“I don't know what to make.”
Getting students to take ownership of the creative process is hard, to paraphrase my friend Clyde Gaw. During the last school year, I shifted my thinking about ideas and it made a huge difference for my students.
I'm a firm believer in scaffolding, so for years, I supported ideation with scaffolded support. I started my Studio class, made up of all high school students who had taken Beginning Art, by introducing themes and media-based Explorations on alternate weeks. My thinking was that these options would give those who did not have their own ideas something to work on and help teach them how to come up with their own ideas.
Except it didn't.
Students who came into the class with lots of ideas thrived and worked with independence, but those who did not have ideas continued to need my support. I knew I needed to approach ideation in a different way to help all students learn how to find their own ideas for art-making. I thought about the artistic behaviors I saw in students who had mastered this skill and I knew what I needed to teach.
Artists collect ideas. It is both a habit and a mindset, a way to approach the world.
What I needed to do was to shift from supplying ideas to those who need them and instead focus on the habit of collecting ideas.
I planned a 100 Ideas Challenge where I presented themes or media in subsequent short lessons over a few weeks. I asked students to list 10 ideas for each topic I introduced. After the first few weeks of school, every student had a list full of ideas.
These lists were helpful as the year started, helpingseach artist connect with work they were excited about. They were helpful later as well when students could refer to them and rediscover great ideas they had forgotten about. However, the best thing about the 100 Idea Challenge is that it helped each student take ownership of ideation.
Next year I'll start with the 100 Idea Challenge, but I'll add more experiences that teach the habit of idea collection.
I’ll plan more one-day activities that ask for on-the-spot creative thinking, like Pick 3. I’ll add reflection time after for students to write down ideas for future art-making.
I’m thinking about how I can connect experimenting and exploring materials to ideation and planning some new content surrounding that.
I want content to be student-driven, so I plan on challenging students to introduce a theme or topic that inspires them to the class as part of the 100 Ideas Challenge.
Approaching student-directed learning from the starting point of idea-collection has been a game changer for me. It dramatically reduced the number of students who needed support with ideation and increased independence. I’m excited to build on this concept for next year!
This post is part of a series. Check out the introduction and part one.