Can we create a Co-Constructed Community Art Studio?

This semester I am currently working with a small group of students, who we are calling Young Artpreneurs, to see if we can establish an Artist In Residence (AIR) program at our school. We have looked at the Room13 model (see http://room13international.org/) and this has been a huge inspiration. Our program would run a little differently in that the Artist in Residence would run a shared community artspace or studio (i.e. our Visual Arts building see pictures below) during the evening, once or twice per week, where our community members would pay a small fee for using the space per night, recieve help or take specific workshops run by the resident Artist, and this money could be used to help fund the AIR program going forward.

Once the community studio space is running we might be able to expand it to provide services for the firing of ceramic works or pottery. Or to expand the range of Studio spaces e.g. we have a lighting studio for Photography. The aim right now though is to start small and see it the idea is viable.

So here is what we have discussed so far:

The name - Originally the concept was 'Studio 23' but students have found out that name has been taken. We are currently contemplating running a 'naming' competition to promote the concept of the studio and come up with a name. Currently looking at sourcing prizes etc. students running competition on Social Media.

Money - crowd funding has been suggested, so has creating a Facebook Page for promotion etc. At this stage we will be holding a market day where artworks can be sold and students are thinking about how the whole project may fit together e.g. will there be street art competitions where works could be sold after the event, and what sponsorship or community support could they arrange etc.

All ideas are in there infancy and are part of the Semester 2 Community Projects that all students at Gungahlin complete as part of their school assessment. The students would love your ideas and suggestions if you would like to contribute.

Change School: Creating our own 'How to guide'

"We keep doing things the way they have always been done and expect different outcomes. If the current climate suggests that we aren't getting the results we want, obviously there is a need for a fundamental shift in the way we do things.

 

We know that learning takes place when it is tailored; tailored to the diverse needs of our students. Why then do we continue to educate in environments that lack any real flexibility, with bell times and physical environments designed to ensure structure and protect the standardisation of learning?"

Year 11 - 12 teacher, Independent school QLD, published online in 'Case for change', AITSL 2013.

In 2013 AITSL and the Learning Frontiers initiative asked some pertinent questions about student engagement to the Australian educational community. These 'big' questions I'm sure, were designed to provoke a new wave of action amongst educators, and many of these already understand clearly why 'schooling' must change, adapt to cater for the 21st learner and engage all students.





From Learning Frontiers Insights and Ideas Issue 1



 

It all started with a conversation, as many things do, on Twitter, email and the web, and this was a vital first step in co-constructing what I will call the guide to leading innovative change in education, from your current school. This is where I got involved, curious about the potential to provoke meaningful change, boost student engagement and educational attainment at the school in which I work. The question of 'why change' was already answered; as meaningful engagement in learning has a positive lifelong impact on individuals(1). I wanted to know 'how' this could be accomplished.







From Learning Frontiers Insights and Ideas Issue 1



 

So I put in an expression of interest for our school, Gungahlin College in the ACT, and hoped for the best. We were very pleased to find out this year that ourselves and Amaroo School would become the lab sites for the ACT/Regional Design hub. It has been fantastic learning experience ever since. Our two lab site teams travelled to the AITSL offices in Melbourne, we met up with other teams from the Melbourne and Brisbane hubs for a two day intensive workshop. It was a fantastic and challenging two days with the passionate Learning Frontiers team from AITSL, Valerie Hannon and David Price. During the two days we were tasked  with developing four exploratory questions which addressed each of the Learning Frontiers high level design principles for engaging learning.

 

 

 

After much deliberation our two Lab site teams agreed on the following questions for the wider ACT/Regional hub which includes our two schools:

• How does completely open and shared learning lead to engagement of all stakeholders? (Co-created)

• How do we empower students to become active agents in their learning? (Personalised)

• How can student learning result in valuable products and services? (Connected)

• How can we harness the power student’s social contexts to deeply engage them in learning? (Integrated)

 Of course after the formulation of these four ambitious questions our collective minds jump to how our ambitions may be realised. This is where the Design Hub comes into play. A Design Hub is essentially a group of like minded schools/organisations/individuals who want to initiate innovative change to improve student engagement, and give every Australian child an education worth having.

It was at the first Design Hub meeting in Canberra for the ACT/Regional hub that I felt the collective power of the hub. The meeting consisted of teams of teachers, school leaders,  parent and student representatives , both government and non-government from Albury, Snowy Mountains, Wagga and Canberra. It was becoming clear that we would be working together to co-construct change for ourselves and our students in their respective contexts. The four design Principles and the four questions that explore them are like chapters in our own 'how to guide 'to changing school for the better. The process of 'hubbing' (now a verb) also becomes a 'Change School' in itself as our respective school communities work together to fill in the detail of each chapter in the 'how to guide' going forward.

If you are interested in becoming involved in this exciting initiative please visit the Learning Frontiers website for more information.

 

 

References:

 

1. Fredericks, et al. (2004); Hattie (2009) cited in the Background paper: Engagement in Australian schools

 

 

How a 10 week challege helped me create a great PLN

I am not sure about you but I tend to learn best when I do things (make, create, go through a process, discuss etc.). For a long time I had been listening to the benefits of Social Media from other Educators but really wasn't using it very much. I joined Twitter in 2012 when our College was involved in the Microsoft Innovative Schools program. It was during that time that I met John Goh, Principal of Merrylands East Primary School, who was a big Twitter advocate.  Despite his enthusiasm for the communication medium, I was a 'slow' adopter. It wasn't until late Term 3 2013 when John visited our College and other schools in the ACT, posting photos on Twitter during his visits, that I decided I really wanted to do more and learn more about the Social Media platform.

After some consideration I though it could be possible to accomplish the following in one term:

• stay in touch with the latest educational discussions
• learn about learning technology quickly and easily
• Build a Professional Learning Network (PLN) in your school system and beyond

So in order to learn more I decided to 'dive in' be setting some goals and posted it on this blog (My 10 Week Challenge) to keep me honest. To help me achieve my objectives I attempted to maintain the following behaviours:

1. Tweet at least once a day about our school
2. Participate in a Twitter chat(s)
3. Create a blog and post at least ten times during the term
4. Connect with people outside of my school, build a PLN, and learn new things
5. Share what I learn with our staff and post it on my blog in week 10 of term

Quick note about Blogging

Despite knowing a bit (still much to learn) about blogging - I had created a blog previously during my Master degree (Student of the Red Brown Earth) mainly to document procedures, processes and make communication with my supervisor easier while studying part-time, I was unable to maintain the blogging commitment of my personal challenge, it could be described as a #Epicfail. No excuses though, I am going to keep trying, hoping to redeem myself with this long overdue post.

What I learned

Twitter is a great way to stay connected with other educators and share ideas. My fellow educational colleagues on Twitter were very accommodating of 'Newbie's' like me. It was with some trepidation that I tried my first Twitter chat which was #Learning Frontiers. I quickly found that the connection with like minded individuals all over the country was well worth the initial leap, as I fumbled at the keyboard in a struggle to keep up with the conversation.

Twitter helped me to quickly establish a Professional Learning Network (PLN) and soon I started sharing and asking questions myself. My PLN on Twitter were very quick to respond and helped me during the course of the term. My PLN helped inform some important school based decisions around technology. And helped me organise some school visits in Sydney (Merrylands East Primary School and Northern Beaches Christian School & Microsoft Head Office ) for our staff late term four. Among other things, these visits are now helping our staff rethink the use of furniture in our school.

Thank you to everyone out there in my PLN. You have helped me learn more than I would have without Twitter. I look forward to learning and sharing more with you in 2014.

I have 'Storified' (which was a tool I learnt about on Twitter) a series of twitter posts about our College below: