In these pages you’ll find lessons around specific topics. These can cover one class, several, or even lay out the scope for cyclical learning. Where possible I have provided exemplars.
EARCOS
Here are the lessons and resources you'll hear about during my EARCOS 2025 talk. Feel free to use and don't forget to cite your source.
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A more accurate depiction of what I look like to 2025.
Concept Attainment ModelJerome Bruner
Give the students true/false statement about a topic and allow them to create a definition of the concept. Alternatively, give the students information and have them create the true/false statements. I've used it for MYP Visual Arts when teaching art history and assessment, Diploma Visual Arts for teaching assessment devices; and TOK for discussing the Ways of Knowing. |
Picture Word Inductive Model
I use this teaching model to help students read artwork. In they identify what they see, they categorize it and then there is some kind of activity where they further construct knowing through interaction. I have used it with high school and middle school and, while not a humanities or language teacher, I am sure it could be put to use there.
1. Look at this image and list all the things you can see.
2. Place items in the following categories (some can be in multiple categories): Religion, Being a good person, the five senses, the four seasons, the elements (earth, wind, fire water)
3. Check out this website for s full explanation: Art Kaleidoscope.
4. Give the painting a title.
After we work through this painting I have the students look at another genre of still life from the Northern Renaissance and as we are developing ideas for paintings, they refer back to this one.
Frans Synder, The Fruit Stall, 1618 - 1621. The State Hermitage Museum - The Fruit Stall Link
2. Place items in the following categories (some can be in multiple categories): Religion, Being a good person, the five senses, the four seasons, the elements (earth, wind, fire water)
3. Check out this website for s full explanation: Art Kaleidoscope.
4. Give the painting a title.
After we work through this painting I have the students look at another genre of still life from the Northern Renaissance and as we are developing ideas for paintings, they refer back to this one.
Frans Synder, The Fruit Stall, 1618 - 1621. The State Hermitage Museum - The Fruit Stall Link
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Student work from Picture Word Inductive Model lesson.
Surveys for LearningUsing surveys for the students to assess their development in social and emotional learning and study habits. The goal is to make the students aware so that they can make conscious decisions on these habits/attitudes. Also, I can get a read on how the students are doing. I stress that I do not see individual results and that their responses in no way reflect their assessment. Follow this link for more (including downloadable surveys!)
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Anyone want to do action research on surveys - I have a great idea about questions that encourage creative thinking!
Project Zero for MYP Investigating and Evaluating; and NCAS Connecting and Responding
See Wonder Connect x2, I used to think ... Now I think ..., Headlines, and 3 - 2 - 1 Bridge are my favourties. I've been using them as a way to make actual assessment. They are a quick way to both have the students think deeply about the topic but get it across in a quick way. They are altered a bit to suit my purposes, as I sometimes give certain limitations.
Project Zero thinking Routines
Project Zero thinking Routines
I use 3 - 2 - 1 Bridge where the students do Investigating on the Big Hero 6 still and then again on their own 'Moody Scene' for Evaluating.
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Synectics |
A little of this, a little of that |
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Combing two ideas to create a third. I use it to teach symbols (literacy) in painting and as a creative thinking device.
1. Divide the class into four groups. 2. Give each group a brainstorm topic - natural features, weather, emotion, animals, stages of life, etcetera. 3. Hang the brainstorms on the wall. 4. ask students to look away then look back and connect the first two things they see.
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I am rather proud of this as it combines a Project Zero thinking routine, synectics, and concepts maps. And there are options for mixing in specific content. Here's one way to do it.
1. Brainstorm all the types of art we studied in this unit. 2. Brainstorm all the techniques and concepts we studied in this unit. 3. Look at this painting and write down the first five things that come to mind. 4. Choose ten words/ideas from these brainstorms and write each on an individual card. Sometimes I do a Five by Two continuum and the students can steal words fro there too. 5. Lay the cards out in front of you, take a string and connect three or four cards. 6. Work all those words into a sentence or an idea for a ... (product, topic, alteration) Check out my video on trans-languaging and process boards for another illustration. Terminology in the Art Classroom | ||
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GamifyUse increasingly more difficult tasks to teach a skill. Student choice should be involved. Takes a lot of back-end work but is quite easy to facilitate.
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Yes with an if, No with a but
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It's a way to frame arguments. I use it a lot in TOK but has good applications when exploring ideas in any topic. It's actually related to my thoughts on the Chinese Room thought experiment (ask me more if you want to hear me go on about the Mind-Body Problem.)
Yes No Yes with an if No with a but 1. Does Sophia know? - Link to video 2. The Godfather is America's version of the Art of War. 3. Jacques-Louie David's Oath of Horatii is the first Modern painting. |
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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and the Crazy |
Portfolio Assessment |
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Take from a combination of an Edward de Bono book and a 90's Jamaican dance hall album.
The Good - What went well? The Bad - What didn't? The Ugly - What worked but could have been better? The Crazy - What ideas came out of the experience? |
Students should tell a story about what they did in class. It should speak to an audience wider than the teacher. presentation counts.
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Chinese Calligraphy for Spring Festival
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For Spring Festival (aka Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year) I revisited a lesson that I once did between my Art One class (grade nine) and our buddy class, Grade Two. Inn this case I had my eighth grade students working with me as teachers to lead a workshop with the Chinese second language learners. It differs from the buddy class in that I am in school in Korea now and this is more of a culture lesson. While we were in China there was more focus on the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL.) Below is the slide show I used to present and a couple photos. Feel free to use and don't forget to cite your source - Mr. Allen is Cool.
Content Objective: I can use ink and wash to write art.
Language Objective: I can use the written word as art. Culture Objective: I can engage with an art form from East Asia. Thinking Skill: How are the word and the image linked? 1. Introduce students to materials for ink and wash. 2. Show students how to hold the brush and the three types of strokes. 3. Allow students to practice making strokes. 4. Show student pictures of ink and wash calligraphy and art. 5. Students make art and share. 
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It all began when I developed a unit on interdisciplinary learning; Mathematics and Symbols in Art. I welcomed a calligraphy to discuss the idiomatic nature of Chinese calligraphy. Over the years this evolved into different types of classes. Below you can see Zhang Haoxin who works i learning support and studied calligraphy. she was always keen to teach with me.
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I've added some photos from over the years. Some of these will be when we suddenly had to go online and so the lesson took place with three teachers and four students in the room (they are teacher's children so they were allowed into class) as well as many more (my Art 1 class) in internet land.
Above is student work from the Art 1/Grade Two Buddy Class. The Art 1 students were studying the Math and Symbols unit, the grade two students were there to visit their buddies.
The slide show I used from the Year of the Dragon.
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Concept Attainment Model for Fauvism and Symbolism
The concept attainment model is designed to create the opportunity for students to construct meaning about a topic. Here is one I developed for my eighth grade students about Fauvism and Symbolism. Show the students each slide indicating which states are true and false. In this case, what is and is not Fauvism and Symbolism. The students then use what they have seen and read and write a definition. Feel free to use as here or download the slide show to make your own. Don't forget to cite your source - Mr. Allen is Cool! For a deeper read, check out Joyce, Weil, and Calhoun's book Models of Teaching.
| fauvism_and_symbolism.pptx |
Function and Purpose IBDP Visual Arts
Function and Purpose is part of the current IBDP Visual Arts and one of the critical analysis required for the comparative study. I have found it can be somewhat confusing for students and mine often have very specific questions about what should be reported on, the extent they can draw conclusions (report what they think,) and how to format the screen. I address Function and Purpose three times throughout the school course. It gets a very superficial overview right at the beginning of the course as we are getting a feel for the work. Then again in more detail at the end of the first year, and then readdressed at the beginning of the second year.
Content Objective: I can understand the meaning of function and purpose and report on them.
Language Objective: I can use visual and verbal research to draw conclusions.
Culture Objective: I can find the function of an artwork in respect to its place and time.
Thinking skill questions:
Symbolic – How is the artist communicating through a visual experience?
Symbolic – What do aspects of a work of art tell us?
Salient: What information from my research is relevant in this situation?
Content Objective: I can understand the meaning of function and purpose and report on them.
Language Objective: I can use visual and verbal research to draw conclusions.
Culture Objective: I can find the function of an artwork in respect to its place and time.
Thinking skill questions:
Symbolic – How is the artist communicating through a visual experience?
Symbolic – What do aspects of a work of art tell us?
Salient: What information from my research is relevant in this situation?
In the first and second session (months apart) I give the students and overview of function and purpose and provide examples of each from the Visual Arts Guide. The students then take individual functions and purposes printed on strips of paper and lay them on posters of well-known art along with a post-its defending their the placement. We do a gallery walk and discuss.
I use the Concept Attainment Model in sessions two and three (also months apart.). I use the same statement because there is a lot of information students have to deal with and using the same statement hopefully calls it up from their long-term memory. In session three I ask the to verbalize a definition of function and purpose and then reveal the IBDP description.
