Creative Arts Department Mid Year Update

 Total overview

Individual sheets to send home to parents

Maths with Tukutuku - Manaiakalani Cluster Teacher Only Day

 

Link to presentation

Manaiakalani Cluster Teacher Only Day

 

Tracking

 I like to track the work that my students complete as we go so I can have an eye over everything and know what needs some focus. We use Hapara Workspaces as a whole school and the workspace itself creates a spreadsheet of the work on that particular workspace. I don't tend to use these as I like to have everything in one place for all my classes.

I list out all the tasks for a standard / project and then link the students work from the workspace. This spreadsheet is shared with the whole class so they can see where they are up to. As I get the links from the workspace, only the individual student and me has access to their work they can't see each other's work.

Link to copy of this year's spreadsheet (names have been removed). There are tabs along the bottom for all my senior classes.

As a Creative Arts Department, we needed to make sure that we were entering all the students in  our classes for a "full" course that enables them the ability to achieve enough credits in our subjects for a 1/5 of their NCEA requirement.

To this end, a spreadsheet has been set up that includes all of the subjects, student names and the standards. Totals are kept and then we can see at a glance that all of our students are being offered enough credits in their courses.

Link to a copy of this spreadsheet (with the names and student details removed)

As the students are completing work and results are coming in, they are being recorded on this same spreadsheet and graphs drawn. This gives a visual guide to who is doing well and who might need some extra support across the whole department. 

The colour codes on the results are something that I have been using for a few years now. Pink - NA, Green - A, Blue - M and Yellow - E.

I have also just started tracking how many credits are being achieved by each student in graph from. There is not much there at the moment but this will give a visual guide as to how each course is going in terms of how many credits each student is achieving.

This spreadsheet has been shared with management so they can see at a glance how the Creative Arts Department is doing overall over the year.

Design Analysis Practice on the Class Blog

 I am wanting to use the class blog so the students can analyse each others design work and they can give feedback to each other. 

To get them comfortable with using the class blog for their work we have been uploading their work with description and explanations of what they have been doing - blog post here and blog post here

Next, we had a go at product analysis with structured questions - blog post here

This week we has our first go at analysing drawn designs for the seating project we are doing. I always do the work alongside the students as examples for them to understand what we are working on, so I used my design page for this first go at analysing designs so they felt ok about saying what they thought about it.

I put up my design page, with number on each design so they could decide which one they wanted to analyse. I also  gave them a list of questions that they had to answer in the comment section of the blog post. I have colour coded the questions here to show how i use SOLO Taxonomy to structure the questions to have an increasing level of thought and depth.

1. Which number design are you going to be analysing?
2. Which architect do you think this design was based on?
3. Which part of the design links to the architect’s design elements the most?
4. Do you think this design is suitable for the place that it is designed for? if yes, say why you think it is, and if no, say why you don’t think it is.
5. How would you improve this design?  – you are not allowed to say you wouldn’t change it as everything can be improved.

The students coped really well with their first try at this and their answers were showing analytical thinking and knowledge of the work we have been doing with the designer research.

Link to blog post - scroll down to see the students comments.

PD Presentation - Rhythm and Pattern

 Each department is taking turns to present a PD session on a Monday morning. This week was the turn of the Creative Arts department. We decided to focus on Maths and specifically, rhythm and pattern in music, design and art.

Link to presentation

Here are some of the rhythm drawing that everyone did in response to the music that was played.

Using AI for Concept Development

 Last year, with my Year 11 design students, we had a go at using AI to visualise the design developments in 3D to help with their development drawings. Blog post about it here.

This year, I want to start bringing it in a little earlier to help the students to visualise designs in 3D. I used Adobe Express and gave it the prompt to design outside seating for 4 people made from wood. I switched the prompt about a bit with garden seating, park seating to see what it came up with. I saved the ones I liked out as images. I then started putting up some inspiration images for style and composition. Playing around with both of these gave some interesting different options. Any that I found I liked, I saved as an image. There were lots that I didn't like and this took quite a bit of time, switching images in and out and changing the prompts.

I put the designs that I saved onto a Google Drawing, link here, with the inspiration images. These will be used as starting points for concept development drawings in 3D. It is a good way to see the 3D form and see how the light hits it with highlights and shadows.

Using Graphic Organisers in DVC

 In our PD sessions on Monday mornings, we have had 3 about literacy and how we can use graphic organisers to help students with understanding what they are reading. Session 1 , Session 2, Session 3.

I am a big fan of graphic organisers and have been using them for quite a while with my Year 11, 12 and 13 DVC classes. I am also a big fan of using SOLO taxonomy to structure support documents for students so any graphic organisers tend to use SOLO quite a lot. Link to recourses

Here are some examples of student work that has been done this term using graphic organisers. (I have made copies of them so the name of the student is removed)

Year 12 Examples

Compare and Contrast - this is the template that I give to the students to compare their chosen design era with another one.

Link to template

Link to support on class site

Here are 2 student examples

Link to drawing

Link to drawing

Hexagons - this is the template that I give to the students to group together all the same aspects of their chosen design era.

Link to template

Link to support on class site

Here are 2 student examples

Link to presentation

Link to presentation

Timeline - this is the template that I give to the students to see where their chosen design era fits in with those before and after it.

Link to template

Link to help on class site

Here are 2 student examples

Link to drawing

Link to drawing

What I really enjoy about these is how my students not only use them to support their research but they make them look their own way too.

PD - Staff Mtg. CAA's and Multi Choice Questions

 Link to presentation

Using the Class Blog to do Product Analysis.

 My Year 11 DVC class are starting to do prodict analysis as part of their design project. In order for us to have some practice at doing this, I have decided to use the class blog so we all pratice analysing the same products while being able to see each others analysis. This is a follow on from when we used Google Plus communities to suport each others analysis work. Link to blog post here. I like to use SOLO to structure the questions as it builds up the complexity nicely. 

We continued doing this as a class even when they stopped the communities. We sat around the front and did it all together on the TV screen.

This week, I put up one image of a procuct onto the class blog. Along with this, I put a set of questions that the students have to answer in the comment section of the blog. These questions still use SOLO as the structure. I have been publishing the comments as soon as the students have completed the task so they can see each others analysis. I am aware that they can copy by dong this but I want them to feel confident when they have to write an analysis. As we get more practice, I will keep all the comments unpublished untill they are all done.

Link to blog post

The questions I added to this image were -

1. DESCRIBE what SHAPES do you see.
2. DESCRIBE what colours you see.
3. LIST the PARTS of the design.
4. LIST what material is it made from.
5. EXPLAIN why is this material a good choice for this design.
6. EXPLAIN how you use this design. 

The words in capitals are taken from the SOLO posters that are in every classroom at school. Link to resources

Yoobee Open Day with Y12 and Y13 DVC Students

 My Year 12 and Year 13 DVC students had a great morning visiting the Yoobee open day seeing all the courses that they have on offer. This was a great chance for my students to see a wider variety of opportunities that are on offer if they want to continue with being creative after they leave school.

Link to Yoobee City Road campus It was very generous of them to allow us to bring 31 students.

PD - Staff Mtg. CAA's and road blocks / graphic organisers

 Link to presentation

Inquiry Focus 2025

 After thinking about a variety of things that could be my inquiry focus this year - link to blog post here, I have decided that my focus will be on using a class blog as a means to give feedback to each other.

The group I will be using for this inquiry will be my Year 11 DVC class as this is my smallest class and we can work on critical thinking as they look at each others work and give structured feedback to each other. 

So engaging in critical thinking is my focus with the use of the blog as the tool to do it.

Year 11 Visual Art trip to the Auckland Museum

 As part of our first NCEA Level 1 Visual Art standard, my class had a visit to the Auckland Museum this week. This is part of our work on assessment standard AS91912 - Use practice-based visual inquiry to explore an Aotearoa New Zealand Māori context and another cultural context. Our theme for this standard is Taonga. In class we have looked at personal taonga and school taonga. This trip to the museum forms the basis for looking at New Zealand taonga. Link to my planning here.

We had an organised tour around the Marae  - link to Museum information where our guide explained all the parts of the Marae and told stories and myths to the students. This made them laugh, picturing the shapes of fish and how they were formed in the story of Tangaroa

We then had a fun session of working in pairs making tukutuku. The students were timed, having a race making aline in the pattern. The fastest was 1 minute 50 seconds!!

 

The second half of our visit to the Museum was focussed in the artefact gallery. The student shad to look around the display cases and choose what they wanted to draw. This was a huge ask for the students to have to do as drawing in public is always quite intimidating. We took paper and drawing equipment with us and the museum supplies stools to sit on.

When we get back into the classroom, the students will complete their drawings of the artefacts and use these as the starting points of their pages for this part of the standard. Link to planning for this section here.

PD - Staff Mtg. CAA's and Text Sets

 Link to presentation

Blogging about Form

 My Year 11 class are looking at some of the design elements in the work of their chosen architect. The first one we are doing is form, where they have to make the forms they see in plasticine. We then  take photographs of the models, print hem out and then draw from the photographs.

Link to my example - we include the photos, the drawings, descriptions of the drawings and photographs of the specific designs from the architect that were used as the influence. We are using Hapara workspaces to put together the work in one place.

Some of my students completed this work on form and have blogged about it before moving onto the next design element of pattern. I got them to include the page from their presentation and a description of what they had done.

Link to my example blog- I did an example blog with my work to show them how I wanted them to do it and what I wanted them to include.

Here are some of the blog posts about from form the class. 

• Hinano
• Alyanna
• Erich
• Rose
• Muna

I have been in and put comments on the completed ones, again to give them an idea of writing a comment and giving feedback on each other's work. When the rest of the class has done their blog posts, we will have a session where we all go in and make comments on each other's blogs. I will be giving them guidelines on what to comment about. This will change on each blog post we do as the focus of the work will be different on each.

Comment Guidelines

1. What does this show about the chosen architect?
2. What have they done well on their page? - this could be drawing in 3D, shading, showing the design element of form well
3. What do you like about the work and why.

Blogging with Year 11 DVC

 This week I started blogging with my Year 11 Design and Visual Communication class. I decided to go with one blog for the class that they can all post onto rather than each working on individual blogs. I decided to do it this way as I was a big fan of my classes using Google Plus Communities, where we would post up class work and give each other feedback - link to blog label for Google Plus Communities. I want the blog to work in a similar manner, where we can see and comment on each others work and it is easy for everyone else to see too.

Matt Goodwin came to the class on Monday to help us get to know how to use Edublogs. Some of the students had used it in intermediate school and could remember, so to be honest, most of the help was for me! We leaned how to embed a Google document, a Google presentation and how to put in an image. These are the 3 things that we will be needing to put into our blog posts so it was good to get a chance to try all 3 of these methods.

I decided to try this with only my Year 11 DVC class at first, as this is my smallest class this year and it will be a good group to try this with. We will be working on Google docs, presentations and drawings and in our sketchbooks so it will give us chance to try out different ways of getting work onto our blogs.

Link to blog

I was posting up my examples of the work we have done so far while it was up on the TV screen so the students could see how it was done.

So far we have posted up our Architect Information, our Mood Boards and our Design Words. work. Some examples from the students are linked here.

Architect Information - from Vika

Mood Board - from Avania

Design Words - from Alyanna

The work we are on with at the moment is looking at the design elements in their chosen architect's work, so our next posts will be presentations of the models and drawings from that. We had a go at some comments on the posts we have done so far but I want to go into that a lot deeper as we post more so that the students are analysing each others work.

Planning for AS91306 - Level 2 Visual Art

 This year, alongside my Level 1 Visual Art class, I have 1 Year 12 student doing Level 2 Visual Art / Painting. He is with me as he did not want to do sculpture, which is the focus of the other Visual Art teacher in the department. I taught this student last year when he did Level 1 Visual Art and I know that he is a very self motivated student so I thought that this situation, while not ideal, would be OK. This is my first time teaching Level 2 Visual Art so we are working through it together!

This is where my planning is up to so far. My student has chosen his two artist models and we are focusing on still Ife. To be honest, as this is my first time through this, I am leaning heavily on this resource form TKI.

We have looked at the NZQA exemplars - Link here 

We have talked about choosing 2 artist models. One more traditional and one contemporary. Link here to the page on the class site.

As my Y12 student has been with my Year 11 class, we have all been doing media experiments to get us warmed up, so for painting, he has also been doing some copying of one of his chosen artists. He was introduced to water colours last year in Y11 and he loved them so he automatically went to that media choice to do his copy. Since then, I have bough some oil paints for him to try. He has had a firs try and I have put together some resources he can watch while he is practicing. Link here

Our nest step is to start analysis of the paintings of 2 artist models. This is stepping up from last year when we did AS91914 but we have to look at design elements a lot more and how they were used to create the narrative in the work. Link to the page on the class website

This is the template for the collection of the information. How this is presented is up to the student.

Ideas for Inquiry 2025

 

Know your Learners - Ethnicities