Reciprocal Reflexivity

Reciprocal Reflexivity

Reflection:

My first thought when beginning this class was how much I liked the name, Action Research. The act of doing something and then not only doing that but also researching on top of it made me think I would really enjoy this class. Well. This was true, I appreciated and actually learned a lot about myself as an educator through the assignments that were given to us. The outcome of how I changed and progressed as an art educator is definitely a more positive approach to teaching then I had been doing previously. In looking back, I feel that a lot of my teaching became stale and that I needed to change different lessons up, however not knowing to do that or where to start was the issue. In taking on this class, action research allowed me to open my eyes and see how my students want to learn versus me dictating how they learn. I researched and watched the roles turn from students to teacher and teacher to student and the end result was a wonderful thing!

Action research is learning through experience. This type of research can involve making graphs, reevaluating how students are doing in a particular class or on a certain lesson and creating a plan to move forward. My very first Action Research was back in January and it ended up being what started it all for me on changing how I go about teaching. I conducted a visual research over a course of a week or two with me lecturing in the atmosphere of my Advanced Placement Art History class. I collected data through this time of test scores from me lecturing and then I changed it to the students lecturing and taking a test and comparing the test score numbers to when only I lectured. I was astonished when I looked through the data and they did just as good on the scores for the students lecturing as they did with me lecturing. In this instance Action Research allowed me to see clearly that not only is it a good idea to get the students more involved in lecture, than just discussion but to have them do reverse roles and teach the class every once in a while. This led me to change everything for this whole semester in teaching because of that one assignment we were given in January.

New Action:

In previous Action Research with allowing students to lecturing, I am introducing a new action in my Advanced Placement Photography Class.

This project will allow students to not only decide how to execute their final project but to work together, all 32 students throughout the month to collectively produce a 6ft. x 6ft polaroid camera as the subject made up of over hundreds of mini photographs of various cameras captured at different times from all the students throughout their high school career (these are students that are graduating).

Goals:

To work collectively, as a group to make decisions that will allow for this project to work and everyone’s opinions be understood and possibly used if needed.

To have students work up a model and come up with ideas on how to go about starting this final project. Students had to answer six questions that I presented to them at the beginning of the class. Once finished in their answers, they shared it amongst themselves and came up with strategies.

Students will assemble this final project together and display the final piece in the art gallery located in the school for the whole school population to view.

Student Reflections:

One Cycle of Action Research:

I collected all the ideas and questions that students had answered and began my collection of material in order to see where we needed to start this project and what students had good ideas on where that should begin. In doing the assigned reading as well, the one part of the reading that stuck out to me was on page 205, Naples (2003) posits that “a reflective dialogic process can offer a context in which conflicts in interpretation are revealed and, more importantly, renegotiated in a more egalitarian fashion than is found in traditional social science methodology or in other approaches to activist research” (p. 201). In this citation taken from the reading it not only applies to what my students had to deal with, but it also allowed for me to see how conflicts can be created because of everyone’s different views on how the assignment should be conducted. The assignment is meant to have students work together, share and express their ideas and also to be able to control the atmosphere in the room. They should be able to gather material together without me having to order the students where they need to go and what they need to do next, in the reading there was also a section about a research that was done in a school in Finland and this is what was stated, “The art teacher noted that maybe she should have more structure, but could not since students had independent ways to work. Some needed to work over and over again with an idea and material until

satisfied with their work. Others needed to continue to develop their ideas with different processes. The art teacher also expressed her concern that one of the drawbacks of working with computers in art is that everyone would need to go to the computer lab at the same time. From my observation and our discussion, I suggested that a laptop with wireless connection to the Internet should be sought out as a medium or tool in the same way that students selected and set up a glue gun when needed.” (Latour, 2005) pg. 207. The students need to feel that they have access to everything in the room at all times to make this project work. I want the art classroom to be a place where students come and go and feel safe and wanted at all times. I think allowing this freedom will also allow for their brains to work in a more creative way the process come from the soul, from within.

Having the students have this freedom and deciding how this needs to start and finish actually was a wonderful plan. So far everything has worked out well. We are in the process of printing all the images in order of how they are going to be placed onto the plywood that we are using for the backing. The students did decide on a 6. Ft x 6. Ft piece that will encompass over 500 images of different photographs of one singular subject, a Polaroid camera. They will use 500+ images of different various other camera photographs collected over their entire high school career. Everyday is an adventure; they are working hard gathering all the material. We have a couple of students in charge of the printing, while others are in the process of drawing a sketch of all the squares within the square of where the photographs are going to placed for its final positioning. While the students are working, I am busy helping but mostly asking questions as to their thoughts and documenting what their thinking at that moment or what needs to be done for the end result, this is an assignment in progress. We are hoping to finish the final project by June 7th, this will allow for all to view for two weeks prior to school getting out for the summer break!

References:

Keifer-Boyd, K. (2014). Critical action research activism: Social structure and human agency. In M. L. Buffington & S. Wilson McKay (Eds.), Practice theory: Seeing the power of teacher researchers (pp. 246-251). Reston, VA: The National Art Education Association.