Creating Rich Learning Environments

In a rich learning environment, teachers recognize the central role of creativity and engage students in exploring ideas and issues, challenging traditional assumptions, solving complex problems, and constructing knowledge rather than just memorizing it. Skillful arts teachers create an atmosphere of mutual trust where students feel free to take risks and explore their own thoughts and feelings.  Constructive criticism is the norm, and students benefit from the responses of others.

In a safe and creative learning environment, teachers:

• Instill personal confidence and respect for others
• Model and encourage constructive criticism
• Value artistic expression and individual opinions
• Provide opportunities for self-direction and leadership

Being creative involves exploring the unknown, taking risks, and being innovative.  These challenges apply to teachers as well as students.

Discuss the following questions about risk-taking:

• What are the benefits of risk-taking in the arts for your students?  For you?
• What are some concerns?
• What are some physical risks and psychological risks you ask students to take?

Critiquing student artwork demands care. Teachers must be honest in their judgments, because students can only develop as artists if they learn to value critique and take it seriously. But honest judgements may also risk making students feel inadequate or self-conscious, hindering further growth.

Arts teachers have many ways of helping students understand how their work can be improved, without shutting down their initiative.

Elements of effective critique include the following:

• The work is the focus. Criticism is centered not on the student and his or her skills, but on the artwork or performance.
• Improvement is the aim. The purpose of critique is clear – helping the student make the artwork better, thereby realizing his or her aim more completely.
• Description is included. The critique is grounded in talk about the work as it is – in its observable details.
• Reasons are offered. When giving suggestions, teachers offer reasons for them, so that students begin to understand the way artists think about artistic problems.
• Understanding is checked. Teachers check for student understanding, and stay alert to how the critique affects students’ feelings about the task.

At Mamaroneck High School there is frequent peer critique in visual art classes. In addition, students ask teachers for feedback on their artwork, and some students have also formed an Art Critique Club, where they give each other feedback.

NOW: Write and Reflect

Read the following questions and respond in light of the students and art form you teach.

Questions to write and reflect about:

• In the slideshow, what aspects of the critiques were most effective? What aspects of effective critique were missing?
• Think of an occasion when you have been called upon to critique a relatively well-developed student artwork or performance. Write down as best you can the exchange you had with the student. What words did you start with? What were the student’s  responses? How did you end the critique? What happened afterwards?
• How would you reword or re-order your judgment of the student’s artwork, in order to improve your critique?

The information sheets below provide helpful background on the classrooms, programs, and schools featured in each segment:

Segment 1: Theatre (PDF)
Segment 2: Dance (PDF)
Segment 3: Visual Art (PDF)
Segment 4: Music (PDF)

THEATRE Joseph Mancuso and Andrea Arden Monologues/Building Confidence

• What techniques did Andrea use in Acting I to encourage students to take creative risks? In Acting II, how did Joe build on the foundation Andrea  created?
• How do you encourage students to push beyond boundaries and take creative risks?

DANCE Mary Harding Modern Dance Technique

• What were the benefits to Mary’s students of giving each other feedback?
• How do you nurture self-confidence and respect in your classroom?

VISUAL ART Jon Murray Art Department Community

• Students in this segment are comfortable seeking feedback and setting their own priorities. In what ways do the teachers help foster these characteristics?
• What opportunities do your students have to get feedback from peers and faculty members?

MUSIC William Taylor Vocal Improvisation

• How does Will structure the improvisation lesson to build students’ confidence and respect for each other? How does this benefit his students as singers?
• How do you help your students gain confidence in their own abilities?

Expanding Boundaries and Taking Risks

Taking risks within the learning environment requires a willingness to:

• Think deeply about a subject or problem
• Share that thinking with others to hear their perspectives
• Listen to their critiques
• Build on those experiences toward a solution or solutions
• The charts below suggest ways to extend learning opportunities beyond standard practice, focusing on the pros and cons for students and teachers.

Print and distribute the charts so that each participant has at least one chart related to his or her discipline. Take notes on the risks and benefits of several of the enrichment activities, and share them with the group.

After several charts have been filled in, discuss the following:

• Which of the enrichment activities resemble things you are already doing in your classroom? Discuss with the group what the outcomes have been for students, and for you.
• Which enrichment activity seems the most challenging? Think about how you might modify it to integrate it into your own practice. Share your ideas with the group and get additional suggestions from your colleagues.

Enrichment Activities

Homework (On Your Own)

In your journal, reflect on the learning environment you have created for your students. Write down three adjectives that describe how you would like students to feel as they enter your classroom.  For example, ‘safe, stimulated, free to express themselves.’  Then reflect on these questions:

• What specific elements of your classroom environment currently help your students feel this way?
• What elements are missing? What might you add?
• What obstacles are there to adding these elements?
• How might you overcome the obstacles?

On the Web

Cognition and Creation
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet   Select: Image Galleries and Exhibitions, then Student Art Galleries
An interpretive exhibition of student artwork intended to help people understand the relationships between thinking and the creation of visual art

Bobby McFerrin Web site
http://www.bobbymcferrin.com
An appealing site about the work of jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin

SCHOOL AND TEACHER SITES

Somerset County Vocational and Technical High School Performing Arts Dept.
http://www.scvths.org/
Select: performing arts at scvths
Information on the performing arts program where Joseph Mancuso teaches

Arts High School Dance Department, Perpich Center for Arts Education
http://perpich.mn.gov/arts-high-school/dance/
Select: Program Areas, then Dance
Information on the dance department where Mary Harding and Tom Kanthak teach

Mamaroneck High School Art Department
https://www.mamkschools.org/schools/mamaroneck-high-school/mamaroneck-high-school-departments/art            Select: Departments and Class Web Pages, then Art
Web page for the Visual art department where Dale Zheutlin teaches

World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition
http://www.wtcsitememorial.org
Select: Exhibition  Search for: Murray Jon
Jon Murray’s submission for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition

East High School
http://east.dpsk12.org
Web site for music teacher William Taylor’s school

In Print

Kirby, Gary, & Goodpaster, Jeffery. Thinking. Prentice Hall, 3rd edition, 2001. ISBN: 0130923915

A widely used interdisciplinary undergraduate text that considers the processes at work in critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity

Thousand, Jaqueline, Nevin, Ann, & Villa, Richard. Creativity and Collaborative Learning: The Practical Guide to Empowering Students and Teachers. Nevin Brookes Publishing Company, 2002. ISBN: 1557665788

Shows how collaborative learning addresses challenges such as literacy, behavior issues, teacher success, and multiculturalism