connections. Students can explore themes of food, sustainability, and the environment. Include students in the design of the garden layouts. Students can also create plant markers, signage, and murals.

6. Use food as an art medium.

Alternatively, explore using food as an art medium. Introduce students to artists who use food for art materials like Tisha Cherry, Lauren Purnell, and Daryna Kossar. Provide food items for each student so they can create unique artwork. Then, once you or the students photograph the artwork, they can eat their work! This can be a fun way to provide a snack for all students while incorporating unconventional contemporary artists. 

7. Collaborate with other departments and staff. 

Work with the cafeteria or food services staff, science department, or family and consumer science teachers to integrate food-related units into your curriculum. Explore the art of food styling, design a food truck, or examine the parts of fruits and vegetables with botanical illustrations. Food is a great way to create connections with other content areas and career choices. 

The role of food in the art room offers a delectable avenue for creativity and exploration. Take the time to step back and see how food is integral to art throughout history as both subject matter and art material. It’s a natural next step to bring it into the art classroom! In order to foster a considerate learning environment for as many students as possible, it’s important to recognize the pros and cons of doing so. Food can immediately hook students by creating relatable connections to art. But for students who have food insecurity, looking at food they can’t eat in the art room can be difficult. Get to know your student demographics and start conversations with your administration. Then, design a community garden focused on sustainability, designate a class snack time with provided snacks, or make faux food to use in lieu of real food. There are many thoughtful ways to include food in the art room that strikes a good balance between creativity and empathy.

How do you incorporate food into your art curriculum? 

Have you considered how food insecurity impacts your students?

What is one way you will be more inclusive around food insecurity this year?

The post Art and Appetite: 7 Ways to Explore the Significance of Food in the Art Room appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Let’s take a look at seven innovative ways to teach the Elements of Art and Principles of Design.

Check out FLEX Curriculum for tons of lessons to teach your students all about the elements and principles. A great one to start with is the Basics Collection, which features lessons on color, line, and shape. FLEX also offers hundreds of student-facing resources, including handy overviews, like the ones in the image above, and short, animated videos. If you’re interested in getting FLEX for your students, fill out this quick contact form.

1. Use technology.

Design an interactive Google Slides presentation to teach the Elements of Art and Principles of Design like elementary art teacher, Melinda Nguyen. Students drag and drop elements onto the slides to demonstrate their understanding of the designated principle. It’s a fun way to incorporate technology and it’s perfect for virtual learning.

2. Create an escape room.

Up the interest level and have students review the Elements of Art through a digital escape room, like secondary art teacher, Sabrina Wingren. Students complete several activities to move through the digital environment. Allow students to work alone or in teams. Either way, they’ll enjoy the mystery and intrigue of escaping!

3. Incorporate them into a project.

Combine sculpture and the Principles of Design with cardboard attachment techniques. High school art teacher, Suzanneh Fee, requires students to select two principles to demonstrate with cardboard. For an inspiring drawing assignment, sketch sign language hands where each hand represents a different Element of Art. Ashley Mills’ students learn to draw realistic hands from observation while also gaining exposure to the sign language alphabet.

4. Make explosion booklets.

Create Elements of Art explosion booklets. Mrs. Lundgren’s high school students use the elements to create an abstract painting. Break this down more by teaching one element or principle at a time. After each element or principle, students illustrate it and glue it into their explosion booklets. This is a fun creation students will want to keep playing with!

5. Sketch a visual organizer.

Compose an elements and principles visual organizer like high school art teacher, Mrs. Stesch. Students create rectangles for each element and principle with the name, a student-created example, and a found example. This allows students to review the definitions “at-a-glance” whenever they need to.

6. Incorporate social-emotional elements.

Jonathan Juravich, an elementary art teacher, not only taught his students about the elements and principles, but he also made the lessons into social-emotional learning opportunities. His students discussed how to make good decisions while creating lines and how to be more self-aware through shape. Check out more in the article, 7 Lesson Ideas to Engage Kindergarteners in SEL Through the Elements of Art.

7. Create an interactive wheel.

Make an elements and principles wheel, like middle school art teacher, Jessica Hamilton. On the outside, students decorate the wheel to demonstrate the elements and principles. On the inside, they write the definitions and any key notes.

Here are three ways to make reviewing the elements and principles fun.

Once you’ve taught your students all about the elements and principles, it helps to continually review them, especially if coming back after a long break. Keep students on their toes and reinforce their learning through fun and interaction.

1. Turn it into a game.

Create a game to make review fun! Cheryl created a memory game with objects related to the elements and principles. This activity requires attention and concentration, which is a winner for any review game! Another game idea is Andrew Kiczek’s BINGO boards. Each board has different pictures to illustrate the Elements of Art.

If you were at a previous NOW Conference and received the fun playing cards from the swag box, try out the Elements & Principles Card Games in FLEX Curriculum with your students. Don’t miss out on the next conference and swag box! Fill out this contact form to learn more.

2. Make it a short-term project.

Turn the elements and principles into a short-term project. Make a Mark Studios divides a leaf into seven parts for students to demonstrate the different elements in each section. Another small project is to create little flowers like Glittertalesartroom. Each petal is a small strip of paper illustrating the elements.

3. Come up with memory tricks.

Asking students to memorize another set of terms and concepts on top of their other classes can be challenging. Come up with clever ways to kickstart their memory with ice cream! See how Debi West did this in her article, 10 Concepts Every Intro to Art Course Should Cover.

The Elements of Art and the Principles of Design are integral to art and are often a part of state and district standards. They may be a mandatory part of the curriculum but teaching them doesn’t have to be boring! Increase the excitement using technology or a digital escape room. Alternatively, make an explosion booklet or visual organizer. You can even use this as an opportunity to incorporate social-emotional learning. After you’ve introduced these foundational terms to your students, keep the interest alive by reviewing them with a game, short-term project, or memory tricks. Whatever route you choose, have fun teaching and reviewing the elements and principles. Your intentionality will set your students up for success for the rest of the year and beyond.

How do you teach the Elements of Art and Principles of Design?

Share a student-favorite way to review important terms and concepts.

The post 7 Engaging Ways to Teach the Elements and Principles of Art and 3 Fun Ways to Review Them appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Keep reading to discover how we can teach using brain-based learning to make art connections that last.

While each student is unique, there are principles to keep in mind that are helpful when designing learning for all students across the board.

Here are four overarching principles to consider:

1. Emphasize meaning.
   Students are likely to care about their learning when they can relate the content to their own lives and apply the information to the real world.
2. Maintain a safe learning environment.
   When students’ physical, psychological, and emotional needs are met, they are able to focus on learning new things.
3. Create student-centered learning environments.
   Loosen control and allow students to have choice in what they’re learning. Try some of the techniques in the Choice-Based Art Education course for ways to make the transition.
4. Be flexible in your teaching approaches.
   It’s easy to default to teaching in ways we prefer to learn. Don’t be afraid to mix things up and provide instruction in more than one way or incorporate new methodologies. The more ways you can teach something, the more students you will reach.

These principles may sound great but you’re wondering how to implement them with your students. Sara Hileman breaks down educational approaches to brain-based learning with a helpful acronym, “BRAIN BASED,” which is deciphered below. For more information, check out Engaging Students with Brain-Based Learning.

Here’s the acronym:

Brain’s Time Clock: Keep rhythm by alternating between spatial and verbal tasks.
Repetition: Use previewing and reviewing strategies.
Active Learning: Increase blood flow with physical movement.
Images: Enrich the visual learning environment.
Novelty: Stimulate the brain with new approaches.

Be Colorful: Facilitate retention and motivation by color-coding.
Automatic Learning: Recognize the influence of nonverbal communication.
Social Brain: Exploit opportunities for cooperative learning.
Elicit Emotions: Create opportunities for emotional engagement.
Develop Thinking Skills: Engage learners in problem-solving.

Let’s break down the acronym and take a look at how to apply each of the 10 strategies in the art room.

1. Brain’s Time Clock

Students’ brains naturally fluctuate between preferring verbal tasks and spatial tasks. To mitigate this, break your class period up so students are communicating with each other about art and working on their art. Communicating about art can be about their own work, the work of a peer, a famous artwork, or a known technique.

Here are two ways to break up your class into short verbal and spatial activities:

1. Take a gallery walk.
   Halfway through the class period or when students are antsy, have students stand up and walk around the room to look at everyone’s artwork. Ask students to give verbal feedback to each other.
2. Do pop critiques.
   Display an artwork and ask students to analyze it. Discuss the artwork in groups and then share their findings with the class.

2. Repetition

Repetition is important for transitioning information from short-term to long-term memory—but it can be boring!

Make repetition more interesting by using these two techniques:

1. Create catchphrases for important concepts.
   Turn important concepts into short, easy-to-remember phrases. This makes them simple to repeat and will stick in students’ minds. Saying, “Lighter lights, darker darks” is catchier than saying, “You need more contrast.” You’ll know it’s working when you hear students repeating the catchphrases without prompting!
2. Display a “coming soon” poster.
   Giving students a glimpse of what’s coming next allows them to mentally prepare. It also prevents them from asking you a 100 times what their next project will be.

3. Active Learning

Many art forms require students to be sedentary. Although it will take conscious effort to incorporate movement, the payoff when it comes to learning and classroom management is well worth it. Kinesthetic art reinforces learning and is fun!

Here are three activities to try:

1. Play Simon Says.
   Compile a slideshow of famous sculptures. Tell students, “Simon Says act like Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog!” Students pose as the sculpture. It’s a fun way to expose students to art history and introduce the design thinking required to ensure a sculpture has the balance to stand on its own.
2. Make students model for speed gesture drawings.
   Divide students into pairs. One student models different poses while the other student draws. Every 30 seconds, the model will change position. After five minutes, the two students will swap roles.
3. Create large-scale art.
   The bigger the art, the more students have to move to reach the different parts of the canvas. Just because it’s a large project doesn’t mean it has to be a long-term project. Students lie down on a piece of bulletin board paper with charcoal in each hand. Students make the same movements with both hands at the same time, stretching their arms and dragging the charcoal across the paper.

4. Images

By nature, most of us are visual learners so we usually have visuals down pat! It’s still helpful to take a peek at specific ways to showcase visuals in the classroom for optimal learning.

Here are two specific ways to include images to stimulate students’ brain-based learning:

1. Include visual information on the walls.
   Including anchor charts, word walls, and visually appealing pictures allows students to passively digest information when their minds wander from the task at hand.
2. Present information in different visual formats.
   In each presentation, use a variety of visuals like videos, charts, graphic organizers, images, and written information. This gives students many opportunities to process the content.

5. Novelty

Getting out of your default lesson format stimulates your students’ brains and gets their attention. It also stretches you as a teacher and keeps your instructional prowess fresh!

Mix up your traditional techniques by trying these three approaches:

1. Participate in a 5-Minute Museum.
   Students dress up as a famous artist or match a series of artworks to the correct art history time period. You can even host an Artist Roast where you divide students into groups and have them roast the other group’s chosen artist or famous artwork. These activities are fun alternatives to traditional art history presentations and encourage students to examine artworks without them even realizing it! Take AOEU’s Educating Through Art History course for more novel approaches to art history.
2. Use centers.
   Instead of having the whole class try the same technique at once, create centers focused on one material or technique at a time. This allows students to focus and build proficiency without distractions.
3. Play vocabulary games.
   When it comes to vocabulary, it’s natural to use a worksheet as a “go-to” activity. Instead, break out a game! Students still learn and practice vocabulary but in a way that will create fond memories of your class.

6. Be Colorful

As art teachers, many of us are already prone to color-coding everything. Luckily, this is a key aspect of brain-based learning! Color coding allows students to associate words, places, and objects with a particular color. So go ahead and color code to your heart’s content! For students who are color blind, include symbols so they can still make associations without color.

7. Automatic Learning

Automatic learning is all about how students learn without verbal communication. Non-verbal factors should promote learning instead of hinder it. For example, if you model positivity and excitement about the next assignment, students will be more likely to replicate your attitude. However, if you act like the next project is going to be a drag, your students will associate boredom and irritation with upcoming learning.

8. Social Brain

Art class is naturally more social because it offers many opportunities for collaboration. Plus, we often have table setups that encourage both group work and conversation during individual studio time. Activate students’ social brains by doing collaborative projects, art-related games, artwork discussions, or brainstorming sessions.

9. Elicit Emotions

Students’ brains are more likely to retain information when it sparks an emotional response. They are able to tie new learning to a familiar feeling they have already experienced.

Here are three ways to elicit emotions in the art room:

• Speak passionately and share an emotional connection to the artwork, artist, or technique at hand.
• Integrate social-emotional learning.
• Create artwork expressing emotions.

10. Developing Thinking Skills

It’s easy to fall into a routine of demonstrating techniques before letting students work. However, students learn best when they figure something out for themselves. Provide the material and tools with safety instructions and let students loose to explore and problem-solve. Consider giving students a project-based learning assignment or open-ended prompt.

Lastly, as you consider incorporating brain-based learning into your classroom, take your students’ age into consideration. Brains are developmentally different at each age and it’s important to consider which brain-based learning techniques would work best for your students. While brain-based learning stretches your students to receive and retain more information, it’s most effective when adhering to developmentally appropriate activities. Check out this website for more insight into the best brain-based practices for each age group.

Brain-based learning is a fancy way of saying you teach in ways that allow students’ brains to optimally process information. Ensuring students are safe, making real-life applications, letting students have a say in their learning, and being flexible are important parts of brain-based learning concepts. For straightforward brain-based strategies in the art room, start by taking the brain’s clock into account, implementing repetition, and injecting active learning, images, and novelty into your curriculum. Be colorful, incorporate automatic learning, allow students to work together, engage students’ emotions, and ask them to problem solve. With a few intentional tweaks to your instructional methods, you’ll be pleased with students’ increased participation and retention!

How do you already use brain-based learning in the art room?

Which brain-based strategy will you implement this year?

The post 10 Easy Strategies to Apply Brain-Based Learning in the Art Room appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Today, we’ll look at the bigger picture when it comes to curriculum planning. Let’s uncover why it’s important and simple steps to get started.

Today, Megan Bellucci is joining us to share her curriculum expertise. Megan is one of AOEU’s adjunct faculty and is also a high school art teacher in New Jersey. In fact, she is the only art teacher in her school and teaches courses from Intro all the way up to AP. Because of this, Megan has hands-on experience creating well-rounded and engaging curriculums for a variety of courses.

What exactly is a curriculum? Megan succinctly describes curriculum as a framework that covers the most important elements of your course. For a more in-depth guide on the components, check out this article. Successful curriculums plan ahead yet include room for alterations once you meet your students and figure out their unique needs. As Benjamin Franklin wisely said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Planning ahead of time is key to a successful year and maintaining your sanity!

For many art teachers, curriculum isn’t something we get thrilled about. Megan firmly believes it’s exciting to organize what you teach!

Here are some benefits of prioritizing curriculum in your art program:

• Provides structure to the year.
• Ensures expectations are clear.
• Sequences learning to build skills.
• Produces stronger work and artists.
• Strengthens your teaching practice.
• Promotes your art program.

Let’s take a look at seven misconceptions when it comes to designing an effective curriculum.

Misconception 1: I have to fit as many artists and mediums as possible into the curriculum.

The number one misconception art teachers tell Megan is they believe they must do everything; they must cram in every medium, art style, and artist to every course or grade level. This is the perfect time to remind us all, “You can do anything but not everything.” If you try to fit everything in, the curriculum will be surface-level and your year will feel rushed and chaotic.

Instead, start by selecting a broad theme or big idea. Then, go in and only include what naturally fits. This helps students dig into topics, scaffold and refine skills, and stay focused for the duration of the year. If it doesn’t fit, don’t include it, and don’t feel bad!

Misconception 2: I should start designing the curriculum with planning Day 1.

Initially, it makes sense to start planning at Day 1 and then make your way chronologically through the course or year. While this is one way to do it, there are more effective ways to design a curriculum. As mentioned above, start with the end in mind. Begin with an overarching theme or idea for the entire course or year and then break it down into learning outcomes, learning objectives, and/or essential questions for each quarter, month, or week, depending on how you structure your class. Working backward prevents you from getting bogged down in the details and makes for a very cohesive art show at the end!

Misconception 3: I should start designing the curriculum with projects I want to incorporate.

Likewise, planning by project can be extremely time and energy intensive. Megan says when you approach curriculum with a backward design lens, the course becomes less about making “pretty things to hang on the walls” and more about concepts and skills that last. This is something all art teachers can get behind! Megan also recommends projects be the very last thing teachers plan. This allows you to swap in and out individual projects easily while keeping the overall curriculum unchanged. This is good news! Most of us get bored doing the same projects year in and year out. Having an easy way to switch out projects keeps us sharp and excited, which trickles down to the students!

Misconception 4: Aligning the curriculum to standards is extra work.

Standards can be really intimidating! Depending on your district, there can be district standards. Then, there are state standards and national standards! Sifting through them can feel like a lot of extra work that no one will likely notice.

Digging into standards is a bit more work upfront but in the long run, you’ll save time! Standards keep your curriculum on target with student levels and are a helpful starting point when planning. Even if you are not required to use standards, Megan encourages you to at least scan them to see if the curriculum is appropriate and generally on track.

Uncover more about the National Core Arts Standards with these resources:

• What Does Unpacking the National Core Arts Standards Look Like? 
• Exploring the National Standards: Create (Ep. 206)
• Exploring the National Standards: Respond (Ep. 207)
• Exploring the National Standards: Connect (Ep. 208)
• Exploring the National Standards: Present (Ep. 209)

Misconception 5: I’m fine with winging the curriculum because it keeps me flexible.

One of our superpowers as art teachers is we are incredibly flexible and adaptable. Because we are creative thinkers, we’re able to ideate and implement a lesson on a whim. While this is a handy skill for when things don’t go as planned or standardized testing runs longer than anticipated, continually “winging it” can be detrimental by the end of the year. Composing the curriculum as you go increases the likelihood of unconnected projects, feeling frantic as you rush around at the last minute, and spending more money because you didn’t order smart ahead of time. Instead, plan ahead and use the margin you’ll gain to add fun elements like field trips or design challenges during the year to supplement the curriculum.

Misconception 6: I don’t need a bunch of curriculum documents—no one is going to see them so it’s not worth it anyway.

Some schools require art teachers to submit lesson plans and curriculum documents but many do not. If no one is going to see your curriculum documents, it may feel pointless to put effort into creating them! But did you know that composing clear curriculum documents can be a way to advocate for your art program? Megan recommends putting time into capturing your curriculum on paper and then cleaning it up so it’s administrator- and student-facing.

There are so many types of curriculum documents out there. It can be overwhelming to figure out which ones you need and what they’re for. Let’s take a look at the two most common ones and their purposes.

1. Action Plan or Scope and Sequence

An Action Plan or Scope and Sequence is an outline of the whole course. It provides an at-a-glance look at what skills and themes happen in what timeframe. This document is helpful for pacing and keeping your students on track.

Here is a very basic Action Plan for a specific grade level or course, broken down by month. Each month focuses on a specific concept. Pick and choose four projects to match the month’s concept in the four blank boxes on the right.

Here is a more complex Action Plan for a secondary Jewelry course. This chart includes detailed information such as standards, student learning outcomes, themes, assessments, tools, and vocabulary. As you can see, the specific projects are not included and the teacher can adjust based on student interests and needs each year.

Give a copy to your students as a part of their syllabus and to parents at Back-To-School Night so they can see an overview of the year. It shows families that art is important and more than “just drawing;” it’s full of specific skills, topics, concepts, and processes! If you add a cross-curricular component, it further shows how art is valuable because it connects to other disciplines. The Action Plan can also serve as a study guide for key units at the end of the year.

If you are a FLEX Curriculum user, take a look at the available Scope and Sequences. Select from Kindergarten all the way up to High School. Each Scope and Sequence is designed around the National Core Arts Standards and offers a way to organize FLEX content throughout a school year. Check out this page for more information on how to get these Scope and Sequences for your students.

2. Curriculum Matrix or Curriculum Map

Megan compares a Curriculum Matrix or Map to the summary on the back of a book. This is less of an outline and conveys the feel of a course with specific skills and activities. It’s usually in the format of a chart or table. Let’s look at some variations!

Here is a matrix by media. If you’re looking for a way to ensure all grade levels are getting a well-rounded experience and exposure to a range of artmaking processes, this is the matrix for you. This matrix shows a project in each medium per grade level.

This map shows what’s happening in the first unit of an eighth grade ceramics course. It includes standards, learning outcomes, assessments, major resources, art history and cross-curricular connections, essential questions, differentiation, and vocabulary.

Here is a downloadable template by quarter. It covers learning outcomes, essential questions, and “I Can” statements and is a great start in the right direction. For more templates like these, enroll in Designing Your Art Curriculum.

Download Now!

Provide copies of your curriculum matrix to your professional school counselors to boost your course and program enrollment numbers. These maps are handy to reference when they are meeting with students and creating schedules because it provides a summary of the course.

With both of these documents, Megan reminds us not to be too specific with projects. Both are overviews or guides and not individual unit or lesson plans. This will allow you to swap projects in and out very easily, as mentioned above.

Misconception 7: I don’t need extra help with curriculum; I’ve been doing this for a long time!

The wonderful thing about art teachers is we are always learning and growing. While it may be easier to do the same thing year after year, it is not challenging to you or the students. Try new projects and approaches to maintain your passion and hone your craft. Your students are smart and will pick up on your excitement and they will appreciate you adapting to meet their specific needs.

If you’re ready for a shift when it comes to curriculum but don’t know where to start, AOEU has all of your bases covered:

• Magazine and Media
  Set aside 30 minutes each week to browse our archive on all things curriculum! Soak in all of our free tips and tricks to bolster your curriculum and give you more confidence with your art program.
• PRO Learning
  Another way to refine your curriculum planning and writing skills is to watch a PRO Pack. Learn from expert facilitators through short videos and teacher-facing resources and activities. Filter Packs by Topic and select Curriculum to dive deeper! There is a Pack on The Building Blocks of Effective Curriculum for beginners, all the way up to a Pack on Bringing New Life to Old Lessons for the veteran teacher looking to revamp. Submit this form to learn how to get the only on-demand PD designed for K-12 art teachers at your fingertips.
• FLEX Curriculum
  Check out FLEX Curriculum for tons of lesson plans and student-facing resources and assessments. FLEX supports backward curriculum design too! Pick your big idea and then, search by Subject, Theme, Medium, Elements & Principles, Movement, or (Content) Connection for Collections and Lessons. Browse all of FLEX’s teacher-facing guides to discover how to make the most of FLEX and see how a team of curriculum experts do it. If you’re interested in getting FLEX for your students, fill out this form.
• Graduate Course
  Enroll in Designing Your Art Curriculum to investigate what goes into a quality curriculum. During the course, you will plan, develop, revise, and implement curriculum you can immediately bring back to your students. To make planning easier, you will explore tons of examples and have the opportunity to customize several templates. Earn credits while organizing your curriculum at the same time!
• Master’s Degree
  If you are looking to refine your curriculum and bring innovative learning opportunities to your students, take a look at our new Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction (MEd). Depending on your students’ needs and what you’d like to focus the curriculum on, specialize in one of three areas: Arts Integration, Instructional Leadership in Art Education, or Inclusive Practices for Visual Arts. Talk to an admissions counselor today to learn more.

Get in touch with an admissions counselor!

Taking the time to plan your curriculum is a must for a smooth and successful school year. Remove the intimidation by looking at curriculum as a simple outline and then start small with the steps above. There are many misconceptions when it comes to how to plan a curriculum and what makes up an effective one. Step back and begin with an overarching idea or theme to guide the process. Then, break it down into learning outcomes or objectives that align with standards to ensure everything is age-appropriate. Put in the time to make your curriculum documents professional so you can use them to promote your program with administrators, parents, and students. Remember, no matter if you’re fresh out of an art education program or a veteran with 20 years under your belt, there are exciting and innovative things to learn when it comes to curriculum! Stay relevant with one of the many resources and professional development opportunities AOEU has to offer. Happy planning!

Portions of this work are based on the National Core Arts Standards. Used with permission. National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (2015) National Core Arts Standards. Rights Administered by the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. Dover, DE, www.nationalartsstandards.org all rights reserved.

NCAS does not endorse or promote any goods or services offered by the Art of Education University.

What scares you most about curriculum planning?

What is the most helpful curriculum document you use?

The post 7 Common Misconceptions When Approaching Your Art Curriculum This Year appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Many factors contribute to the length of a project, especially in the wake of COVID-19 and technology use. Students increased their tech time and decreased their physical activity. This has led to a noticeable change in attention span as well as motivation. A call to educators everywhere has been made to get students more physically active and emotionally and mentally stable and regulated. This means art can save the day! It is well-researched that artmaking has many physiological, mental, and social benefits. Art can lower blood pressure, decrease stress, promote brain development, and provide a sense of social togetherness.

All that being said, how do we deliver a lesson to our students in a timely manner that gives ample time for exploration and experimentation and is rigorous with enough content to “chew” on? How do we balance that with a lesson that doesn’t drag out and result in boredom and a loss of interest? The solution is to keep the following things in mind: the developmental age of your students, the type of project you are creating, your schedule, and any looming deadlines.

Let’s look at four key areas to consider when determining the length of a project.

1. Age and Development

The first major thing to consider is to know the developmental age of your students. Referencing Viktor Lowenfeld’s Stages of Creative Development is probably one of the best things you can use! Generally speaking, the younger the student, the shorter the time frame should be for a project. For example, students in the Scribble Stage may finish a project in 20 minutes and need another activity to do afterward. On the other hand, a student in the Pseudo-Realism Stage may need several days to finish a piece due to the level of detail and technique they need to pursue their artistic goals and meet the lesson’s objectives.

Here are the stages at a glance:

• Scribble Stage (ages 2–4)
• Preschematic Stage (ages 4–7)
• Schematic Stage (ages 7–9)
• Pre-Realism Stage (ages 9–11)
• Pseudo-Realism Stage (ages 11–13)
• Decision-Making Stage (ages 14 and up)

2. Type of Project

Once the developmental age of your students has been determined, think about the type of project students will create. Consider sitting down and making the project yourself first to determine the troublespots and the best approach for the lesson. Keep track of how long it takes you to finish an example. Keeping your students’ developmental age in mind, you can make the call on how long the project should take. This is a bit like backward design for lesson planning.

For example, if it took you 30 minutes as a professional artist to make a painting, a third grader in the Schematic Stage may need at least 60 minutes. Factor in getting students seated, teaching the lesson, handing out supplies, and cleaning up at the end of the period, and you may be looking at needing 90–120 minutes. If you are new to teaching, this can take some finesse and trial and error. But once you get the ball rolling and execute this design process a few times, predicting the timing of a new lesson will come more naturally.

3. Your Schedule

As art teachers, time is always of the essence, and there never seems to be enough of it. Hence, your schedule, period lengths, and class rotations greatly affect the length of your projects. Let’s say you see your elementary classes once a week for 50 minutes. If a paper sculpture lesson will take the students at least 120 minutes, you need to block out three art classes. In your once-a-week schedule, that is technically three weeks. This can look like one day for the introduction and partial build, the second day for the completion of the build, and the last day to add color or finishing touches and reflect. Analyze your specific schedule to break down the different parts of your lesson.

4. Deadlines

Sometimes, outside forces can determine how long a project is. Maybe the project is part of a bigger school event, like a school play. Perhaps your administrator requests a project with a limited deadline or you enter artwork into a school or statewide art show. Report cards and grade deadlines also play a factor. Therefore, have foresight for how long a project will take if you are trying to include it within a specific grading window. It is always best to give yourself a buffer for unexpected or unforeseen circumstances like getting sick, surprise assemblies, or calamity days.

What about students who still finish early?

Planning a project takes time, forward-thinking, projection, and other multifaceted considerations. But even the most strategic, methodical art teacher must be prepared for early finishers! You may have a situation where students finish early on the final day of a project, or whole classes are completing a projected three-day lesson in two days. Always be prepared with backup plans. This will look different depending on the structure of your class and situation.

Here is a list of ideas to help you with early finishers:

• Add embellishments to the work.
• Plan additional requirements. For example, if the project was puppets, students can make a background for the puppet using cardboard and then script and perform a class puppet show!
• Offer free choice stations like free draw, origami, how-to-draw books, coloring pages, or these “Finish the Picture” prompts.
• Provide age-appropriate games or toys such as plastic building bricks, blocks, puzzles, or play dough.
• Allow tech time with a list of appropriate websites for them to use. For example, students can create things using Canva, Tinkercad, or even Google Draw for some fun digital art time.
• Assign special jobs. Let’s face it—there is always a lot to do, and students love to help!
• Check out this Pack, Methods for Early Finishers in PRO Learning.
• Listen to this podcast, “What Do We Do with Those Early Finishers? (Ep. 015).”

Even though we face new challenges in our post-COVID world, we can still plan meaningful art lessons to help our students build up longer attention spans. Keep the age and development of your students in mind when designing your lessons. Put yourself in their shoes, use backward design, and make project examples before planning new material. Again, even if you execute your lesson plan perfectly, there will be times when flexibility is needed due to unforeseen circumstances or the needs of your little artists. Just like we tell our students, embrace the mistakes and use them to inform future growth!

What changes have you noticed in your classes pre- and post-COVID? 

How else do you determine how long a project should be? 

The post 4 Key Factors to Determine the Length of an Art Project appeared first on The Art of Education University.

STEAM should not necessarily be thought of as a separate class or segment you teach. Frame it more as an approach to designing a learning experience that considers how the students engage with and use STEAM to think. Through the learning process, students reflect and move forward from failures and find multiple solutions to a problem.

What if I am not tech-savvy? What if I have limited resources? Doesn’t STEAM seem difficult? Where do I begin? If these concerns resonate with you, check out AOEU’s STEAM resources. Packs, like STEAM Projects for the Art Room or Intermediate STEAM Projects for the Art Room in PRO Learning offer self-paced professional development through short videos. For lesson plans aligned with all 50 states’ standards that include step-by-step tutorials, assessments, and tons of student-facing resources: filter our FLEX Curriculum library by the STEAM category.

People may assume STEAM is all about fancy tech, gadgets, and gizmos. If tech and gadgets are your things, by all means, teach them! But this type of interdisciplinary learning can inspire little artists with budget-friendly materials and simple topics.

Before we dive into designing a STEAM lesson, here are four simple pieces of advice to overcome common fears:

1. Start small.
2. Choose a medium that’s comfortable for you.
3. Focus on one integration within STEAM.
4. Jump in! Try the lesson, reflect on how it went, and then adjust as needed.

Teaching anything new means gaining confidence over time. Take it lesson by lesson and be open to making changes along the way! There are many nuances to STEAM teaching, so it will take a while to dial in the particulars. Today, we will get you started with top-level tips to make a well-designed STEAM lesson.

Use these five tips when designing a STEAM learning experience.

1. Choose your integration.

The first step is deciding what to focus on. Maybe you want to do something with angles or fractions—an origami lesson would be perfect. Or you would like to do classes outside to incorporate nature observations—a biomimicry lesson. Choose an integration for a natural starting point.

2. Ask your students.

It’s not outlandish to take an interest inventory from your classes, asking students outright what they would like to learn about. Is your class full of third-graders interested in Star Wars? Have them design their own fleet of intergalactic space vehicles. Who knows, Jon Favreau may want them in the newest season of The Mandalorian.

3. Collaborate.

You do not need to be a content expert in everything. Team up with the science, math, or tech teachers in your building or district. Together, there is no doubt you can come up with an amazing integrated lesson everyone will love!

4. Encourage exploration, experimentation, and mistake-making.

The focus of a STEAM-based lesson is letting students tinker around, try their own ideas, discover, and sometimes fail. It can be hard to relinquish control. But in raw learning situations, let the creativity thrive, entertain crazy ideas, and—even if you don’t think it will work—let students take the driver’s seat and find out for themselves.

5. Utilize the resources you have.

Art budgets are tight, so use the materials already available. Popsicle sticks, cardboard, scissors, construction paper, and glue go a long way in an engineering lesson where students build a skyscraper. Once you feel more confident with STEAM learning and are ready for the next step, seek out more elaborate materials, apply for a grant, or talk to your administration about ordering some cool stuff!

Are you jazzed up about STEAM-integrated learning? Try these four resources in your next lesson:

1. Tinkercad

Tinkercad is a free online resource for designing models in three dimensions. It is fun on its own and can be used in conjunction with 3D printers.

2. 3D Printers

Maybe you have thought about a 3D printer for your art room. There are a lot of considerations such as an open or closed-style printer, single or dual extruder, PLA or ABS filament, slicer and design software, and more. Here are three budget-friendly options to get you started in the 3D design realm:

1. Creality Ender Pro 3
2. Flashforge Dreamer
3. XYZ Da Vinci Mini

3. Makey Makey STEM Kit

If you applied for a grant, did some fundraising, or were able to squeeze in extra allocation for the art budget, a Makey Makey STEM Kit can be a lot of fun! It teaches students about coding and electronic circuits. It’s also super hands-on. It comes with alligator clips and a controller you can hook up in various ways to perform different functions—like playing the piano using banana keys. It can even pick up current from a graphite pencil drawing. Check out the video below to see how it works:

4. Lego Spike Essentials and Lego Coding Express

Pair color-coded blocks, ribbon wires, and motors with the simplicity of building using multicolored bricks. See how Lego introduces the world of STEAM to little learners. Students can create anything from robots to trains, planes, bridges, and automobiles that function. These kits carry a hefty price tag—but if you can get your hands on some, it can be a fun and familiar way to get even the youngest artists involved in something “techy” in the STEAM world.

Remember, STEAM does not require the most high-tech gadgets to be engaging. STEAM is a mode of learning that encourages exploration and integrates other subjects like Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math. It does not have to be a separate topic you teach—instead, it can offer a new lens when examining your existing lessons.

Consider STEAM to be another tool in your toolbox when you are trying to plan or deliver a lesson. Who knows? Maybe this could be the one that has students coming back years later saying, “I remember when we did this! It really opened me up to new possibilities. I just graduated with my engineering degree by building bridges.” Try something new and out of your comfort zone—and see how you and your students grow.

Have you taught a STEAM lesson before? If so, what integration(s) and materials did you use?

If you are new to STEAM, which idea for integration will you try?

The post Take the Fear Out of Designing a Simple Yet Engaging STEAM Lesson appeared first on The Art of Education University.

If your curiosity is piqued, keep reading for the sweet project that will wow your students.

Mask molds, balloons, wire and aluminum foil armatures, and 3D letters may be your standard “go-to” for plaster strips. Why not try something new? Begin experimenting with plaster of paris on its own for more possibilities. Create realistic ice cream topped with whipped cream and sprinkles in the art room. Your students will get excited… and hungry! Let’s share the “recipe” so you can try it with your art students too.

Materials:

• Table covering
• Plaster of paris
• Water
• Plastic mixing bowl/container
• Tempera paint, food coloring, or dye
• Donated or disposable bowls, one per student
• Ice cream scoop
• Plastic spoons
• Plastic sandwich bags
• Handcrafted or store-bought fake cherries
• Handcrafted or store-bought faux toppings or mix-ins (1, 2)
• Garbage can or bucket
• Pasta strainer or plastic basin

Steps:

1. Combine the plaster of paris and water with a plastic spoon in a plastic mixing bowl or container until it is the consistency of tomato soup.
2. Add tempera paint, food coloring, or dye to add color. The mixture will thicken rather quickly, so add color while it’s still on the thin side.
3. Stir in any faux ingredients.
4. Scoop the mixture into the dessert dishes with an ice cream scoop.
5. Add additional scoops quickly so that each scoop sticks to the previous one.
6. Repeat the same process for the whipped cream topping, but mix everything in a plastic sandwich bag. Cut a small hole in the bottom corner of the bag when the topping is ready, and pipe it onto the ice cream.
7. Add your favorite toppings before the dessert hardens.

Tips for Success:

• Do this project on your own to troubleshoot issues and get comfortable with the steps.
• This is a messy project so prepare accordingly. Cover surfaces and assign students cleanup jobs. Lay out all materials and tools for quick and easy access.
• Sink access is essential. Consider setting up this project as a pop-up plaster dessert center near a sink. Try this with your art club before introducing it to your art classes, or have it be a side project for small groups.
• Plaster of paris hardens, so even its liquid form cannot go down the sink drain. Have a trash can or bucket handy to dispose of all plaster of paris safely. Wash hands and dishes over a strainer to catch any large pieces.

Connect With the Standards:

Creating these crafty desserts aligns with each of the National Core Art Standards. Let’s take a closer look at examples of Creating, Presenting, Responding, and Connecting.

1. Anchor Standard 3: Creating
   From start to finish, assembling plaster of paris desserts follows the creative process. Ice cream is a fun start, but other dessert variations are endless. Refine the techniques and share what works and what doesn’t work to help students as they create their own.
2. Anchor Standard 5: Presenting
   Imagine showcasing your students’ desserts inside a bakery display case. Partner with the home economics teacher to make real desserts. They can be refreshments during a class exhibition of the faux creations!
3. Anchor Standard 8: Responding
   Artist statements, critiques, or reflections are all ways to feature each student’s experience and engagement in the creative process.
4. Anchor Standard 11: Connecting
   Consider how you can connect with your students’ interests during this project. Ice cream may be a staple during the summer months, but what other desserts are important to your students and their families at other times of the year? Are sweet treats part of their cultural and family traditions?

Overall, this lesson is a great way to focus on the creative process, align with standards, and leave room for personalization. Creating with plaster of paris is messy but well worth it. Making sweet desserts engages students and invites their ideas and inspiration into the process. Once they find success, they will be hooked. Before you know it, you may have other students asking when they will be able to make desserts in their art class!

Take a quick look at these delicious delicacy connections:

• Counting with Wayne Thiebaud by Susan Goldman Rubin
• Ten Creative Artists that Use Food as Their Medium or Muse
• Kate Malone’s fruits and vegetables
• Mechelle Bounpraseuth’s life-size sculptures of food

Here are a few more plaster projects to consider:

• Do You Dare? Plastering Students’ Faces for Amazing Mask Results
• 9 Essential Tips for a Successful Plaster Mask Lesson
• How to Make a Creative Plaster Mask in 5 Simple Steps

What plaster sculptures do your students already love to create?

Share your best hacks for teaching, managing, and cleaning up plaster.

The post The Sweet Sculpture to Feature in Your Display Case This Year appeared first on The Art of Education University.

The benefits of teaching art history on a consistent basis include:

• Global Thinking
  Students see similarities and differences between people and cultures across the globe.
• Exposure
  Share distinct artists and iconic artwork to reveal a variety of cultures and geographic locations.
• Range of Perspectives
  Art often shares an artist’s thoughts and opinions. Introduce students to a broad range of thinking.
• Informed Artmaking
  Students can observe the possibilities of new mediums, processes, and styles before approaching an assignment.

Inserting art history into your classroom on a regular basis sets the norm. If you are looking to gain more confidence in your art history repertoire, enroll in the Integrating Art History graduate course to strengthen your knowledge. Learn strategies to appeal to student interests and foster an appreciation for art while maintaining the integrity and richness of art history. Connect with an admission counselor for more information.

Here are ten ways to add art history to your curriculum.

1. Choose one artist to showcase per unit.

Do your research to find the artist that will have the best alignment with your unit. Connections can be through the medium, subject matter, technique, or process.

Here are three artists and how you can apply them to a unit:

• Jen Stark: Drippy Lines
  Jen Stark is a great contemporary artist to study line and color. Stark uses a variety of line widths and directions. She also uses color palettes of black and white, cool colors, warm colors, and the rainbow gradient.
• Keith Haring: Action Figures
  Practicing drawing the human form can be complicated, especially for lower grades. Veering away from stick figures can be a tough challenge! Keith Haring simplifies the human form in cookie-cutter-like shapes with bold lines and color. Drawing in Haring’s style allows students to study the human form in a variety of uncomplicated action poses.
• Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Fruit Faces
  Think outside the box by combining portraiture with Surrealism. Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter who created portrait heads made entirely of produce and vegetation. The combination of learning facial proportions with imaginative new uses for produce will lend itself to an innovative lesson plan. Students may be shocked to see a 500-year-old portrait with fruit and vegetables for a face, but this invites them to focus on the foundational shapes and forms of produce.

2. Use books!

Aligning an artist to a unit gives students a cross-curricular lesson with a natural tie-in to history. Make a literacy connection by reading books about the artists. The World’s Greatest Artist is a collection of over forty books. They are great introductions for elementary students. For middle school and higher, Secret Lives of Great Artists has more risque stories and more thorough information on a handful of artists. Review all resources and preview all artists before sharing with your students.

3. Incorporate FLEX Artist Bios.

FLEX Curriculum is an adaptable curriculum aligned to all 50 states’ visual art standards, including NCAS. FLEX includes student-facing resources such as artist biographies. Each Artist Bio is written at an eighth-grade reading level but can be modified for lower and upper grades. They include a brief history, notable artworks, achievements, quotes, and more. Use them to help students connect to diverse historical, contemporary, and living artists. For more information on how to get these Artist Bios in your classroom, fill out this short contact form.

4. Watch a PRO Pack.

For more strategies on how to teach art history and how to get your students to interact in meaningful ways, watch a PRO Pack for self-paced professional development. These teacher-facing videos are where you can learn from facilitators who are art teachers just like you. The good news is many districts will provide this for you! To learn more, check out this article and fill out this form.

Here are two PRO Packs worth checking out in PRO Learning:

• Art History in the Elementary Art Room
• Art History in the Secondary Art Room

5. Connect with your students’ diverse interests.

Our students have vast and diverse interests. Good thing art is also vast and diverse! There is an artist connection out there for each one of your students to fall in love with. Let’s take a look at some common artists and topics that intrigue students of all ages. And, as always, be sure to preview all artists before sharing with your students.

Here is a short list of artists and their stories your students may find fascinating:

• Students With an Injury
  Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits depict her many injuries. From a bus accident to being restricted to a bed, and finally dressing up as a man to be taken seriously, Kahlo paints us her biography. Students with broken bones in the art room can feel stuck, especially if their dominant hand or arm is in a cast. Share Frida’s self-portraits to inspire and encourage students to create art while physically challenged.
• Students Who Are Passionate About Social Issues
  As students get older and start forming their own hobbies, interests, thoughts, and opinions, they may gravitate toward social issues. Encourage this development with 5 Activist Artists You Might Know and 10 You Might Not Know… Yet!
• Students From Ghana and Nigeria
  If your school has a large population of students from Ghana or Nigeria, your students may find common ground with the sculptural artist El  Anatsui. He is a sculptor from Ghana who currently lives and works in Nigeria. He takes materials from the streets and ground and turns them into large-scale installations. His body of work is comprised of sculptural wall mosaics made out of liquor seals sewn together.
• Students Who Love Video Games
  Students who are into video games will be inspired by Invader’s artwork. This contemporary artist uses ceramic tiles with video-game-inspired characters such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Super Mario Brothers. This artist “invades” urban areas by installing tile mosaics over cities. If you are lucky enough to live in a city that has been “invaded,” have your students go on a scavenger hunt. Alternatively, brainstorm how you can install artwork throughout your classroom or school.

6. Try Art History Remix.

Give your students a chance to rework a famous artwork. Project a piece like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. For younger students, show a simple line drawing of the painting. Sometimes a more simplified version can help students draw what they see. Students reinvent the portrait with a modern twist by changing or adding elements. This can include a new hairstyle, modern clothes, different backgrounds, or updated accessories. Ensure the main composition and a few traditional elements remain intact so the figure is still clearly recognizable. This is a substitute lesson favorite and can be adapted for any work of art. Include a FLEX Artist Bio (see above) to read along with this activity!

7. Study other cultures.

Art history is broad and stretches from the beginning of time to now. Teaching about entire cultures and time periods is another way to enhance your lessons with art history. Architecture units are excellent avenues to discuss different civilizations such as Greek, Roman, prehistoric, Egyptian, and beyond. Pair your lesson with diverse mythology stories from each culture to create higher student engagement.

8. Compare and contrast past and living artists.

Just like history, art history can have a sneaky and fun way of reappearing. Try comparing and contrasting historical masters with contemporary, living artists. This helps to make artwork and meaning relevant to students.

Here are two artist pairs your students can compare and contrast:

• Kehinde Wiley and Gerard ter Borch
  Kehinde Wiley is a contemporary artist who primarily depicts black people in photorealistic paintings inspired by the old masters. Jacob de Graeff by Wiley shows an artist asked to pose from the streets. It is modeled after a 17th-century Dutch portrait by Gerard ter Borch of Jacob de Graeff. Both paintings have great similarities yet stark differences.
• Claes Oldenburg and Tamara Kostianovsky
  Soft sculpture artists Claes Oldenburg (who passed away in July of 2022) and contemporary artist Tamara Kostianovsky have similar, yet diverse, three-dimensional forms. Oldenburg’s popular  cheeseburger sculpture can be discussed alongside Kostianovsky’s floral hanging meat sculptures.

9. Compose a poem or rap.

Write a poem or rap about a famous work of art. This is a great way to tie in ELA standards while observing artwork. As an extension activity, students can perform their poems and raps for the class. Don’t Miss This One-Day Lesson That Connects Poetry and Art Analysis. It also makes a great substitute plan!

10. Integrate music.

Add another of the five senses to the art classroom to help students retain information: listening to music. Play the most popular song from the year the artwork was created. Students compare and contrast the characteristics of the music with the artwork. This also helps them orient a historical timeline better than just seeing the artwork. Listen to all songs and preview all lyrics before sharing them with your students to ensure they are appropriate. (Now, if only we knew what the artists were eating while they were creating their pieces!)

For example, I Want To Hold Your Hand by the Beatles was one of the most popular songs when Rene Magritte’s The Son Of Man was painted. Before sharing the origin date of the painting, students form a hypothesis about when the Beatles were popular and when Magritte’s painting was created.

Integrating art history into your curriculum can spark student interest and help you make strong cross-curricular connections. Bring more of the senses into the art room with music to help reinforce the characteristics of the artwork and set the context. Poll your students to find out what their interests are and find artists who share the same hobbies. Grab your scope and sequence, do your research, and figure out what artist, time period, or culture would best align with the units you are teaching.

Make art history come to life this year by bringing in pieces of the past, one powerful step at a time.

What is your favorite art history lesson or activity?

What other benefits can art history bring to your students?

The post But, Art History Is Boring! How To Bring Life To The Past And Present appeared first on The Art of Education University.

These five quick ideas will show you how to incorporate writing into artwork and improve students’ writing skills.

These art and writing activities are appropriate for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, but you can adjust them for younger and older artists. The ideas allow students to use their imaginations and get creative with their writing and art.

1. Turn handwriting into art (Grades 3–6).

Students can incorporate their handwriting into a final art piece. This idea comes from the work of the artist Cy Twombly. Twombly was an Abstract Expressionist who used writing and language in his artwork. His abstract paintings often showcase poetry, scribbles, and distinctive lines inspired by handwriting.

Select a specific theme, such as school, community, art, positivity, connection, or friendship, and help students generate a list of related words. Students select one word and handwrite it several times to create a pattern. Paint over the text with translucent watercolors or thinned tempera paints. To finish, trace the text with oil pastels, pen and ink, or markers.

2. Create your own Pokémon® Card (Grades 4–6)!

For this lesson, students design and illustrate an original Pokémon character. Their card will include a visual image as well as a written description of abilities and animal information. Students go wild over this assignment! You can even make more interdisciplinary connections if you bring in science with types of energy and animal habitats.

3. Provide quick writing prompts.

Are you unable to spare valuable class time for lots of writing? No need to worry! You don’t have to design an entire lesson plan centered on writing. Check out Literacy through Storytelling, a Collection in FLEX Curriculum full of strategies for writing integration. The Mini Artist Statement is a fabulous student-facing resource in this Collection that scaffolds the reflective writing process. You can also do a deeper dive into writing with these prompts. For even more tips, check out the article, 3 Stress-Free Ways to Bring Writing Into Your Art Room.

4. Design a print (Grades 4–6).

This interactive printmaking activity is a sure bet to get your students excited about the power of text. Show video clips and/or provide written excerpts of famous speeches throughout history. Facilitate a class discussion about specific words or phrases that capture the essence of the selected speech. Students carve a word or short phrase into their printing plate and create a series of prints using different colors. Discuss how color can impact the word or phrase.

This lesson is another opportunity to make interdisciplinary ties. You can highlight historical connections by researching influential leaders and speakers from the past and present to show to your students. Check out the Lesson, Printmaking to Convey a Message in FLEX Curriculum for more ideas and resources!

5. Illustrate a storyboard (Grades 4–6).

Students love to write and illustrate a story. This activity will help your students express storytelling ideas visually. And the best part is that the sky’s the limit! You can choose a fairytale, a folk tale, or any creative writing piece. Take this opportunity to collaborate with their classroom teacher to find out what students are reading in their ELA curriculum, and challenge them to illustrate part of the story or even create a sequel.

Assign each student a section of the story. Discuss and show examples of how to illustrate words, scenes, action, and mood. Students draw images to illustrate their sections of the story and assemble the pages to form a storybook. Read the story as a class, holding up the students’ illustrations for all to see!

Implementing writing into the artmaking process is fun and engaging. We can use art to improve students’ writing skills by incorporating literacy into art lessons. Students can expand their vocabulary, improve communication, and practice writing. Additionally, they will make connections between art, history, and literacy. Use these lesson ideas to challenge your students to harness the power of words in their art!

How will you adapt your art projects to incorporate writing?

What literacy skills do you want to focus on improving this year?

What questions do you still have about bringing writing into the art room?

The post 5 Quick Art Activities to Incorporate Writing in the Art Room appeared first on The Art of Education University.