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PRACTICE - STRATEGY - PHILOSOPHY - QUICK TIPS - AVOID THE BURNOUT - FUNZIES
We’ve all struggled with students taking practice of skills and techniques seriously. Oftentimes supplies are wasted, students dawdle unsure of direction, or rush right through the practice work to get to the artmaking, or even worse, find no value in it at all that they won’t even do it. However, I believe that if you keep in mind these few easy tips , you will find that more students can improve their skills, their work, how they feel about their art, and ultimately what they are able to achieve. Here are eight important strategies that I have picked up in my 20-some years of teaching. #1 Practice, Practice, Practice and Explore. Time is limited, but students should always have a chance to practice and explore media and surfaces before they get started. For many of my high school students, their intro art class may be their first since 6th grade and the last art class they may ever take. In order to set them up for as much success as possible, I try to give them ownership in practice. Practice can range from structured to loose, but always spend some time allowing them to familiarize themselves with what materials are available to them to make art. One of my favorite strategies is more loosely structured play and practice. In my intro drawing class, I give them pencils of various softnesses and have them figure out when is the hardest, softest, and have them brainstorm what they think what each pencil is good for when drawing. They remember H and B and the number system by learning it themselves rather than me just giving them a pencil. #2 Do not print practice sheets on copy paper unless that is the same surface the artwork will be made on. If you’re going to have students use color pencil on illustration board, why would we ever have them practice color pencil techniques on copy paper, (or even in their sketchbooks) if the surfaces/tooth are completely different? It just leads to frustration on the students’ parts because the tools just do not work the same way; that paper is cheap and the kids know it. If you’re going to have students create meaningful practice, you’re going to need to make sure that they’re using the same surfaces and supplies that they will use on their artworks. I either print on a same/similar tooth paper or have students work on board slightly larger than their artworks and have them use the excess to practice. It’s a pain in the butt cutting paper to 8.5”x11” and feeding it into the copy machine or printer, but it's well worth the effort to see less frustration for students. I even print on both sides when possible to allow students to practice more if they struggle. When money is an issue, I would rather make artworks smaller to save on paper, rather than give them the opportunity to give up and even hate shading (for example) before they even get started with their drawings. Here’s an example from my school YouTube channel. #3 Practice small and make it manageable. We all know that students want to get to making their art as fast as possible, so make practice small and manageable so it doesn’t overwhelm them or feel like it is a waste of time. I spend anywhere from half a period to 3 days depending on what we are doing. When I first started teaching I remember creating worksheets where students would have to complete a value scale from one edge of the paper to the next. Usually, they rushed through it because it was large and bored them. Instead, now I give students a value scale that is probably only about a half an inch to 2 inches in size. Either I print them on the same paper as their artwork (like the back or the edges), have them draw out with ruler, or even skip drawing borders for scales all together. If students are able to have success with tasks, they get to move on. If not, I have them repeat it over and over again until they have it correct. It is so small that it does not waste their time and I see less frustration and refusal to complete. #4 Allow for different approaches to teach skills. As an artist, many of the techniques I use now are not how my instructors taught me. There was nothing wrong with them, but through practice, research and a lot of mistakes, I learned what works best for me. When I teach graphite shading, for example, I teach them my way, but I also show other ways to manipulate graphite as well as provide online demonstrations of other artists so that they can discover works best for them. Likewise, when teaching composition for painting and drawing, I teach various strategies, such as having students compose using cameras, sketching, creating still lifes, considering lighting techniques, and trying different angles and viewpoints, for example. #5 Record your demonstrations. Making videos of your demonstrations may seem like extra work, but these are indispensable for absent students, and a great reteaching tool for students to rewatch them in order to master the skills. ( I use them a lot in my piggybacked classes. I teach Painting 1-4 all together and they have saved me a lot of time in the long run. When I have no time or a quiet place to record, I will just record my demonstration in front of my students and upload at lunch. My videos are not highly edited or perfect, but my students have resources I trust that they can access through our Canvas site/Google Classroom, and YouTube. (I can even monitor if my students have watched them on our web-based learning management system.) I now have a recordable document camera (Link,) but I have used my i-pad and phone on a stand in the past. They might not look pretty but they do the job. (Feel free to look through some of my Videos through this link.) Students watch on their laptops, phones or I can project in my classroom screen as review. #6 Assess and give feedback. It’s important to remember to provide formative feedback on practice to make sure you are addressing easy to fix issues before students jump into their artwork. Often, teachers give a score without any explanation or skip grading all together. I find that if I just take a few extra minutes to jot down strengths and weaknesses for each practice piece, students have much more success. I do give points for practice, but it is minimal and does not drastically alter their grade if they fail to do it or mess it up. I use a simple 4-3-2-1 scale. I usually have them redo the small practice if they get a 2 or 1 before they move on. #7 Move past traditional practice. Instead of worksheets, scales, and geometric solids, have student’s make mini artworks that are formative, small, and quick. These works should not be precious and I allow students to restart when necessary. I call these practice artworks, “media exploration” but other teachers call them Boot Camps, Technique Toolbox, Workshops, Challenge Projects. I usually proved a prompt by suggest subject matter, give them compositional strategies, but give them some variations of choices. Students spend at least one day practicing media in sketchbooks or on scraps of similar surfaces and sketching composition. Then, they work in an appropriate size for media, but it should not take more than 5 days to complete. In an intermediate class, they may complete 5-10 of these before they begin assignments based on themes or teaching prompts, but allow for student choice in media and imagery. Here are some examples from my Drawing/Painting 3 class. These works range from 4”x5” to 18”x24.” Smaller sizes for time consuming or tight media, larger for looser or more physically large medias. #8 Make practice low risk. Missing practice or a sketchbook assignment should not kill a student’s grade. Show value in doing through routine, meaningful practice, allowing them to restart if needed and make it worth reasonably minimal points. Allow them to redo the part that needs to be fixed rather than the whole thing. Remember, the point of practice is to improve skill. Make practice as pain free as possible for them and you, and I’m sure you’ll see a shift in your students’ artworks, too. In what ways do you implement practice in your classroom?
Share your strategies and thoughts below!
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