Personal reflection: anxiety

No rip on fieldwork planning, but it does not yet make for interesting blogging. Perhaps when I have something to reflect on, I can regale you with hilarious anecdotes about this one time...during fieldwork...

For now, most of what I can reflect on is anxiety.

Will I be able to observe what I am looking for in student's work?
Is someone' s understanding of something observable anyway?
Will my presence and leading questions make any "data" I collect wholly bunk?
Will I get too distracted by the social/psycho drama of teaching that I forget to look for data?

Worksheets don't fail me now!

At left: Cubist Anxiety

Fieldwork Journal Step 2: Design a Worksheet

Fieldwork Journal Step 2: Design a Worksheet

This week may well commence some actual fieldwork. I am pulling together a worksheet to help me keep track of what is likely to be a series of slightly disjointed observations/participation/instruction in three 5th grade science classes.

The goal: Observe ways in which students' creative engagement with physical materials affects there understanding of their own "place"- their own physical presence in the world.

Worksheet Basics
Date/Time:_____ Student Section:___
Instructional Material Covered:________
In Class Assignment:________
Student Questions:________
Student Responses:________
Personal Reflection on the lesson/work produced:________

Thought of the Day

I may take this back, but considering the mountain of tasks associated with the Thesis Fieldwork I intend to complete this fall in parallel with my desire for a meaningful blog, my thought of the day is to use the blog as a Fieldwork Journal. My fieldwork, in its current entropic state, has enough disparate elements that some of them just might be helpful or useful to others who are considering thinking about knowing how to approach the Study of Art Education.

Fieldwork Journal
Step One: Induce Stress
Create a self-imposed agenda - due dates, goals, measures of "success", in as much as that is possible in qualitative research

Prezi - a mixed bag

Trying out the new on line tool like PREZI has been a mixed bag of frustration an elation. My first complaint is the name "prezi" which is both cutezi and stupidzi. My other complaints have to do with the difficulty of controlling the view of your presentation. The ease of image upload and manipulation is a true delight, but controlling the zoom on the "path" leaves much to be desired.

Website - work in progress

Here is a work in progress website of my artwork, academic work, and miscellaneous work from the last ten years or so. It has been fun, and daunting to starting compiling this stuff in one place.

Click Here: ABF...The Website

Chicago Artists Coalition

These membership benefits are great resources for Chicago-area practicing artists - health insurance and tax help and everything. Now if only I made some art I'd be all set.

Mess Hall

Mess Hall looks great. I have heard of them, but never really grasped what their deal is, perhaps because there isn't much of a deal to grasp.

Though this article on MFA vs. Community Art Centers is really from AREA Chicago, I found the link through Mess Hall. this article from Mess Hall.