Module 3

Both teachers and students face challenges when advancing schools to the 21^st century way of thinking.  Students today are glued to any technology they can get their hands on.  This is not necessarily a bad thing but it is not the best thing either because students today do not know the potential the online realm has.  When teaching art it is common to keep an online portfolio as a documentation of all your work.  The instant your work is online it is available for all to see.  If you post your work online are you then influencing another artist to work similar to your style or content? One can never be sure who is accessing their footprints online. The amount of data online and freelance artists posting their work also helps students constantly grows their definition of art.  The definition of art is constantly growing and changing where there is often debate over weather something is or isn’t a piece of art.  Individuals have their own concept of this word way beyond what a dictionary would provide.  Art today is not longer divided between disciplines; they are instead combined to form art containing many mediums.  Art such as performance art may be documented but quite possibly may never be reenacted the same way again.  Is this still art? What qualifies this so-called “art” label we are forces to put on objects or occurrences.  The big idea of what is art will never be resolved but that is something unique about being an artist, you must constantly respond and change as the unknown definition of art does.

Module 2

Howard Gardner’s theory of five minds breaks down the way people’s minds process information.  According to Gardner, student’s potential can only be nurtured if teachers can express a clear objective (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010).  As an educator being aware of the five minds theory will help us be aware of the diversity of students and how they process information.  Teachers also need to capture the student’s attention that can be done through the use of integrating the big idea question.  This question encourages students to ask follow up questions, make predictions, and discover new information (Coffman, 2013).  The encouragement of this thinking allows for the students creative minds to kick in and process the information critically.  Technology in the world is evolving and the education system isn’t evolving with the technological advances.  Students today grow up learning from technology, enter the school systems and have to learn how to absorb information in a new way.  Teachers today need to incorporate learning the same way students grow up learning outside schools today possibly through these big idea questions.  Both creative and critical thinking cause students to think broadly and deeply using many types of the mind theory which shadows thinking skills that will be used throughout student’s lives.  Adapting my material to consider how the students in my classroom are best at learning and absorbing information will do excellent teaching in my classroom.  Creating the classroom environment for student to best succeed is done by thinking of the students and the technological advances of the world today.