The 100 Idea Challenge

We started the new semester this week and I have all new classes. I've taken the opportunity of a fresh start to try a new way of introducing curriculum. In the past, I've scaffolded ideation by introducing themes and media in alternating weeks to provide options for students who need ideas. This makes sense in theory but in practice, it has not resulted in all students increasing their capacity to be creativity independent.

I realized that I needed to approach ideation as habit that students need to develop and practice daily.

To teach idea collecting as a habit, I started the course with a 100 idea challenge. Each day, for 10 days, I plan to share a different area artists find ideas in and have students generate lists they add to each day.

On the first day of the challenge, I introduced themes as an area artists collect ideas around and shared the work of three artists. I always share multiple artists and make sure to select artists with different identities to make sure I regularly expose students to different points of view.

See the slides I created for this lesson here (I’ll continue to add to this)

Over the last three classes I’ve introduced the following three areas for students to think about ideas around:

• Themes

• Personal Experience

• Opinions/Point of View

For each topic, I shared a variety of artist examples, then asked students to come up with one idea that relates and think of 10 different ways they could interpret it through art. Their lists are amazing and it seems like everyone is excited about all the possibilities for art-making in the weeks ahead. After we finish the 100 idea challenge, I plan to focus on habits and behaviors that help artists refine ideas, but I will continue to revisit ideation throughout the year because habits need to be learned and then maintained.