Collaborative Inquiry 2019/2020
Teachers from each school participating in the AIRS program come together four times during the year to share their observations and reflect on the impact of collaborating with a resident artist within a dedicated studio in their school on student learning. Each school develops its own inquiry question specific to their specific school context. For the 2012/20 school year, inquiries were developed under the overarching question: "How does sustained collaboration with a resident artist in an established studio impact student learning in relation to the curriculum, the core competencies and the FirstPeoples’ Principles of Learning?" Findings from the collaborative inquiry are documented and compiled into a year end final report that can be accessed below.
The 2019/20 inquiry was facilitated by Christine Giesbrecht, district mentor support teacher with presentations by Maggie Milne Martens, AIRS director and Indigenous teaching artists Shelley MacDonald and Candice Halls-Howcroft.
Our Findings
While each studio invited a unique experience for students dependent on the vision of the artist and the kinds of material engagements students were offered, there was marked consistency in teacher observations of student learning across all sites. One of the key findings is the way in which the art making process powerfully builds student capacity in all of the core competency areas with particular intensity in the areas of creativity as well as positive personal and cultural identity, personal and social awareness and social responsibility. Risk-taking, independent problem solving, and openness to new ideas were all habits of mind that were observed and fostered in the studio. More importantly, the artmaking process has demonstrable impact on
student’s sense of self, building confidence in their own creative capacities and the value of their ideas. For many students who struggle in the classroom, the studio is a place for them to flourish and for their talents to be recognized and valued.
It is important to note that these learning outcomes were not pre- determined goals but were observed as being intrinsically nurtured through the art making process itself; that in the midst of the messy, chaotic, non-linear, haptic, and sometimes frustrating process of wrestling and transforming raw materials into significant form, that students are themselves transformed.
Integrating Indigenous Perspectives
On February 19, 2020 teachers who have AIRS studios in their schools gathered as a part of the collaborative inquiry process. In this session, the teachers shared how students are engaging in the studio with the artists, and discussed how art making processes might intersect with Indigenous protocols and perspectives. The gathering was facilitated by indigenous artists and art educators, Shelley MacDonald and Candice Halls (pictured below left), who joined the discussion to share their knowledge and invite teachers into a deeper understanding of how to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing and the arts into their classrooms.
Material Process and SEL
Collaboration and Community
Collaboration and Community
We noticed the connection between material practice and the emphasis on process with evidence of social emotional learning in students. Using tools from fingers and hands to knives, pliers and hammers to transform and manipulate materials brought a sense of confidence, accomplishment and self-reliance. Responding to the world through tactile and unfolding processes provides space for students to slow down, look closely and give space to the complexity of ordinary things.
Collaboration and Community
Collaboration and Community
Collaboration and Community
In the studios, students were encouraged to work inclusively and collaboratively, whether through larger projects in which every student contributed to the whole or more individually with a mindset of shared inquiry. This allowed students to take risks through exploration, experimentation, and the exchange of ideas. It also opened students up to the different perspectives, ways of seeing and imaginings of others.
Story and Belonging
The Studio as a Space of Wonder
The Studio as a Space of Wonder
Teachers noticed the way in which art enabled students to find their own voice through art, to share their own stories and make connections to place and community in a deep and powerful way.
The Studio as a Space of Wonder
The Studio as a Space of Wonder
The Studio as a Space of Wonder
Teachers noted the importance of the studio for providing a place of safety and freedom of expression in an environment of non-judgement. The studio space enabled students to expand their horizon of what art and the endless possibilities inspired by the imagination.. The art studio provides a shared space for creating embedded within the whole school which builds a sense of belonging within the school and the wider community.
Guest Speakers
Social Emotional Learning and the Visual Arts: Discussion with Dr. Jane Garland
For our first AIRS collaborative inquiry session of the 2018/19 school year, lead teachers had the privilege of hearing Dr. Jane Garland speak on Social Emotional Learning and the visual arts. Jane is professor emeritus of clinical psychiatry at UBC, and has been working in the field of mental health for over 30 years. She is the founder and director of the mood and anxiety disorder clinic at Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, author of Taming the Worry Dragons and has been influential in bringing Social Emotional Learning awareness into the redesigned BC curriculum.
What is Social Emotional Learning?
Social Emotional Learning is a process that can be taught. Jane shared that in order for social emotional learning to occur, one must be in a state of awareness– being present in time and space; beembodied - through an integration of sensory experience; and maintain a state of calmfocus or emotional equilibrium. This enables the processes of social emotional learning to occur; observation– attending to both detail and how it relates to the big picture; reflection– creating an internal picture in one’s mind and assessing this in relation to existing knowledge; andresponding - through purposeful action. It was striking to see how the visual arts naturally invite students to enter into a state of mindful attentiveness and that the processes that train the capacity for social emotional learning are present within the art making process itself.
The visual arts foster social emotional learning
Jane spoke about how the AIRS program confirmed what years of clinical experience had taught her, that the arts naturally foster and can train the capacities and processes necessary for social emotional learning to occur. The visual arts invite close perception, attention to emotion and the expression of feelings as well as visualization through observation and 3D modelling. The sharing of student work within the school affirms the unique vision of each child within a community of different but equally valuable imaginings, creating a powerful sense of belonging within community. The visual arts are a fundamental language of expression that is inclusive and accessible for all learning and cultural differences.
Christine Giesbrecht: Linking habits of mind, SEL and stages of creativity in the studio
Christine Giesbrecht, one of our District Mentor Support Teachers with extensive art teaching experience, invited us to consider the relationship between studio habits of mind (Develop craft; Understand Art Worlds; Engage and Persist; Envision; Stretch and Explore; Reflect; Express and Observe) and the development of social emotional learning. A key component is comfort with ambiguity both for students, in taking risks and moving through the place of the unknown, and for teachers, in allowing students to encounter and experience ambiguity through more freedom and choice.
Dr. Sylvia Kind: What is the Space of the Studio?
Dr. Sylvia Kind is a scholar in Early Childhood education and studio art research practices as well as the artist in residence at the Children’s centre at Capilano University. Sylvia encouraged us to consider the studio space as one of collaborative co-creation where teachers and students mutually and reflectively inform learning journeys. Sylvia explained that what we attend to whether through words or documentation shows students what we give value to in their learning process. Through more intentional documentation, that makes that learning visible to students, we can create opportunities for students to grow the habits of mind that foster social emotional learning.
These are the words teachers shared to encapsulate what they observed and experienced working with the artist in the studio.
Collaborative Inquiry 2017/18
Our inquiry process previously had revealed connections between art making in the studio and competencies associated with social emotional learning (SEL). In the 2017/18 school year lead teachers from each school participated in a district wide collaborative inquiry across all participating AIRS schools to consider the question:
“How does collaborating with a resident artist in an established studio impact student learning within the new curriculum and core competencies.”
Similar observations shared by teachers over the course of the inquiry and across very different sites, communities and art experiences confirmed for us the common benefits of focused, embedded art engagement for all students.
Benefits included:
· increased confidence and risk taking for students
· increased levels of focus and sustained attention
· empowerment for students who struggle within the classroom but flourish within a creative, hands-on context of non-judgement
· building of a greater sense of community