Constructivism & Art

Week 4


                    Freedman spoke about including costructivism in the classroom. From past observational experience, I find constructivism a highly effective method of teaching. Students generally learn a topic in a day and make connections to what they learned the second day.The article stated "Students learn by appropriating information and restructuring it in relation to what they already know." (pg 101, Freeman) By making connections, this method allows students to retain information and recall it better. This is definitely a strategy I plan to use as an educator. This article only reinforced my opinion about constructivism especially because I learned that several artists like Kandinsky were strong supporters about it. Freeman also stated "Constructivists argue that students learn best through deep engagement in activities with medium levels of complexity that reflect life experiences and provoke several levels of thought"  (pg. 101, Freedman) In my opinion, based on this quote, educators should also incorporate life experiences in their lessons and activities so that students can be more engaged. Activities shouldn't be difficult to understand so I also agree that they should be in a medium level of complexity. Students should be able to make connections from what they've learned and be able to apply that knowledge on activities they are working on. 
                     The second article, "Use and Uselessness", talked about a "U" shaped developmental curve. I was very intrigued by this because it spoke about children usually reaching a peak of artistry in which there's a decline afterwards. Only a few children are able to recover from that decline and those who do are the ones who are highly rich in artistic creativity. The only thing I wondered about this aspect is if it is possible for children to recover from the decline during another age through proper guidance. I would like to learn more about this curve and see what can be done as an educator to avoid a high percentage of students not recovering from the decline. Since I want to be a high school art teacher, I wouldn't want to think that some of my students never recovered from that decline. If I feel that this is the case, I would like to help them expand if possible so they can recover and explore their creativity even more.

                         The image above is a representation of Lowenfeld's stages of artistic development. I found this image interesting because it related to the "U" shape curve discussed in the reading. This image states how children progress artistically and how many of them don't recover from a decline of artistic creativity. I feel that as an educator, by using constructivist methods, I should teach and challenge children the techniques required for them to progress artistically so most of them recover from the decline mentioned in the reading.