Arts Academy Revitalization Action Team

Arts Academy Meeting Notes, June 4, 2007

June 4, 2007 at 1:40 pm | In Minutes |

Summary:

Meeting adjourned at 2:15 p.m.

This was the beginning of the debriefing of the HOME project. Highlights:

• students need more structure
• a 1-week intensive would work better
• do it earlier in the year
• maybe group together kids from different classes in smaller groups to do the exercises, instead of focusing on making the projects collaborative
• make sure we don’t skip the middle of the process–this year we skipped from doing a few exercises to doing a project, and it felt disconnected.
• discussion about a "thin" experience for more students or a richer experience for fewer students.

Present:

• Vicky Stubbs
• Diane Manzi
• Phil Divinsky
• Lisa DiFranza
• Valerie Green
• Dave Beane
• Lisa Hicks
• Bo Hewey

Full Notes (paraphrased):

We began discussing student responses from the surveys and also some individual teacher feedback.

Student Survey Feedback

From Commercial Art:

"I feel like it was a waste of time and had nothing to do with my class."
"it was really vague"
"organization and production" (is what they want to see)
most didn’t like it and wanted to do other things.

From Video Tech:

students didn’t see how it related to class, and weren’t thrilled about it.

From Music:

students said they needed more structure, and that a 1-week intensive would be better.

Teacher Feedback

Diane: students weren’t ready to work with other classes.

Lisa D: we made a decision to be "thin" in order to involve all of our classes.

Dave B: hard time of year to do the project. Earlier would be better.

Diane: shorter, more intense period & a more specific project. Maybe a 1-week program. Now it’s more clear what we need to do to make it tighter.

Val: rather do project in January so she could prepare students

Vicky: January is a bad time for the Music class. Are we going to concentrate on a literacy experience or a collaborative experience? How important is the collaborative experience?

Phil: kids say "not structured enough" and "1-week intensive" but remember that those aren’t the same thing.

Diane: art students want to be in their own area.

Phil: is that the way you work? How much of that do students pick up on? Is the collaborative experience important enough to keep?

Vicky: having the same theme is sort of collaborative vs. having other kids come in and work. Often, collaboration meant that students had to compromise. It’s hard to feel like students are getting a rich experience when they’re also required to collaborate.

Diane: rather have kids focus on a theme and do the literacy part. Collaboration can happen in other ways.

Lisa D: what about doing the exercises with smaller groups of students, students from different classes grouped together throughout? Then the students go back to their own disciplines to create, and come back to the group for the next exercise and report on progress. Students could see each other progressing in different disciplines.

Vicky: 16 out of 25 kids did the writing prompt.

Lisa H: writing was the weakest part of the project.

Vicky: we need to be stronger with our kids and tell them that we’re committed to the project. One student wrote a letter about how much his home sucked, and the next day he came in and wrote and created a song. (This student had been blocked)

Phil: teaching writing as a key to creativity– "what are you going to use to create your next piece of work?"

Lisa D: some arts are naturally going to be more collaborative. writing about the process of creating. We skipped a part of the process going directly from exercises to class projects. Also, it would be good to have people who are working artists to come in regularly to talk about their creative processes.

Phil: let’s continue to have more "debriefing" meetings, and maybe even plan for next year.