Thursday, March 14, 2019

Visual Understanding - Blog Post #3


Here is the PowerPoint presentation I made entitled PLACES IN PERSPECTIVE:

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MY POWERPOINT PRESENTATION FILE


I think that art class should recharge my students. I especially think this way because my older students have art lessons after lunch, just before the school day is winding down. By and large they are in a bit of a food coma, and nearing that daily academic burn out by the time I see them, so it is up to me to give them an invigorating lesson. Truly, I have nothing against textbooks, they will forever serve a good purpose, but as a creative person and educator I think it’s very important I show students my creative flair. Yes, I am quite new to PowerPoint presenting, but I have tasked myself with creating quite a few of them lately. They are informative and quite impactful. Each slide can jump in a new direction and avoid being stale and predictable, and it allows for laying out the scaffolding for so much of a lesson. My looking and talking exercises, formal assessing, student art prompts, and essential question asking can all be done in various slides. And if I do my job well, the presentation will come across more as a fun bit of entertainment rather thank a segment of the learning process.

Best of all, the PowerPoint presentation can travel. If I have students who are struggling learners who need an extra leg up to comprehend and retain the big ideas and techniques I am trying to teach, they will be given the ability to access my PowerPoint work from home, or elsewhere and they can view the material as much as they want at the pace they require. Students who might have to miss a lesson can brush up by viewing my PowerPoint on their own time as well. And a presentation can be archived for use by other teachers, anytime and anywhere.


I decided to focus my presentation on these three things:

1.     An emerging artist who happens to be local. Considering that she is a woman of color might also be appealing considering the students I work with and anything I can do to help connect my learners to the course material is a very good thing. Tying everything to some incredibly fresh, impactful art is a great thing.

2.     I want my students to explore the relationships they have with people they are close to. Beyond that, I want them to think of the spaces and places they share. Embracing the personal, and community side of student life is of great importance to me. Making them think about the deeper things in life is also important.

3.     Lastly, I needed to consider the National Art Standards that are quite important in allowing me to assess my students learning. Because of this, I decided this lesson would be a great opportunity to teach the concept of perspective drawing. It is important that kids learn proper rendering of 3D spaces and the various techniques they can use to achieve realism in their work. By no means is this an easy concept to understand.


This PowerPoint presentation deepened my understanding that if presented wrong, the ability to comprehend the theories and skills of perspective drawing might not go smoothly. It is a complex subject that I can see lots of students struggling with and if left to just read up on perspective from a textbook, I think most students would not grasp the material. Just reading about some of the more complicated avenues of art making is at times too detached from the creative process. If my goal is to recharge my students on a weekly basis, I have to make sure they are fully engaged. And one thing that a PowerPoint can offer to engage students that a more common textbook can is an embedded video, and I think mixed media can lead to a strong presentation. A well-constructed PowerPoint can say so much in a multitude of ways that help keep kids enthused while retaining material. Also, by letting technology be introduced, you will gain the attention of the visual learners and tech heads in your room that might tend to tune out when material is presented in more traditional ways.

Now I feel like I can teach a difficult subject like perspective in a refreshing way that will likely get through to a lot of my students. These secondary kids can end their school day on a high note and I am proud of that.

8 comments:

Shannon said...

I like how you did PowerPoint and explained things and then showed what you where talking about with pictures and drawings. I remember in art class I had to do one of those drawings with the buildings and rooms. To have that to and one focus point to help you with the rest of the drawings how you have to start out and have a main point on the page in order to even start the main place. You did a great job at showing and telling use about your work. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

At first thought, I think this presentation might be a little too long for students to be able to follow along and stay engaged. It is very well done though! I can see you put a lot of time and thought into your infographic If another teacher was to pick up this infographic, it is very nice that you can easily follow along so someone else could be able to teach off of it.

Angela Weber said...

Hi Matt. I think that your PowerPoint has a sense of humor to it that I really enjoy. This is apparent in your seemingly ABC type of approach to perspective, a very difficult space to render. Your PowerPoint is clean and colorful, too, which somehow sparks some sort of energy, great, like you said, for students after lunch who seem to be in a food coma. I think that your sense of humor, juxtaposed with the psychological idea (whom a person likes to share a space with), works well together. It is almost as if you are tricking your students into believing that you are unaware of how personal of a question this truly is. It is a powerful question and an important question, especially for art students who can sometimes be on the outskirts of society, repressed. This forces students to examine their relationships. It is so important and so useful for mental health. I know I am supposed to comment on your PowerPoint as a tool, but I think that your content is outstanding

Joseph Gauthier said...

My first thought, like "Unknown", was that student attention might begin to fade with a long power point presentation...but the further in to the presentation I got, the more I realized that it's more than just a presentation; it's a full lesson plan in visual form. You have students engaging in group activities, interactive lecture, writing and sketching exercises and partner excercises. This will certainly keep students engaged! In regard to the specific visuals you've included, they build really well on one another. Do you think it would be helpful, however, to return to the place pictures after you introduce perspective so students can make an explicit connection?

Tamika Dallas said...

Hi Matthew,
I really like how clear and well organized your presentation is. I could understand how a group of fatigued teenagers would be able to engage with this lesson. I like how you take the presentation from the known/very familiar to the unknown (and then back to the known again). I also like how you included a variety of activities in the lesson like, sharing ideas about the living room with a partner and having time to journal (write and sketch). The illustrations are very useful and serves the lesson well. You introduced a lot of important information in a very engaging and thoughtful way. This lesson is also adaptable because it can be broken down into segments for students who may need that. As you mention, it can also be reviewed by students outside of the classroom, to refresh their memories. Power points are nice visuals because the information is presented in a series of slides which makes for easier comprehension of what’s being taught.

Paige said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paige said...

Hey Matty, I figured I would try and find you in this class because I don't get to see other art educators in my group so here I am! For being new to Power Point I think you did a great job, the information on each page was slight and to the point which will keep students attention. Your daily check in and out activity is genius, it's literal and you get to know more about your students as well as getting them to move around, especially because we teach the students for two hours. I also appreciate the amount of different photos you present to the students, showing them many ways to fill a three dimensional space and how to create them. The power point as a tool is one of our favorites as art teachers because it's not just a lecture and that is clear in your presentation. I liked how you go back to the sketchbook multiple times to ensure the students are retaining information you are sharing with them. The cat on the first slide is super cool by the way, I'm sure they enjoyed that! See you tomorrow! Paige

Unknown said...

Hey Matty,

I remember learning about perspectives for places and spaces within my high school career and I loved it. Powerpoint isn't all that typical within an art classroom (at least from what I've experienced), but I think you've proven valuable for yourself as well as your students. You had mentioned that this powerpoint can travel as students are coming in and out of the classroom and I think that's a fantastic point as there will definitely be students who will enjoy the convenience of looking the presentation over once or twice more.

Michael Hawthorne