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Observational Walking and Collecting (Responding) to Inform Our Making

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Observational Walking and Collecting (Responding) to Inform Our Making

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Lesson Framework: Emphasis on “making through responding” by engaging with the environment.

Outdoor Exploration: Students go outside with sketching tools to observe, reflect, and collect.

Reflective Walk: Guided walk to a specific outdoor area within or near school grounds.

Observation and Reflection:

Students sit within a designated area and observe their surroundings.

Teacher prompts sensory engagement with questions (e.g., “What do you see, smell, feel?”).

Sketching Activity:

Students choose points of interest to sketch or photograph.

Teacher prompts specific elements to observe (e.g., tree, flower, seed pod).

Collection of Natural Items: Students gather a few objects to bring back to the classroom for inspiration in a clay project.

Classroom Reflection:

Students reflect on their sketches and collected items.

They upload drawings and items to a class Padlet for shared reference.

Differentiation:

Choice and Autonomy: Students select objects of interest to personalize their experience.

Alternative Documentation: Option to take photos for students with sketching challenges.

Adapted Clay Techniques: Students with motor skill challenges can incorporate collected items in their clay work, adding texture without needing fine detail.

Collectable Evidence and/or Assessment Points (Informal Formative Assessment):

Sketches, found objects, and written reflections collected in portfolios, class Padlet, and observational maps.

Informal Formative Assessment (IFA) to guide responsive, reflective teaching adjustments.

Assessment of student interests/disinterests through folio and Padlet contributions.

Insights from assessments used to adapt lessons and encourage individual artistic expression.

Students’ work provides qualitative evidence of idea development and creative thinking.

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Level 7-8 Visual Arts Victorian Curriculum (VCAA) V.20

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Level 7-8 Visual Arts Victorian Curriculum (VCAA) V.20

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Developing Practice: VC2AVA8D01/2

Develop and refine skills in visual arts practices using visual conventions, visual arts processes and materials to create artworks.

Reflect on, analyse and document their own and others’ visual arts practices to inform decisions they make in the exploration, development and resolution of their artworks.

(Victorian Curriculum version 2.0 , Visual Arts Levels 7-8)

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Development of metacognitive skills through the application of reflective creative processes (way-finding) to inform the students making and development how to generate new ideas and thinking to inform artistic practice (making & responding).

(Critical and Creative Thinking Capability, Victorian Curriculum, Levels 7-8)

Adapted from Collecting as Map Making by Amanda Shopa

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Observe, collect and reflect on things that you notice in your surroundings, bringing the objects, sketches and reflections (ideas) together to form a personal mind ‘map’ to help inform and plan for future (clay-based) making.

“W.H.E.R.E.T.O” (Wiggins, G. P., & McTigh, J. (2005)

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“Collecting materials can also help someone notice things in a new way and building a map can represent and manipulate the route one took.”

Amanda Shopa, 2021. Pg. 108

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{30 DAY 30 FILM CHALLENGE - day 18}

I had the whole day to edit, and found a while ago the piece of music I thought worked really well, so today has been much less of a marathon.
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It's with a big smile & a squeeze in my heart that I present you artist @sarah.rayner. I won't say much about her process, I want you to discover it in the film. Sarah is absolutely passionate about the Australian native plants surrounding her beautiful house in Maleny, Queensland. She observes them every day, constantly morphing into the next step of their life cycle.
What fascinates Sarah is their reproductive system and particularly the female parts, which can grow a fruit.
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I met Sarah in the middle of a Winter night, in front of her house hidden in the forest, carrying a big bag and accompanied a common friend and brilliant ceramic artist @shannongarson. I pushed the door of a magazine shoot ready home, it smelled of something delicious, it was warm inside and I instantly felt good.
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Sarah had won my barter and I was here to film. She had prepared a delicious meal and a cosy bedroom. Her husband, bush regeneration expert @habitat61 explained their passion for nature: their nesting boxes for birds and gliders (google that now it's the cutest animal ever), their mushroom experiments, their long bush walks and breakfast together observing bird baths.
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Entering their life was like hopping in the Snow White scene where she dances around and sings with her animal friends. The next day, Sarah took me on a walk to inspect every single plant she gets inspiration from. No need to say that most of them looked freshly arrived from Mars to the French woman that I am! I show you a few incredible examples in the film. Then she explained her process, looking though a magnifying glass, the dissection, her drawings and the creation of a larger than life porcelain sculpture inspired by a minuscule part of a plant.
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I cannot even describe how fascinated I was by the whole process. By her passion. By the beauty of her garden and the bushland around. By the lemon myrtle tea she made me all day. I will never forget this unique experience and the immense kindness these two humans offered me. This small film is a warm thank you.


Music by Agustin Barrios Mangore interpreted by Edson Lopes.

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Observation and reflection is used as a tool to gather ideas.

Emphasising the connection of clay to nature, by taking students outside of the classroom to make connections to the outside world.

Collecting fallen plant/organic matter from their surroundings to use as inspiration for future clay making (3D Hollow Objects).

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· 1-2 sketches in your folio ‘things you noticed’ while outside.

· 1-3 small, collected plant matter or organic objects.

· A mind map, which is made up of sketches and collected objects.

· A short written or recorded reflection to accompany your Padlet Post.

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SEE, THINK, WONDER

What did you notice outside (See)?

What did decide to collect and sketch? And why? (Think/Wonder)

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Paper

Pencil or preferred. drawing tool

Portfolios

Digital Device

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“My process really starts happening through research and then play. I’ll usually have a certain idea or theme of what I want to make or investigate. And then there might be a little spark of something, like a material, a feeling or form that’s mentioned—and then I’ll go explore and play with that in the studio to see what happens.”

Sarah Contos in Art Guide Australia

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Collectable Evidence and/or Assessment Points

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Collectable Evidence and/or Assessment Points

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(Informal Formative Assessment):

·      Sketches & found objects

·      Written Reflections

Collected evidence for assessment purposes could be done via the students, portfolios class Padlet reflections, and observations (maps). Informal Formative Assessment (IFA) (Ruiz-Primo & Brookhart, 2017) can be used to inform the next steps (Wiggins G.P, McTighe, J. 2005) in an iterative, responsive, reflective manner (relational pedagogical thinking).

Judgment can be made about the students’ potential areas of interest or disinterest based on their folio contributions and Padlet entries. This can then be applied to improving teaching strategies and approaches to improve student learning and engagement (differentiation) in future lessons. For example, the coming lessons could be adapted and evolved to suit the individual needs and/or interests of the learners as they move forward into making so as to encourage the expression and development of individual students' artistic voices.

As noted by Meier, in Assess What Matters Most: Recommendations for Gathering Information About Student Learning (2018), students’ work, if utilised in a progressional manner within the studio-classroom, can be used qualitatively to gain insights and gather evidence of individualised idea development, and creative thinking/idea development (pg. 2).”

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Wider Position in Progression of Learning 

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Wider Position in Progression of Learning 

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Students progress from learning how to create a pinch pot (one part of a hollow object) to learning how to combine two hollowed-out forms to create one 3D object. Students will expand on their basic tool work by learning how to score and slip using a feathering tool. Students will learn to make slip.

*Please note that while this class does not address this specifically, the lesson focus and aim is to prepare the students in readiness for their next key milestone of learning. This to incorporate differentiation strategies that attempt to build making from student-led inquiry rather than standardised prescriptive teacher-led activities as one type tasks (i.e. fruit).

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 How can we use different creative processes to generate ideas and inspiration? 

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 How can we use different creative processes to generate ideas and inspiration? 

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The lesson will comprise of observation, collection and reflection on student's surroundings.

Students will be asked to take note of their surroundings as they walk, sit and look, to then bring these reflections back into the class and together to form a ‘map’ to help inform and plan for future making “W.H.E.R.T.O”. (Wiggins, G. P., & McTigh, J. (2005).

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The lesson is situated within the making process as a way to illustrate how abstract processes such as walking and foraging for ideas can form part of an artistic practice, or as a toolkit to inform making and idea generation.

Links to curriculum Levels 7-8:

Developing Practice VC2AVA8D01/2

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Setting out the knowledge and skills every student should learn during their first 11 years of schooling to become lifelong learners, confident individuals, and active and informed citizens.

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Scholarly Influences Used to develop this lesson:

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Scholarly Influences Used to develop this lesson:

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Meier, M. E. (2018). Assess what matters most: Recommendations for gathering information about student learning. National Art Education Association. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED614807

Lee, N. Y. S., Irwin, R. L., Baldus, A. I., Barney, D. T., Ursino, J. M., & Valiary Eskandary, Z. (Eds.). (2024). Pedagogical propositions: Playful walking with A/r/tography. Book One: Encounters. InSEA Publications.

Pedagogical Propositions with A/R/Tography: Playful Walking (INSEA Publications, Book 2)

Edited by Angela I. Baldus, Rita L. Irwin, Nicole Y. S. Lee, Daniel T. Barney, Joanne M. Ursino, and Zohreh Valiary Eskandary

CAST, Universal Design, URL: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/engagement/interests-identities/choice-autonomy/

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Attached is a PDF version of the content within this Padlet.

This can be accessed for ease of reading if required.

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Lesson Plan & Break Down (FINAL VERSION) 