Creativity ... It's What We Do
Recently the Arts staff were involved in a professional learning discussion reflecting on the question:
What are 10 things we do that make a difference to student learning?
Here is what was identified as important to what we do in teaching the Arts.
Creativity: That's the Zeitgeist ... It's what we do:
We model problem solving
Being metacognive and talking aloud helps students understand ways of creatively problem solving.
We encourage contributions through discussion
Group work and working together, story telling and finding moments teaching and learning program to encourage thinking.
We develop partnerships
We go beyond the confines of the school to help students learn. We rehearse, we visit exhibitions, we reinforce learning in different contexts.
We do real activities
We go to it, we see it, we provide learning opportunities that are immersive and physically challenging.
We are experiential
We strive to allow students to try new things, we push the boundaries and challenge students to explore new ways of thinking.
We mentor
We work with artists from the community, we form partnerships to keep our programs current and contemporary.
We work with current and contemporary themes
We are not static, we a forever changing and adapting to reflect the creative zeitgeist, new technologies and contemporary practices.
We combine the practical and theoretical
Our programs capture the imagination through both practical and theoretical components.
We are student focused
We draw on the interests of students and where they are at
We are facilitators of learning
We are technicians, we are cross-curricular, we link to other areas and we foster connections between peoples, processes and the world.