Strategies to help students envision their journey in the new IBDP Visual Arts Course

Visible Thinking

Project Zero!
http://www.pz.gse.harvard.edu/
visible_thinking.php

The New Course- Fear

_________________ has posted a message entitled Visual arts teacher support material (first assessment 2016)

Just needed to comment (vent) here...some of the examples of student work here seem to me to be so
outstanding that they go well beyond what was a 7 in my days of teaching and studying...some of it is
above the standard I saw at third year university level. I wonder if this is just me being out of touch, but
when I put my mother hat on, I feel so sorry for these poor 16-18 year olds when SO much is expected of
them. I have barely begun to get my head around the new syllabus-my bias for the familiar old syllabus is
too strong to comment-but my immediate impression is disbelief that curatorial expectations are now piled
on top of the already rigorous studio and contextual expectations.
I am an art curator and an artist and served a total of 6 years hard labour at university to scratch the
surface of understanding of these vocations! The expectations of the new syllabus seem astonishingly
unrealistic for a two year pre-university course. I feel for you all having to teach it, and especially for those
poor students who are expected to achieve such a standard.
_______________ has posted a message entitled Is the new exam Option B revamped ?

"Explanation kills art" as you said, its like explaining a joke. These are high school students who should be
motivated and inspired to create art, and to find their own personal avenue to it, not to get bogged down on
'art speak' which falsifies the very thing we try to make true. The IB Visual Arts committee that put this
'thing' together should run this past major contemporary artists to see how they would respond (if at all) to
this.
As a working exhibiting artist, I never feel comfortable explaining my art because it is invariably false. The
process of making art is such a wonderful mystery, that i would feel I am somehow trying to explain magic.
Having students learning to appreciate art is one thing, teaching them to polemicize about how, and why,
art was made rings false. Art, any art, is on a higher plane than this, or at the very least should be.

The New Course- Excitement

Jayson Paterson has posted a message entitled New Curriculum: process, product and focused investigation.

Firstly, the IBO is not a law unto itself. Every curriculum that it develops is scrutinized by external accreditation bodies, such as
OFQUAL for the United Kingdom. These bodies set the standards and rules that awarding organizations need to meet when they
design, deliver and award regulated qualifications. The IBO uses this framework to set the non-negotiables that Curriculum Review
Committees must work with in.
For this current Curriculum, the non-negotiables included the requirement for three assessment tasks. That each of the tasks needed
to be able to assessed independently of the others by discreet examiners and that no part of the assessment can be assessed more
than once. (I'm sure there were others, but these were the ones that most closely relate to your question).
For the subject specialists involved in the Curriculum Review Team, a couple of the qualities from previous guides that we wished to
maintain in the new guide was the studio-based focus of the course, and the holistic nature of visual arts through the study of theory
informing practice.
Essentially, we have taken what we have always done in one form or another, and pared them out into three discretely assessed
tasks that remain interrelated when delivered in a holistic manner as is represented in the tables on pages 27 and 28.
In developing the marking criteria for the tasks, we have aimed to assess only what can be observed within the material required in
the sample. You'll notice that for the process portfolio, there are no criteria that are looking for resolved qualities in finished artwork.
The focus is very much on process and development.
Each of the assessment tasks went through at least one assessment trial, after which some refinement was made to requirements
and criteria. The new guide was approved by OFQUAL upon its first submission, which is very encouraging.
As for themes, I too like to encourage students to find and follow thematic or conceptual threads through their investigation,
processes and art making. While it is not a requirement, where it is done well, and students have the freedom to be a bit divergent in
how they think about their ideas and concepts, I do believe it results in more cohesive and coherent bodies of work.
I think the exhibition will favor works that have some conceptual links running through the body of work. Students have to show
relationships between the works they exhibit - but that does not mean that every work should adhere to one common theme. Several
themes or ideas could be explored in an exhibition.
The problem has been that for some schools, common themes have been set across whole cohorts which prohibit students from
developing truly independent work. Or students have chosen themes that have been so prescriptive, that it stifles the work they
produce, resulting in literal and banal works.

Artful Thinking Routines

Practice See, Think, Wonder and other visible thinking

routines, from middle school forward.
http://www.pzartfulthinking.org/routines.php!

Creates a culture of dialog around looking, making and

displaying art.

The New Course

The Aims

The Aims

The Aims

The Routine

http://artreverb.com/VisibleThinking/!

sample from the IB DP VA workshop in Pudong

Materials

Rolls of white butcher paper and colored markers!

Images from art history, photo journalism, news covers!

Groups of 4-5 people working on one long roll with one

image

Instructions

Each group chooses an image and each person takes a

different color marker so that each person in group has
an individual color!

In silence, for ~10-15 min, write what you see, then

what you think about what you see, then what you
wonder about what you see

Instructions

Now begin to read each others See,Think,Wonder and begin

making connections where there are similarities and differences.
Begin to have a dialog about what has been recorded and what
connections you see to artists work you know.!

Next brainstorm artworks, one from each category on the forms

chart. Each person will brainstorm one artwork, on the paper, for
all to see.!

Next have a dialog about the artworks and how you might
present them in the exhibition. Develop a visual plan and a
curatorial statement about your hypothetical exhibition

Plenary

Each group will share what they have created in the session. Each
person in the group will speak about their experience. !

This exercise can be seen as a metaphor for the 2 year course, a

map of how to develop the work. The teacher, or students, can put
sticky notes on the areas that need research or more thought, or
simply suggestions of what to investigate further.

Ten Best Made Visible

Ten Best Curatorial Project

The Ten Best: In your Visual Art Journal prepare a presentation for an
Art Magazine of ten Art works linked thematically. Each image will be
accompanied by a short text (60 words) (From Georgina Montignago)

How to deal with the task:

1. Choose a theme. This could be a subject, such as Mother and Child, a cultural link,
such as Benin sculptures or through technique, such as Relief Sculptures. Select a
theme which interests you, perhaps something which connects with your career
aspirations? Neo Classical Architecture perhaps if you want to be an architect, Silk
Weaving if you want to studyTextiles etc. (Use thought boxes or a mind map to select
your theme)

2. Now spend time collecting a range of images from which you will select your key
works. Aim for about 20 to select down to 10. (Remember to record details as you
select them and the websites so that you can gather more information later if
needed)

Ten Best Curatorial Project

3. You need to have basic information on each piece.

Title
Dates
Media
Size
Location
Provenance this is who owns it now and where it came from.

4. Write about 30 words - Contextual Information - why it was created and how it relates
to your theme on each piece?

5. And 30 words Critical information, formal qualities and your own opinion on each piece.

6. Now you are ready to produce your graphic layout on Pages. Consider:

Font size and style

Relationship between image and text
Use of background colour etc.
Choose a title; include your own photo as arts correspondent/author and a subtitle that
introduces the topic.