Group tutorial 3/4/14

In today's tutorial we discussed the weeks workshops, feeding back to eaxh other and Clare. Although not everyone turned up for this tutorial some great points were made about the lack of overall communication in regards to the space we were given and the group in terms of role placement, it was suggested that next time we should have more communication during the initial planning phases to avoid any conflict as a lot of things changed during our workshop and this isn't always going to work out.

We were also advised to demonstrate more artist research to inspire the children more.
Clare also gave us some really useful advice to keep in mind, she said " fake it til you make it " because it's almost like acting, always show authority especially when you feel out of your depth.

When approaching older children during workshops, if you feel the need to comment on their work you need to be able to follow up your opinion with constructive reasoning as to why youblike or dislike their outcomes.  Also give suggestions of ways to improve things, give examples of artists and designers who work in similar ways.  After all we are 'Empowering them to make creative choices'.

After workshops you should communicate and talk to the schools for their own feedback. 

Abraham Moss High School - Zombie Apocalypse Window Boxes

 

 Our lesson plan...

 

 

 

The group decided to meet early to ensure we had everything we needed and to make sure we were set up on time. As we began setting up our area we were told we could not use our designated space due to a double booking, after a few moments of panic we packed up and moved venues to somewhere we could finally set up. Once we has laid out the tables we had a quick run through of the scripted introduction to allow us to check the sound. 

Once the stuedents arrived we did our introductions and separated the children into 5 groups, each group was then sent to a designated table/area and the tasks began...

The tables consisted of, a plastic bottle station, natural materials station, a drinks can station and a paper station. At each station they were given a set task... (explain tasks) while the four tables were getting on with their task the 5th group would visit the special collections archive.

During the day we had a 30 minute rotation system where the groups all moved to the next table for the next task, it was very interesting to walk around and see everything come together. Even the teachers got involved...

It was lovely to see many of  of the children smiling throughout the day, and also to see people helping each other and working as a team. 

As a group we thought we would have to encourage the children to think about the scenarios and imagine actually being in that situation, at first they seemed slightly confused but as the day went on they became so confident in their making and even started coming up with their own scenarios to justify their made objects.

For the final task the groups were renumbered and asked to go to separate tables again, we gave them a small table in the middle of the room with very limited materials. They were called up one table at a time and told to collect materials to make themselves a defensive weapon to fight off the zombies, they were only allowed one trip so had to pick carefully.

Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of this workshop and I would love to do it again, we all worked as a team and co-operated really well, a great amount of effort was given by us all (Well done everyone).

The days creations displayed with our zombie posters.........

 

I think that this workshop turned out extremely well, I belive that the children had a fantastic day spent at the school of art and they felt comfortable joining in with each task that was set. Once all of the tasks had been completed we gave the children feedback sheets and an individual certificate that they could each take home. There was a lot of positive feedback from the children and most of them particularly enjoyed the plastic bottle and the natural materials stations as they felt most creative at them. The only negative feedback involved wanting more time on each task and not enjoying the drinks can task as much as the others as they found it quite difficult.

After reading the feedback sheets I felt really proud to have made some of the children feel really confident in themselves, to me this is an important step in life (becoming more confident) and to know that as a group we encoraged someone to develop their creativity and confidence with just one workshop makes me feel wonderful.

 

 

From this workshop experience, I feel that I have learnt a lot in terms of how to deal with unexpected issues such as a last minute room change leading to layout issues and compromising specific table objectives and how this can affect the workshop organisers, and or cause tension and conflict between them when there is a large number. In comparison to organising a workshop with a small group of people, working in a larger group has definitely proven more difficult as communication is quite often mislead or completely lost. I will use this experience to help with future workshops by ensuring each member of the group knows that communication is key when organising an event. 

Webster Primary School

Lesson plan...

 

 

We met early on the morning of the workshop to to have one last run through of the plan and to discuss roles/ any issues. We also used this time to sort collected materials into separate bags for easier table distribution. Upon arrival at the school we were asked to wait a short while as lunch time was not quite over.. this unsettled us at first as we had a time plan to follow, but once we had set up and got going we soon caught up and managed to keep to our designated time frames.

To start our workshop we sat the children down and gave them a brief introduction of ourselves and told them what we were going to do. We then randomly gave the children a number from 1-3 and asked them to go to the table corresponding to their number. 3 of us monitored each table alongside a school teaching assistant.

The children's first task was creating their own bugs....

The next task was to create a flower, we asked the children to move to the next table in the same way that there bug would move (jumping hopping, wriggling etc.)....

Once the children had finished their flowers, they were set aside to dry and we asked them to decorate their window boxes (2 per table)....

Once the bugs and the flowers were all dry they were put together in the final decorated window boxes and the children filled in a sheet to tell us about their bugs....

Before we allowed the children to take their creations home we had a picture of the team with the finished window boxes....

I think that although we lost a bit of time at the start of the workshop, we managed our time really well. I feel that the children all enjoyed themselves and were very pleased with their individual outcomes. By allowing them to fill in an information sheet about their bugs it helped bring their creations to life and gave the children a huge sense of achievement. I personally feel that as I was absent for the initial planning of the workshop my role wasn't really thought about, I would have liked to have more time to talk to the children about their ideas and give some ideas or help to those who needed it. This aside the rest of the group did a great job doing that and the workshop was definitely a success.