Action Research
A. Settings
B. Participants
- The school I am conducting my research is a combined 7-12 grade building that serves a medium sized city and all rural students in the surrounding county. The school is currently implementing leadership initiatives and 1:1 technology initiatives. All students at the school have a district provided device. The community is experiencing a period of growth and enrollment numbers are growing. The district is attempting with varying success to become a model district with its facilities, instruction, student opportunities and technology. The school serves a diverse population with many ELL students and first and second generation immigrant families. The largest demographics of the students are white or Hispanic/Latino. The school also has a high at-risk population and a high percentage of students on free and reduced lunch. The staff members I interact with professionally most often are both of my principals, the 5-8 and HS level school counselors and the six staff members on the 7-12 SPED team.
- While there is never a typical day in the art room, my schedule is always the same each semester. Our school runs a 8 period schedule plus lunch/advisory. 1st period, 6th period and 8th period are crossover periods where HS teachers are teaching MS exploratory classes, and some MS teachers are teaching HS core classes. I begin the day with a class of about thirteen 7th graders. Since this is their first year of middle school and they are new to our building, most of this class is focused on building rapport and getting them acquainted with the materials, procedures, and expectations of the art room. We also focus on how to brainstorm and come up with creative ideas. Next, I teach Art Foundations, which is usually my most diverse mix of students in terms of age, ability, and confidence. We focus on why artists make art and students are exposed to a wide variety of artmaking approaches, materials, and historical and contemporary artists. In this class material choice and concept is completely up to the student but they must work within the artmaking approach of the unit. My next two classes are Intermediate level drawing or painting and then digital art. These classes focus on developing their ideas as well as skills in their specific media. In this class the media is somewhat set, but the purpose and concept behind their artmaking is up to the student. After digital art, I see my advisory students. At our school, advisory students stay in the same group with the same teacher for four years and use that time to complete their graduation portfolio. This fall, my advisory will be entering their senior year so I have developed close relationships with them over that last three years. This group also allows me to interact with students that wouldn’t take an art class, as my advisory group is full of highly academic performing athletes. After lunch I have a period of prep time, which is usually filled with students coming from study hall to work, an independent study student, or the middle school Art Honor Society group. Then I teach 8th grade which is usually my most difficult class of the day since they come to me right from lunch and wound up. Next, I flip to Advanced Visual Studies, a class full of mostly seniors and the occasional junior. I have modeled this class after IB art and we dig deep into ideas and process and students create a concentration of work by the end of the semester. My final class of the day is Intermediate Mixed Media which is usually a small and intimate group. On Tuesdays after school we have open studio for National Art Honor Society where students work on their class projects, homework, independent artwork, or service projects.
B. Participants
- I will need at least 15 participants in the study between the ages of 14-65. Participants will be students in my beginning, intermediate, and advanced HS art classes who have personal and parent consent. My other group of participants will be consenting teachers who self-identify as teaching high school art using Teaching for Artistic Behavior.
A. Purpose of Research
B. Research Procedures
- This research is important because it provides information about the development of student artistic voice, and how they choose to answer the question of “What will my artwork be about?” I will examine how students develop independence in personal meaning making and what connections they use, and what pedagogical decisions on the part of the instructor affect this process. It also will examine how the strategies of Teaching for Artistic Behavior positively contribute to voice development and personal meaning making.
- The research is designed to answer the question "What strategies can be implemented to empower students in the secondary TAB art room to develop strong personal voice and engage in authentic art making?" I am interested in seeing how students progress from needing teacher assistance to develop strong ideas to having a strong personal voice and make meaning in authentic artwork. To even begin that journey, students need to engage in the artmaking process and feel comfortable enough to take risks.
B. Research Procedures
- Throughout the Fall 2016 semester, I will continue to teach my HS art classes using the strategies from Teaching for Artistic Behavior including: student choice of materials, student choice of concept, assessing for process and artistic thinking rather than the quality of the product.
- Students in my classroom already write a weekly process journal reflection, but I will gain consent to use these journals and past journals in my research.
- Throughout the semester, I will record my own observations and journal entries. I will also make artwork in response to my experience as artist-teacher-researcher.
- With consent, I will use photographs of student artwork and other work products both completed and in process.
- I will periodically interview students about their progress in their expression.
- At the end of the semester, I will give students a survey about their experiences and to have them self-assess their perceived growth and what I did that best supported their expression and meaning making.
- I will interview other TAB teachers about their experiences with teaching TAB, their classroom procedures and environment, how they help students develop their artistic voice, and their successes and failures.
- With consent and school approval, I will survey students of interviewed teachers about their experiences in a TAB classroom and self-assess their growth in expression and creative voice and their opinions on what their teacher did that supported them.