Morgan LaRocca's Portfolio Page
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ETAP 623 Spring 2022 (Byrne) |
Name's mini-course front page
About Me
My name is Morgan LaRocca and I am a first-year art teacher at Hilton High School. I attended the Rochester Institute of Technology for two years as an interior design major, before transferring to Nazareth college for my last three years as an art education major. I studied abroad in Florence Italy during my junior year where I studied drawing, contemporary art history and traveled to different cities and countries.
I am very passionate about the importance of art education and how meaningful art-making can promote engagement and help create independent thinkers.
My Topic and Purpose
The topic of my mini-course is teaching with a "Big Idea" framework. The purpose of this course is to demonstrate how centering units and lessons around a "Big Idea" is directly connected to art education because it allows for individualized artwork and critical thinking. The goal of a "Big Idea" framework is to push students to connect new knowledge with their past experiences, interests, cultures, and current and past events. This way of teaching values the learning process more than the product. The students use art and meaningful art-making to make sense of what is happening around them, and the "Big Idea" begins this critical thinking process.
Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content
The learning outcomes of this mini-course are for you to be able to understand what a "Big Idea" is, identify a "Big Idea", create a meaningful unit based on a "Big Idea", use essential questions to form meaningful connections between the classroom and the world, and assess students in a way that values both the process and the product. The overall learning goal is to understand how utilizing a "Big Idea" framework can help students to be more creative and to use art to express themselves.
This course will consist of:
1) What is a "Big Idea"? How is this framework different from Design-Based Instruction?
2) How to plan a unit using a "Big Idea".
3) Forming essential questions to create a deeper understanding of how art is related to the "Big Idea".
4) Creating unit assessments.
Needs Assessment
A survey given to my fellow art educators gave me the following data regarding the use of "big idea" in art education. While I expected some of the results of this data, it also revealed some surprising information involving how my colleagues are not using a "big idea" curriculum. Older teachers learned the design-based art education curriculum (DBAE), which was switched to the big idea curriculum around 2010. It was realized that a big idea-based curriculum pushes the students to have a deeper understanding of new materials and further develops their critical thinking skills (Childress, 2010). Although I knew the veteran teachers learned the DBAE curriculum, there are several annual conferences, such as NYSATA, and teaching resources that have introduced the big idea curriculum and explained the benefits. I was surprised to find out that the majority of my colleagues do not follow any part of the big idea curriculum. I am one of five art teachers, which is quite a large art department for a public school. Two out of the five art teachers, one being me, utilize the big idea-based curriculum. As shown in the survey, one of my colleagues claimed they have never heard of a big idea even though I have discussed it when planning units and showed my fellow colleagues how to use them. A big idea-based curriculum provides a lot of choices, brainstorming using the big paper method, beginning planning a unit with the big idea in mind, and using essential questions to push students to think deeper about the material and form connections between the class and the world. Using a big idea curriculum is essential to create independent thinkers and transition from the old ideas about art education that focused on recall and repetition.
I have attached the survey below. One teacher did not fill out the survey because he did not have time, but he told me that he is DBAE trained, does not know what a big idea is, and does not use essential questioning.
Click here to view the survey.
Resources:
Childress, J. (2010). How Can Big Ideas Help Me Teach With More Depth and Meaning? NYSATA News, 38, 12-17.
Analysis of the Learner and Context
The learner is middle-aged, has a master's degree, is a veteran art teacher, and was taught the design-based art education (DBAE) curriculum. This learner feels very safe with the DBAE curriculum because the teacher controls every aspect of a project when they create a lesson using the DBAE curriculum. Their past experiences with successful projects make them confident in DBAE and their familiarity prevents them from trying something new and learning about how the Big Idea curriculum. As my survey shows, there is a big difference in the number of choices I provide my students versus someone who is DBAE trained. There is a difference in motivation because teachers who are DBAE trained are motivated by getting the students to memorize and apply the elements and principles of design, whereas a big idea trained teacher is motivated by pushing the students to connect their work to their experiences, interests, and the world around them using the elements and principles of design. The learner would benefit best from understanding how the DBAE curriculum can be incorporated into the big idea curriculum. Comparing and contrasting the two frameworks would be beneficial because the learner could visually see all of the things that are similar, and that they are adding things to what they currently do rather than completely starting over new.
Performance-Based Objectives
The target objectives of this course are:
- Be able to identify a "big idea"
- Understand what a "big idea" is
- Apply knowledge of "big ideas" to unit planning template
- Understand what an essential question is
- Form essential questions that coincide with "big idea"
Task Analysis
Course Goal:
Learner will be able to effectively utilize big ideas to develop lessons and essential questions.
Prior Knowledge:
Learner has previous understanding of lesson planning.
Attitude:
Learner should be imaginitive and open to controversial topics and ideas. Learner should be willing to try out new conepts and ideas. Learner should be open minded and willing to ask questions.
Skills:
Ability to connect curriculum standards to lesson. Ability to utilize reliable resources for research.
Curriculum Map
File:Curriculum Map Larocca.pdf
References and Resources
The references and resources below are the ones that I used to develop my entire min-course.
https://forms.gle/RAk2J6aCDT32DBdB7
https://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artid=53