Four FLOWing Waves – Part 3

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

Rising from the ashes - when competence enabled a significant turn around in learning experience 

A few weeks ago, I witnessed an upper-level student who became a wonderful exemplar of the theory of competence-driven motivation theory in learning psychology. Since the time he joined the programme, he hasn’t been committed to quality work, project after project. He is an extrovert and has devoted much energy on socializing during project time rather than focusing on his work. Art making can be social, and interaction is never an issue because peer learning and synergy can be very productive. But with his rather excessive ‘socializing’, the distraction took its toll, and he has not performed in art, and in his overall performance. With successive poor summative assessment results over 2 and 1/2 years, he has toned down his extroversion, but the quality of his effort has not seen noticeable improvement, until this project. He is also very aware that he has struggled to find his academic footing – or his ‘groove’ as a learner. Earlier this year, he made a lamentation on the previous project, and according to my colleague who heard it, found his tone loaded with defeat. It almost felt like he has 'resigned' and could only attain mediocrity at the very best. No teacher likes a lazy student, but it is important to find out the real reason that belies the laziness. Laziness is often a symptom. In Carol Dweck’s writing, laziness and avoidance behaviour is a veil that hides an unconstructive Fixed Mindset or Entity theory (Dweck et. al.). Over the years since having read education literature on self-efficacy and learning, I have come to recognize that many of the ‘lazy’ students I have handled were often mired in a rather self-defeating fixed mindset. It is also very possible that laziness stems from the lack of quality coaching at home in personal mastery but I have worked with and observed this boy long enough to come to the same deduction that his appearance of laziness is more than just a lack of personal discipline. The presence of 'defensiveness' and 'avoidance' described in Dweck's writing has been seen in this student.

Finally, in this semester, he has found his ‘groove’ through a 3D kinetic sculpture module that he has the autonomy to choose a subject matter that he has deep interest – Sci-fi warships and artillery. Autonomy gave him the choice starting position of familiarity, but this is after all his first ever 3D kinetic sculpture project, so it is also a new frontier! In Dweck's theory of Incremental (Growth) and Entity (Fixed) Mindsets, most learners of the latter tend to eschew trying new learning, because new territories never guarantee swift success even in familiar disciplines or domains of learning. Fearing loss of self-esteem when things get tough and when there is no guaranteed success, Fixed Mindset learners would keep doing what they know they cannot go wrong (or assumed they can't go wrong), and what they have previously been good at. It is therefore not surprising that their level of performance generally plateau and stagnate within their comfort zone, even when they are working in repetitious fashion by rehashing what they have been doing for some time. 3D kinetic sculpture that has the theme of sci-fi warships is not only a new frontier to this student, but it actually demands focus and intensity, meticulous work with precision, and all these qualities have thus far been absolutely absent in this students' past projects. So what got him to take a step into a relatively unchartered waters? 

Firstly, in my opinion, this student being still young, has some degree of malleability, however small it may be. More importantly, it is the provision for autonomy - each student has free choice to pick a theme they are keen to explore - as long as they fulfill the kinetic 3D sculpture parameters. They also have the autonomy to determine the degree of complexity in the requirement of the 'kinetic' element. In essence, there is the element of differentiated product (D.I) embedded. The autonomy in this student's choice of subject matter is not the main engine for high quality effort, but it is the very pivotal 'window' that draws his mind into a more sustained engagement, and bought critical time to keep his interest and engagement, pushing past his usually very short threshold of 'I give up'. And this sustained engagement becomes the very premise that allowed him to hold some early but needful focus to develop competence and then grow the intensity of his effort. He also was receptive to feedback that would help level up the detail and precision on something he so clearly loves - sci-fi warships. In previous projects, he would often be resistant to feedback (as it would mean expend more effort to work on the feedback), dismissive of them (because he would look less smart by conceding to the presence of low quality), or at best worked on feedback with a limited lukewarm effort (probably to get the teachers off his back). 

In this project, he has shown clear competency in ideating, designing and creating a sci-fi artillery as the kinetic 3D sculpture, leveraging on all the knowledge and visual references he has collected and gleaned because of this interest. One stark difference is that his work space was strewn with materials from a lot of experimentation using recycled corrugated boards to create warship components. His previous project work space never had such productive mess, because he had often truncated and bypassed process work. I saw the intense focus in his eyes and the almost surgeon-like steadiness of his hands when working on a very small detail - something I had never seen in this student. He even worked on a final feedback on the presentation of the work towards the completion of this module - totally opposite to his previous projects response! I surmise that he certainly has felt being in control of what he was achieving. Perhaps for the first time as a secondary school student, the locus of control in learning is within him, and the ensuing intrinsic motivation translated into highly focused effort - the Flow 

For the past 2 to 3 years, to him I have always been the much-dreaded stern teacher whose expectation is probably higher than what he would aspire to attain. But seeing him finding ‘flow’ in his work, I felt he should be clearly told – that his effort is producing evidence of competence. I unreservedly praised him, and I used the word ‘excellent’ (I do not use this word loosely). I was very deliberate not to link the praise to natural ability or anything ambiguous but pointed to the intensive detailed work, and (for the first time) the impressive precision he achieved. Anyone who has read Hattie and Timperley’s article  The Power of Feedback (2007) would know what kind of praise I am referring to. But I was not merely using a theory – I truly believe praise should be linked to action, and I am really very encouraged to see this ‘turn around’ in this student!

I told him “I am really very glad I finally get to see the excellent version of you”. I chose my words carefully - I finally get to see - it means he has it within him (which I am now convinced) but it has not been brought to actualization all the while. Then I pointed his work to my colleague, who was the one who pointed out the boy’s unprecedented focus in the work. I said, “He has very good dexterity skills, with very precise control on the details in this work”.

Then in the evening this student proactively wanted to complete the learning self-reflection Google form and sought an extension because his school email account got locked and needs technical assistance. Before this, he wouldn’t have bothered. When his email account was reactivated a week later, he submitted his reflection – a first! Finally, he is interested in process documentation and project reflection.

I would like the readers of this blog to consider the sequence below, as a possible progression in learning from initial fleeting engagement to sustained committed effort in learning. This can be applied to all forms of cognitive engagement, from childhood games to hobbies to academic pursuit:

• Curiosity sparks interest – draws initial cognitive engagement

• Support (scaffolding) in learning develops competence

• Competence (efficacy cues) fuels motivation (intrinsic)

• Motivation sustains engagement for competence

• Competence develops affective engagement (commitment)

• Affective engagement sustains cognitive engagement

• Assessed competence – efficacy cues – stabilizes self-efficacy

• Self-efficacy – empowerment

• Self-efficacy develops self-regulatory learning

To represent the dynamic relationships of competence and intrinsic motivation in learning engagement, here is a simple visual analogy, and I hope everyone of us finds and grow that dynamic impetus within ourselves, and help the young people whom we teach, coach or mentor to also find this ‘groove’.

Four FLOWing Waves – Part 2

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

 2^nd Wave of Flow – Yes I got the BROWN! 

A class of new students in the introductory painting module were given the ‘brown challenge’ at the start of a 7-week module as a scaffolding activity. They were to mix a shade of brown that is shown in a printed photo of a fruit or vegetable. Each student is given a different photograph. And they were to derive the brown shade by mixing just the three primary colors. The crux lies in the ratio between the three colors. There is brown paint in the set of paint tubes, but the purpose is to build students’ capability not just in closely observing the color of the fruit/vegetable but also in observing and analyzing the interaction of the base colors. This is to get them to learn the property of acrylic paint, the pigment, their translucency and luminosity and ways to control the changes rather than relying on ready mixed shades.

A student sees colors rather differently from the rest. (Now I hate to use the term ‘color deficiency’ because it is a totally wrong representation of how people with a differentiated way of perceptually process the hues and pigments they see. There is no deficiency, just difference, and nothing medically unsound with such difference). Throughout the activity, the student scrutinized every slightest change to the brown shade with each careful adjustment to the ratio of the primary colors, and constantly compared that to the reference image. Now this is a deliberate scaffolding activity to coach them on dealing with wet pigments, and this boy was making every right move.

The first 5 students amongst the dozen who could accurately get the brown shade according to the reference would get 2 small packs of chocolate candy - a brown prize! One after another were getting close to nailing it and the race heated up! One student got it followed by another… and the boy who sees colors differently got the brown shade just in time to make the top 5! I got the brown winners to the front to collect the candy. This boy eagerly came up, got his two small packs of candy, clutched them firmly in his fists, turned and returned to his workstation while repeatedly punching the air with his candy-clutching fists! It was a beautiful and moving moment for me to behold, I held back tears. To the boy, it was a triumphant moment, a moment of overcoming years of growing up as a child who probably felt he has something missing compared to his peers. It was sweet victory! It was what John Dewey called esthetic moment in his book Art and Experience (Dewey. 1934). Dewey wrote extensively on this esthetic moment, and the best I could in my humble attempt to paraphrase that would be ‘An experience of intrinsic joy’. 

The module is a 7-week module. After the brown challenge in the first lesson, each student would pick a vegetable or fruit they want to depict in paint. For this student, I carefully got him to tell me what he sees in a color wheel, because I needed to understand what he sees, so I could give him a differentiated guidance. He chose a vegetable with a dominant color that he mostly sees a different hue, but he insisted on taking that challenge. I would guess that personal victory in the brown challenged spurred him a little. Anyway, it was GAME ON! 

Throughout the module, he showed much tenacity in trying to mix the color as accurately as he could, and he actually achieved that! I had not seen a student scrutinizing every bit of colors so closely as he had – with his nose often nearly touching the paint palette! His hands were often paint stained and he was oblivious to that – this is clearly flow in action. At the end of the module when all the works were completed, I got each student to share their new learning discoveries in the module and analyze how that compared with the previous module of carbon pencil and charcoal self-portrait. I had guessed that this boy might prefer the charcoal module as it did not involve colors. To everyone’s surprise, he said he preferred the painting module because it was more fun when it was hard! I smiled and thanked him for his grit! Inside my heart, as an educator, I had just experienced another esthetic moment (Dewey. 1934). 

Four FLOWing Waves – Part 1

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

 

1st wave of Flow – From unmotivated to unstoppable

This happened when I was teaching pre-service student-teacher in National Institute of Education. An exchange student from Australia was very keen to visit a local school art class, and I managed to arrange for her to visit a primary school Art Club session.
 In the session, the students were given a task to work on a mixed media work to depict a colorful tree, using paper collage and oil pastels. Some of the Art Club members were restless but I noticed a boy was working quietly by himself despite amidst the more restless and loud students. I saw his rendering of the tree branches with oil pastel and saw glimpses of Claude Monet’s late paintings, where the vibrant colors and brush strokes were more like Fauvist works. But his oil pastel strokes were quiet rigid, so I decided to give him a little extra fuel. I showed him a couple of ways to use the wrist to change the angles of the oil pastels sticks that can create more varied and fluid types of strokes. They were achievable techniques, and he was quite delighted to try. The work slowly became more expressive and painterly. Then I turned on my phone and searched for Monet’s later paintings of bushes and trees in his Givenchy home. I showed the images to the boy and said, “What you are doing reminds me of these. Monet is a famous French painter you know? Your work looks a bit like his” He smiled and plunged right back into his work and worked on his oil pastels more ferociously! When he was done, I suggested he could start another piece of a different tree, and he jumped right into it. I took his work and showed the Art Club teacher, “Hey, you have a next Monet in the club”.

At the end of the Art Club session, the boy took the initiative to wipe down the tables and washed the cloth. He was every inch the perfect club member! Another teacher, a friend of mine who helped to facilitate the school visit for the exchange student came to the Art Room to say hello. I showed her this boy’s work and said “Look at the new Monet’s work”. Then I pointed to the boy “It’s his work”. My teacher-friend then whispered to me that this student had motivation and behavioral issues in other lessons. I leaned towards my friend and whispered back “You know, I saw nothing of that today! He was the best of the whole group!”

Need I say more? I have just described how the sense of competence has magically transformed a student, and he found his flow. Now I am realistic, that the boy’s lack of motivation in other lessons would unlikely be changed within a short time. But what is a great premise for working on is to help him gradually attain competency, and the intrinsic motivation will come, not from without but from within him. No words of motivation like “you can do it” from a teacher will be strong enough as a generator of motivation. Rather, it will be words like “See what you have achieved! Now you know you really can do it”.  The student must first be given the scaffolding to attain some competence, and the evidence of competence must first be observable and recognized by the student. When competence is found and sustained with the teacher’s pedagogical support, the productive engine will start – and when that competence-motivation engine is ignited, it will be octane-driven and unstoppable!  

 

 

From Fail to B - not because of talent but the presence of mind!

When teaching lower secondary art (or middle school grades), my focus is always to get students to grow their self-efficacy in art learning and hope that also build towards the overall self-efficacy in the young minds in their overall mindset towards life-long learning.

Present in the body, absent in heart and mind

This is a grade 7 (Sec 1) boy, and I shall call him EN here. When I started teaching the class, EN showed that he can learn but so often distract himself and others. It was clear very early in the semester that EN wasn’t at all interested in art. He never took the instructions seriously. It just did not matter to him at all, he was present in the body and absent in mind and heart.

The first assignment task was badly done, and incomplete. The second project of self-portrait pencil shading was shoddily done, just meeting minimum requirement after much descriptive feedback. I decided something must be done. So the first thing I did was changed his seating arrangement because he was seated near to a couple of students who were habitually inattentive although they did better work. I told EN that because he often missed out on instructions, I needed to help him improve on that. He complied, good start!

The ensuing module is a 1-point perspective painting of a bedroom. This isn’t the project I would readily include in a general art programme Scheme of Work (SOW), because there is too much constraint to prevent optimal mastery of knowledge and skill. 

Context - curriculum challenge versus student readiness 

Firstly, the biggest constraint is time versus complexity of skills – a very short 1-hour lesson once a week. To draw in linear perspective first and followed with painting involve too many sets of subskills (Popham, 2012), and they are different genres of subskills, hence they are not skills that directly built with cumulatively in a smooth learning progression. This makes learning challenging for s short lesson duration.  

Secondly, an equally onerous problem is the students' readiness in learning linear perspective. Linear perspective is essentially a trigonometry challenge in the visual / perceptive domain. The complexity of understanding how to protect X,Y and Z axes on a flat 2D picture plain of an A3 cartridge paper is demanding on any 13-year-old (and younger). It is not impossible for this age range to learn this art topic but that requires very careful micro scaffolding and sufficient time. Moreover, this is a challenge to any students who is less dominant in Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (in the 8 Multiple Intelligence or MI). At 13 years old, the development of Logical-Math MI is at a very sensitive and pivotal stage and if it is not scaffolded sufficiently, it guarantees high level of difficulty in learning and does not give positive efficacy cues to the students. The eminent consequence is that unsuccessful mastery will perpetuate a common belief that art depends on talent and not on cognitive engagement (i.e. understanding, application, and effort). Teaching linear perspective in a purely theoretical and technical approach does not engage students sufficiently in the affective domain, making them feeling disenfranchised. They will deem it was irrelevant to their learning life per se.

I agreed to allow this module to have another run after I joined the school because I must teach the module once before I am able to advise on appropriate revision to the curriculum for the level. And I did ensure that the whole module is allocated a minimum of 7 weeks. (I was certain that this module needs to be trimmed further in scope to make it more age and developmentally aligned to student readiness, and with post module student survey data, my hunch is confirmed. This will be something to be reviewed at the end of the year). 

Leveraging on general students' preference as the window to engage

Now most of the students in my school prefer to do well in mathematics. And that’s the leverage point for me. So I positioned the module as a way of visualizing mathematics. It's a case of creating situational interest. It worked for a number of student and their interest was piqued (but this had to be followed up closely with proper scaffolding for mastery as situational interest has a very short lifespan and hold on students' engagement). Still, EN wasn’t connecting himself to the learning. For the drawing part, he did meet the minimum requirement in terms of accuracy of 1-point perspective angle. When it came to the painting part, the domain of skills evidently was not his 'cup of tea', hence he just rushed through the motions and submitted incomplete work. 

A 'tight-rope' pedagogical decision!

When I saw the incomplete submission, I acknowledge I was in a tight spot pedagogically. I wasn’t willing to let it go - that is - to let his decision to disregard effort to stand. I was critically aware to insist on him redoing it could also backfire as he has long made up his mind that he wanted nothing to do with art. Given the small positive progress I was able to make with another boy in the same class who did not commit effort in the portraiture project*, I decided to take a risk and got EN to stay in one afternoon, together with several other students who were slow in their work and needed to stay to complete the art task. 

I re-demonstrated to EN the various ways to hold and control the brush angles and bristles**. I also made sure I frequently checked on EN to check on his effort and gave him some encouragement when he was on the right track. I had to give him explicit affirmation when his painting was heading in the right qualitative direction. Well, it worked! He completed the work and it was a world of difference! (See the 2 images below, The first image is the incomplete rushed work, and the image below is the redone work!) 

I gave EN one more verbal affirmation before I collected the work and let him go home. 

Investment return in FULL

In the next lesson, when I returned the marked works, I specifically highlighted (to the whole class) that EN has shown that he is able to do quality work when he put his mind and heart to it. I first showed the rushed incomplete work, then very quickly showed the new work! I did not even finish with my praise on EN and the whole class applauded! EN gave a smile of satisfaction! EN although was wearing his mask but I knew he smiled because his eyes became half-closed and the cheeks raised slightly under his mask.

Then I took one more risk (I got to seize the moment and strike while the iron is hot!) ... 

I asked EN in front of the class, "EN, tell me honestly, is this your best currently, which is really fine, OR do you think you still can up one more notch in this project?"

EN: "I can still do better"

The whole class roared and cheered! EN's smile became a grin. Now I knew he grinned because his cheeks raised more and pushed his mask further outward and his eyes became two curved slits - This is one sweet sight I shall never forget! This brought me back to 2013 when I wrote about teaching "teaching as a continuum of aesthetic moments" 

(https://mun-artcurriculumexplorer.blogspot.com/2013/09/teaching-continuum-of-aesthetic-moments.html?m=1). 

Today, the class's loud affirmation for EN and his partially veiled grin is another of such aesthetic moment. 

When given deliberate scaffolding and affirmation of effort and progress in competence, EN's effort went from fail to a B according to the assessment criteria. My calculated pedagogical risk and investment reaped a 2-fold dividend: 

- for the teacher, I got his presence of mind; and 

- for the student, he gained self efficacy!

* (see post: https://draft.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/4140709329500757677/7194177665919031379)  

** Pertaining to the 'how to hold a brush' - This is a very essential scaffolding that is often neglected because their fine sensory motor skills are not yet well-developed at age 13, and especially with the generation of students growing up with mobile devices and not tactile toys and games. Many students were actually surprised how they could control the painting strokes better by choosing the right brush size and holding the brush handle at the appropriate height. Many had assumed that by just telling students to paint carefully, the students would know how to control the brush. Given the 'mobile device generation' of a teenage urbanite, this assumption is pedagogically archaic, and not helpful in building students' sensitivity towards tactile learning experience.  

Not letting go of an unwilling student

We all encounter students who are dismissive or indifferent towards art. 

This is long but I am sharing on a stubbornly reluctant student who used to shut out my instructions to being more attentive. 

This Sec 1 boy is really just into cricket - full commitment to cricket and not academically driven and didn’t want to have anything to do in art. 

In Jan, he simply just didn’t submit the first work, a mini task. He wasn’t outwardly defiant but showed a certain passive-aggressive face, and calmly and softly told me behind his mask - he didn’t want to do his art. I called his mother to alert her that he was nearly 3 weeks late. His mother was apologetic but did tell me her son doesn’t like art. 

I explained to her that he must learn to be responsible even in the things he doesn’t naturally like to do. If he would only do what he likes, then he will always be like a kid and not mature. I informed the mother that the mini task deadline is well over and the zero remains because the integrity of the assessment structure should be maintained and to be fair to those who submitted on time or within grace period. I emphasized that I really want him to complete it so as to learn to be a responsible student. Subsequently I told the boy to stay on the day I have aep lesson. He did stay but did a very rushed job within 15 minutes and it was very poor effort. 

Tuning myself to the student’s frequency in interest

I decided to try helping him connect the learning of art to something he is more familiar and ready to engage - the sport of cricket. I hardly know cricket game but do know what’s the difference between bowling the ball and throwing. Throwing means the elbow is bent and it’s a foul. I was annoyed at his stubborn indifference but knew he was so hardened that a reprimand won’t change him. So I asked him a question: “In cricket, if the coach finds that your ‘bowling in cricket’ technique is wrong, what will he do? Why?

He answered ‘keep practicing the bowling’.. (the reason is obvious because wrong technique in cricket is considered a foul). 

So I said ‘Exactly! I am sure not every bit of cricket is something you want to have to keep repeating the practice. Right? (He nodded). In art is the same, talent or no talent, you just have to use the right method we taught in class’. 

I then told him, you got a failed mark but what is more important is that you did not apply the method, and actually that’s all you needed to do’.

I wasn’t sure if he was convinced but stopped  at that and said “ok, you need to add a bit of details here”. He again did a rushed job but I decided to let go as he did ‘fill up the spaces’. So I let him go but reminded him that he should make better effort as I am sure he won’t want to have to stay back again in next project. 

He again did a rushed job for the next project of self-portraiture, in the drawing stage, then again for the shading stage, totally not applying any of the methods we meticulously scaffolded. 

When the work was marked the 2nd time, I decided I could either just fail him according to the assessment descriptors (which he deserved) or make one more effort to make him understand the true spirit of learning to build self-efficacy. So in the next lesson, I took him aside and said, “I really want you to apply the methods because i want to see what you can learn and do. So you need to stay again to redo the whole work. Remember I talked about the cricket practice? Perhaps I should discuss this with your CCA teacher and coach (now I gave a little ‘notion of consequence’), that on Wednesday when I have AEP lesson, you first finish your art before you can proceed to cricket. Or you can stay on Monday instead (ok I didn’t want to corner him so I gave an option). If he said no, I was sure I would speak with his mom again. He agreed and offered to turn up. 

This time he did apply the methods. He rushed a bit still but unlike the last time, (when he just randomly did his work, ignoring all use of methods), he applied the method I had taught and when he was done, I told him that the quality of the work shows he can draw when he applied the method. I pointed specific areas that he improved drastically putting the new work next to the first failed piece. 

Art learning not for art sake 

This boy will never love art and that’s fine. The crux and my focus is not about whether he can do well in art but what art learning can do for him. What is critical is his self efficacy as a learner - that all learning is possible and it is a matter of applying knowledge properly and attentively. It’s not about getting A but about proving to himself he can learn by responding to structured scaffolding. 

A former student of mine (now a mother of 2) once shared “I did not shine in art but art helped me shine”. The latter part of the sentence, truly is more significant! 

From Jan to March, he was barely listening in class. Yesterday he did listen when I clarified on some common errors in 1-point perspective! 

The picture below shows 2 self portraits by the same boy. From not applying actionable technique to applying. Both were rushed, the 2nd one a little less rushed. But see the difference!

This week in class, we are already halfway into 1-point perspective module. Knowing the boys put more effort in Math, I approached the teaching like a mathematical visual inquiry. This has worked for some students who are competent in math but had been indifferent to art. 

It’s very clear. When the source of motivation switches from being externally pushed to intrinsically generated by evidence of competence, the quality of attention and effort improves! 

This reluctant boy’s recent presence of mind is enough to make my week!

Talent alone does not serve learning

This is a 2nd follow up on N, the boy who is eager to learn in AEP

N does not qualify to be in AEP but that’s no stopping him joining in the learning. One would think that letting him learn along side the more talented art students in AEP, means he can gain much. But is it just 1-way? No! It’s a reciprocal social learning. I also want the AEP the students to learn that they cannot take things for granted just because they have more natural ability and must be just as attentive. Talent make no provision for inattentive learning. 

In the same lesson I set the parameters of the painting background and gave the options and explanation of the purpose. Boy N was listening intently, while another boy, an AEP boy (I call him J) who mixed tertiary colours almost intuitively, BUT wasn’t paying attention! 

Naturally J approached the background not according to the parameters and I took J aside, asked N to join us at the side. I asked N to tell J what the parameters of the background was to be. N gave precise details, with only very minor gaps, and I filled the gaps easily. I thanked N, let him return to his work.  

I turned to J, “J, do you noticed what you have missed out? What is the reason you got all the instructions wrong?”

J acknowledged he did not pay attention. 

Then I told J: “J, I really like how enthusiastic you are when you work. You are very accurate in getting the colours right, but you often rush too fast to even note down the instructions. So learn from N, pay attention to the important instructions. Ok?”

J is a fervent and talented AEP student but very much a work in progress when it comes to mindfulness, that of being alert and tuned-in, which is a very essential attribute in a social learning environment. Talent alone will not serve him far. I don’t want to develop a student who lives in a talent bubble. N in contrast has very low self esteem but high self efficacy. It is the high self efficacy that drives him to have an alert mind. They all can and must learn from one another. N surely has a legitimate place in my AEP lessons!

Everyone screws up, talented or not - So get up and go again!

This is a follow-up on the sharing of a Sec 1 boy who did not qualify but still wanted to join AEP class for the experience. I referred to him as N in my first post in this blog thread. 

Last week I formally introduced N to the class. He already know several of them and has started joining the lessons but I thought it’s good to formally ‘welcome’ him to give him a psychological affirmation! I welcomed him at the start of the lesson and said that he will now be the learning critic because he is free to ask anyone to explain their work process. 

Then in the last 2 lessons I have heard N saying repeatedly “I screwed up” in his attempt at drawing and painting a bunch of bananas. I also heard him, in his chat with the AEP students, that whenever he draws his mom will say to him ‘something is not right’. I understand that the mom meant no insult to her son but obviously lack skills in giving feedback. 

So on Monday, I decided to sit down with N for a 1-to-1 chat. I first asked him what he has observed in AEP lesson that is different from his usual art lesson. He said ‘the students are better’ (There was a pinch in my heart!).

So I asked again: “How have I coached them? And what do they struggle with?”

He couldn’t answer. 

I said “Have you noticed I always focus on them observing WHAT they do and HOW they do their work and WHAT NEXT they can do to improve? Do you notice I get them to test this and that out in painting? It is through the testing of paint that their eyes learn to observe. I am training their eyes to see and analyse HOW to be better.” (i.e. Self assessment, self monitoring and self regulation in AfL) 

I continued “So whether talented or not - it’s the same in learning, it’s just that AEP  has more time for them to test things out.”

I told N that I heard him saying ‘I screwed up’ several times. Then I explained that everyone ‘screws up’ sometimes or many times and I said “Ma’am here (referring to myself) messed up big time many times in my learning too!  But that’s not the end. The more important thing is to know WHY and HOW I screwed up in my work, so that I will then know what I can try next to un-mess the mess up (said with a smile😉😊). This is when we need to treat learning like a lab scientist - think back the steps we did and try to see WHAT we missed out here and there and WHERE we didn’t do something right in a method. Then try another way to test out if it can work. Ok?

“I also heard you say that your mom critiqued your art. Ok, maybe your mom doesn’t know she needs to tell the WHY, WHERE and HOW it went wrong. So here in AEP class, I will be helping you to understand this part.”

N has a special place in my heart - I asked myself was there a time when I was a student, that I so wished I could be given an opportunity to be coached in an area I was weak in but I was interested? Certainly! I can see N knows very well he is weak in art but so relish the opportunity to learn!