Creative Learning Strategies
The following strategies and resources have all been employed at Thomas Tallis School to support the development of creative learning. There are many more ideas on other pages in the site so this is really just a snapshot of the tremendous work being done in school. We will continue to develop this page with specific examples and the various impacts these strategies are having on the quality of learning.
|
Creating InstallationsTallis Traces was the title of a workshop that formed part of the Tallis Perspectives cross-curricular learning days in July 2011. Students worked in vertically grouped teams to create a response to the imminent move to a new school building (Nov 2011). This team chose to create a site specific installation. Here is one student's view of the project:
"On the first day we went around the school looking for a way we could record our school. We came up with rubbings and clay prints to record different textures. We also took pictures and drew around our shadows to represent where we have been. We filled a balloon of some of the contents of the field like grass and stones to remember all the times we had on the fields. "On the second day we brainstormed how the school would look when it’s demolished. Then we created a 3D installation. We came up with explosions and body pieces. We also made a collage to show some of the things that would be gone when the school is demolished. The installation was put in the courtyard and looked like a real explosion had happened. There is also a secret book where you will see a hand grenade in the centre." Installations like this require a whole range of creative skills including: research, idea generation, design and display, communication, project management and team work. |
|
|
|
|
We have also been using video to support Maths revision in Year 11. With the use of flip cams, playdough, pipe cleaners, straws, 3D shapes and other resources, small groups of students set out to make revision clips on subjects of their choice. These included areas of shapes, angles and pythagoras.
Here are links to other examples: The Adventures of Bob and Pythagoras Area of Shapes SOH CAH TOA Calculating Interest |
 |
|
Animation
Most certainly what gives us most pleasure is to see our deaf students working creatively and productively in mainstream lessons alongside their hearing peers.
This video is a great example that successful communication in a mainstream classroom between the teacher and the deaf students as well as deaf students and their hearing peers is possible if the teacher caters for all needs and abilities. Michelle Springer, a Well-being teacher, has given students a task of making an animation video to show their understanding of the problem of bullying. There are no limitations to what the video is about and resources available are plasticine, colour paper and any other objects they may wish to use. Students need to work creatively in a group to come up with an idea for a story that best shows the problem. The room was buzzing! Check out some of the ideas they came up with... |
|
|
|
Film Poems
In October 2008 a group of Gifted & Talented Year 7 students were selected to take part in a Poetry and Film workshop with film maker Eelyn Lee. In an intense day of activity, the students worked in groups to create a poem about their sense of identity and local area, storyboard a film, shoot the footage and edit it using iMovie. The resulting film poems are of a very high standard and we decided to a do a follow-up workshop with the same students in the summer term of 2009 to help them make further progress in developing their film making talents.
Here's an example of one of the films. Click here to see the others. Film-making using a variety of tools and techniques is now firmly established in the curriculum as a presentation strategy. |
Evaluating though colour
Working closely in collaboration Kerry Gibson (ART AST) and Sharon Gallagher (Maths) have devised a system for encouraging students to reflect on learning experiences using a combination of colour and abstract forms. Evaluations are based on the emotions the students feel before, during and after they have completed an activity. They use Kandinsky’s colour code (see below) and consider the quadrant diagram (see image below) to give them a sense of a time scale. Recent experiments have included the introduction of 3D evaluations in clay and working with teachers to encourage them to evaluate their own learning. The system can be used with students of all ages and often reveals surprising and beautiful results.
This project forms part of a series of initiatives related to the Personalisation of Learning undertaken by a range of staff members under the umbrella of our Leading Edge status. More information about all these projects can be accessed on the school's main website. |
Kandinsky's Colour Code
|
Epic Poetry GeneratorAleatory text is dependent on the laws of chance. The Surrealists were perhaps the first to experiment with the creation of poetry and other forms of writing that exploited the chance association of words. More recently, this technique has been popularised by the writer William Burroughs. The resource below has been used recently in the English Faculty to encourage young writers to experiment with the creation of aleatory epic poems inspired by Beowulf. Key words from the Epic Poetry Generator are chosen at random with the roll of a die. The author is then responsible for stitching these words together into the form of an epic. A visual element is provided through the use of another Surrealist invention, the Exquisite Corpse game (what we often call Consequences).
|
Making Monsters View more presentations from fotologic. |
||||
