Flipping Art Education 2.0

Flipping Then and Flipping Now

Reviewing last year's efforts at flipped learning were a hard thing to do. I felt like I failed at flipping my Art History class. I wasn't consistent with following up on the video assignments assigned as homework and got frustrated when students didn't watch them. I ended up abandoning it all together halfway through the nine week class.

As I look to this coming fall and what I hope to achieve as a teacher my focus as far as flipping goes will be on the technology that makes it all possible as well as that which makes life easier to manage. I have recently become a convert to Google Calendar having just today added in all of my upcoming dates for the school year. This led to creating a course calendar for AP Studio Art along with a course website using Google Sites. I'm a form making queen as I strive to gather student information for the theatre productions I direct. Now it's time to turn my love for Google to flipping through lots of application and lots of practice.

Google Documents

I'm no longer trapped in the tunnel vision of flipped videos being the answer. I am still searching for a new way to interact with kids beyond the lecture mode but realize that the video isn't the end all be all of flipping. It was a good start but there are so many other ways to do it. I also have the task of incorporating iPads into the mix as we work to further utilize our 1:1 to status at CHS. Google Documents is the place I plan to start as far as flipping goes in my Art History course, which was conveniently moved to the fall. I will create Google Documents for each Unit we study. (These are broken down by art movements.) Then the students will be charged with adding to each document as we work through the class with information they gather by whatever means they prefer: website research, classroom art history books, talking to their neighbors, watching online videos (I'll keep the old ones around as an optional resource and review tool.), Twitter, Facebook, etc...Their inquiries will then be posted to a Google Document that the entire class can access. I love the idea of the class having a collaborative set of notes about the art movements and artists we study. They can paste links, share video clips, type information, whatever means they prefer to get that information posted to the class. I'll monitor it on a daily basis to ensure things stay on track and information is credible. Most of this will be done outside of class or at the end of class when students are finishing up. It will also be a pre-unit activity that we can keep adding to as the unit progresses to provide some inquiry based prior knowledge development.

Google Forms

Google Forms is something I'm using primarily outside of the classroom to organize information for the student theatre program which I run. However, I think there is possibility there as well with regard to Peer Student Art Critiques. I'm going to make a form for each art critique we do where a student would select a peer's artwork to critique as a means to gather that information for assessment as well as to share with the student whose work was critiqued. It's also a great way to collect data which is something our district is obsessed with. One of my classroom learning goals is quality reflection. This could document each students growth toward achieving that.

This Fall's Focus

It's been an interesting journey so far into flipped learning. I'm excited to see where things go but for this year focusing on becoming technology literate is a good place to start. I hope to gradually move some of this stuff out of the class period to allow for more meaningful student led inquiry moments as well as more project-based class time.

Returning from Spain - Let the Flipping Begin

 Me and Gaudi's dragon at the Park Guell sculpture park in Barcelona, Spain.

My awesome group of students in front of the Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain.


After a hugely successful trip to Spain with my art students over Spring Break it was day one of diving into my flipped Art History classroom. It was a great day of teaching! I presented the overview video of  Modern Art movements, explaining that all other videos would be watched outside of the class time. During the video students wrote down five things they learned and one question they had about the content I presented in the video. I'm hoping to further turn the learning over to my students but as a starter I wanted to get into things more traditionally. Everyone dove into writing down things they found interesting and questions they had about what they were learning about modern art. Then we shared by table followed out by shared some questions they had as a whole class. It was a great start to getting them used to talking to each other and leading things rather than just listening to me talk about art. The five/one format is one I'm planning on using regularly with preunit videos as well as some higher order thinking questions.

Then the students researched further Modern Art Movements they had drawn out of a bowl earlier in class while we were downloading some apps we'll be using later on to further understand all that the modern art world has to offer. In general I'm trying to utilize technology as much as possible while turning the learning over to the students. I'm hoping this exercise leads to further questions that we'll discuss tomorrow at the start of class as we share what we learned from our independent research.

Their homework was to think about five critical analysis questions as they watched a video introducing the art movement Fauvism, our first official unit of study. If all goes as planned we'll have a great in depth discussion tomorrow. If not I'll adjust how we do things a bit. Fingers crossed for another great day!

First Flip Follow-Up

Follow Up to Previous Post...

It went really great the next day. A few students hadn't done the assignment so I gave them five minutes to complete the homework which helped the few students who were absent the day before get caught up. Then we dove into things. We had a good discussion about Surrealism that came out of what the students noticed about the artwork they looked at. We used their observations to brainstorm a list of how Surrealists distorted reality. I contributed background material about why the art movement developed and what the Surrealists were going for. Then we used that list to further identify examples within a PowerPoint I shared of Surrealist artworks created by various artists included past student works. I injected background information about the movement and artists as the discussion progressed and answered any questions that came up. It was a wonderful change from just feeding them all the information right from the get go. The students led and directed the conversation but I was still able to teach them all that material I felt they needed to know.

One comment after we had concluded our discussion and the students had moved on to brainstorming their own original Surrealist artworks was from a student who wished we did this more often. In general the feedback was good. The homework was short and sweet and something they could complete before leaving class the day before if they chose to. It was a great filler for students who were done with the prior project and ready to move on to the new assignment. It was incredibly easy to implement last minute and made for a very engaging day when we had all this great prior knowledge and exposure to bring to the new lesson. I can't wait to do this more often in my studio classes. It was also a good warm-up as I prepare to fully flip my Art History class that begins on April 8th. Ahhh, so much work yet to do for that one but I'm so excited to do it.

Revolutionizing My Revolution

So learning about flipped learning revolutionized my ideas about teaching and learning and even before I officially flip the more articles I read the more I realize that the revolution has just begun. Today I read a great article (http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/03/creating-classrooms-we-need-8-ways-into-inquiry-learning/) which led to further articles and eventually a completely new way to want to flip my Art History class and it even impacted my first period class this morning. As I was taking notes about classroom inquiry and flipped learning before school started I realized I was getting at it all wrong. I was creating lecture videos to introduce new art movements, not a bad way to start flipping but not why it excited me so much initially. I am now recreating my PowerPoint based flipped videos leading with higher order inquiry questions then showing them artworks that are from the movement rather than spoon feeding them the content. The idea would then be to open the class discussion the next day with their answers to their questions guiding the way and then as those questions get discussed and answered I'll interject with the lecture content as it fits student interest and the direction of the conversation. My new goal is to use the flip format to build student curiosity and hopefully this will lead to student initiated inquiry.

Starting the day with this renewed inspiration and a first period class starting my all time favorite art movement, Surrealism, tomorrow I didn't want to miss a chance to flip the learning. I could talk about Surrealism all day but will that really get the students as excited as I am about that topic? So out of no where I assigned a homework assignment for the students to search Surrealism online and then come to class able to tell me one way that Surrealist artists distort reality in their artworks. They all have iPads and we were wrapping up their current project so they had the time to do it in class if they chose. A student came up to me and said she posted her homework to our Edmodo group wall and a picture of a Surrealist artwork she liked. This was so great because what a wonderful idea. I then added a part two to their homework. They now had to also look for a Surrealism artwork they liked and post it on our Edmodo wall to share with the class. They didn't have to say anything about why they liked it, although that would be a nice part three and will probably makes it way into future flipped moments. The great thing is that no one complained. They all immediately did the assignment, or most did. The rest got it done before the bell rang. In a conversation with a student toward the end of class I learned that she really liked us getting at the content this way and she hoped we'd do it more often. Ok, not a problem. I was pumped, the kids were curious, and it was a great transition time filler. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is an exciting day in the art room as we talk about art and along the way students become engaged and learn some content that will inform their own Surrealism artworks. I can't wait for to see what happens!

Baby Steps

This year my school went 1:1 with iPads. We didn't get a ton of direction beyond basic how to's so it was up to us to determine how to incorporate them into our instruction and student learning. It's taken me over a semester to ponder this and research some ideas but I think I'm ready to take it beyond using the iPads for looking up reference pictures. Having technology to do this has been a wonderful time saver and encouraged students to go beyond the limited selection of resources found in my cabinet of magazines. No longer do students waste class time waiting until they can go home and print off a picture of this or that thing that they really want to draw but need a photography to do so accurately. As long as you stay on top of how long you let them search the internet for inspiration it works wonders. But there had to be more, right?

I also started work with Edmodo, a great way to organize classes and extra curricular groups. It started as a way to communicate with my various clubs and drama casts throughout the year about schedule updates, reminders, etc...Again though there had to be more educational applications out there that I wasn't utilizing yet.

After attending an amazing conference where I learned all about flipped learning, my new favorite thing besides Twitter, I have some ideas that I have started to try out and more that I'm preparing to try out. Step one was to implement digital submissions for completed artwork, an idea I borrowed from the amazing art educators at Byron Center Schools. It's worked wonders for my 3D Sculpture class to allow me to keep up on grading their completed sculptures as students submit two photos of their completed works to Edmodo in the teacher created assignment tab. I still assess the artworks in class but the digital submissions make organizing grading so much easier. It solved the "who's was this sculpture again?" that happens in a class of 30+. For AP Studio Art it has allowed me to keep track of which artwork is for which assignment as they are so much more varied than in my other studio art classes. I had also hoped it would provide the required digital photographs needed for their AP portfolios. Alas the photo quality of the iPad isn't high enough to achieve that but it was still a great implementation.

Next up flipped learning. I'm starting with Art History which begins on April 8th. It is a research based class that focuses on about ten Modern Art movements. In the past students spent class time in the lab researching various art movements and developing a notebook with chapters for each art movement from the information they collected in their searches. Then they applied what they learned about a movement to inspire a work of art they would create in a very limited time frame as so much time was needed to research. The kids loved the application of what they had learned and dreaded research days. However learning had to come before application. How could I fix this so they still learned what I wanted them to know but have the time they craved to work on artwork? The answer seems to be flipped learning. In the most basic definition the lectures can be videotaped and watched outside of the class time allowing for class time to be used for project based learning activities and application of knowledge. There are a ton of ways to flip learning but this is the most common one from what I've learned so far. It seems like a good starting point.

That was how I first decided to get at flipping Art History. I decided I would use Camtasia to create screencasts of my already created Art History PowerPoints with video of me lecturing on each art movement. The students will watch these videos prior to us starting a new movement. Students will take notes and write down five things they learned and at least one question they have. Then in class we'll discuss what we learned and what questions came up in small groups prior to sharing as a whole class. This will allow more time to create artworks and hopefully more artworks than normally included in the class. I have also planned on incorporating various art apps. This aspect is still in the planning stages but I've found some great ones so far that I can't wait to experiment with.

I have made two videos so far and found Camtasia really user friendly. So far so good. I have a lot of work to complete in a short period of time but it's been exciting and invigorating. I can't wait to see what the students think.

About Me

About Me...

I am a high school art teacher in Michigan. This is my eighth year of teaching and I've never loved it more. I also teach AP Art History and Art Appreciation for Michigan Virtual University. I recently completely revamped my curriculum, adding in three new classes. I now teach Art I, Art II, Advanced Art, AP Studio Art: 2D Design, Art History, 3D Sculpture, and Digital Photography. It has proved to be a tremendous year of growth as I stepped completely out of my comfort zone after years of teaching many of the same lessons I developed when I was student teaching. It has challenged by ideas about what is important to teach in art education and how best to do it. And what the role of technology needs to be in doing so.

I have always been a very traditional art educator. As others moved toward technology I stayed firmly planted in the land of graphite, charcoal, soft pastel, watercolor, acrylic, and oil paint. I wanted my students to have a strong grasp of the elements and principals of art and design. I wanted my students to have a good understanding of Art History, despite still not knowing how to best incorporate that into the art production end of things. I wanted to incorporate Art Criticism and reflection as well but had been at a loss of how to do that in a meaningful way.

As my school went 1:1 with iPads it seemed that I too needed to modernize my views on education, tap into the technology that students are already so familiar with by utilizing this resource that everyone now had access to. I have also recently gotten hooked on Twitter (what an amazing professional development resource!!!) as well as having been introduced to flipped learning. It turns out that the technology I resisted while stuck in my traditionalists ways might actually be the answer to all my questions and concerns about art education. In theory it will help me connect further with my students, help them continue to develop 21st century skills, and work in Art History and Art Criticism in meaningful ways without taking away from their art production time. Let's put theory into practice and see what happens. I'm staring small with my upcoming Art History class by incorporating flipped learning into how I format my instruction and working to incorporate the use of iPads as much as possible. Eventually I hope that the changes work their way into all of my classes by next fall. In my attempts to update my curriculum and my views on education it was suggested to me by a friend that I blog about my experience. I've decided that was a great suggestion so here we go.