Something Found, Something New. PART 2!

This Saturdsay was the second week of our Appropriation Art project: "Something Found, Something New." At the end of last weeks class, students were asked to find an object from their community (home, school, favorite park, street, etc) to bring to class this week. Although several students missed last weeks class, we were pleased to see that those students who did not miss class, came with objects in hand.

For the beginning of class, we split into two groups. Those who had missed last week's lesson, went with Adam to "catch up." The remaining students began brainstorming ideas for their objects. After everybody was on the same page, students were alotted the rest of class to work on their projects.

In our lesson plan, we had planned for two segments in the class period where students stopped working and joined for discussion. This was a time planned for questions, problem solving and informal critiquing. We quickly learned that this idea plan would not happen. Class time seemed to occur quicker than we planned, and before we knew it, our two hours were over.

Although group discussion would have been ideal, it would have been difficult and problematic to pull students away from their work when we were so limited with time. Instead, we found that walking around, and questioning/prompting stududents as they worked, seemed to be the best strategy.

In scripting our lesson this week, we learned that students needed more time to experiment with their media. Riley, for example, discided to melt styrofoam using a heat gun, this desicion required testing smaller styrofoam pieces before she transfered to her actual project. These kinds of experiments need to be taken into consideration when timing a lesson plan. Overall, students really seemed to enjoy this project. Due to time constraints, we suggested students bring home their pieces to work on during the week. We also scheduled half the class next week for finishing their projects. The notion of time is of huge importance, and I think that the skill of timing can only be mastered with experience. I am wondering how everybody else has been handling this issue?

Below are images of the progression of Julia's ballet slippers

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