The Principle of Design: Pattern

As I work through the elements and principles of design with my students, I try to find engaging and achievable projects to highlight the potential of each. The School of Islamic Geometric Design is a great site for patterns and got some fantastic ideas for a memorable pattern design studio project here: http://www.sigd.org/resources/pattern/

There are so many beautiful patterns all around the Aga Khan Museum. It would be great to include a field trip to the museum to explore pattern and find inspiration.

I first visited the museum a few years ago, see some photos in a previous post: here.

Patrick

Cross-curricular Learning

Cross-curricular or interdisciplinary learning can offer so many rich educational experiences for students and teachers. Creating meaningful cross-curricular projects, field trips and learning opportunities is one of the priorities at my campus this year. Our teachers have already worked together to plan an interdisciplinary field trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

As an example and an inspirational starting point, I like to refer to the "Grail Diary" that Sean Connery's character Dr. Henry Jones Sr. kept in Indian Jones and The Last Crusade. You can find out more about this wonderful object at the wiki here. And here are a few pages from the diary:

What makes this diary so beautiful, and useful in the film, is how the author combines disciplines to study his subject. He works from different fields to achieve a deeper understanding and to discover new meaning, fields including: art, history, science, literature, architecture, religion, philosophy, chemistry, painting, sculpture, languages, iconography, geography, and geology. He also uses various methods to record his findings, including: drawing, writing, transferring images, collage, map-making, note-taking, quotation and references. The result is a cross-curricular masterpiece.

Another inspirational example of a cross-curricular product- Leonardo da Vinci's sketchbooks:

I saw some other great examples at the Aga Khan Museum this summer:

What I love about these artifacts (and what I think would be a fantastic classroom project) is how they are all handmade, in-depth studies of a subject drawing on multiple disciplines to achieve a more complete understanding and to create a beautiful and informative product. This is something that students can get excited about. It would also be more interesting for teachers to mark!

Class Project Idea: For a summative project, students create a object in the spirit of the "Grail Diary" or a "Da Vinci Sketchbook" - that spans 3 or more subjects. The students can research their chosen subject through the lens of each discipline, and then compile the information into a comprehensive mini-book that demonstrates their cross-curricular learning. The book can be marked by each of the three teachers based on subject-specific criteria for their class, while appreciating the diversity of products and the depth of knowledge that results through this kind of learning and where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

- Patrick

2016 Summer Institute for Art Educators - Day 2

On Day 2 of the 2016 Summer Institute for Art Educators, organized by the AGO and the CSEA, our group of art educators went to explore the beautiful Aga Khan Museum.

The architecture alone is worth the visit. We started our tour looking out over the gardens and granite pools that connect the museum to the Ismaili Centre Toronto, and you can even see the C.N. Tower in the background. We then made our way into the luminous inner courtyard.

We were lead up the free-standing blue staircase to check out the spectacular auditorium.

As we entered the museum collection, we were greeted with an animated wall of moving patterns and script and a massive map showing the wide-reaching impact of Muslim art and civilization.

The diverse collection was fascinating to examine and there is so much to see, I will definitely return to continue my exploration. One item that stuck out for me is the illuminated botanical text explaining the growth of a specific tree. A theme that emerged from the day is the concept of cross-cultural commonalities, in classrooms, lesson plans and museum collection-  like the Tom Thomson tree painting that I posted about yesterday.

Back at the A.G.O. in the afternoon, we took part in a great workshop about how to Amplify Diverse Student Voices with strategies and lesson plan ideas that we can use in our classes. The workshop was lead by Ilene Soca, from Blank Canvases and Noorin Fazal, from Story Planet. Looking forward to the rest of the week!

For more, check out the twitter updates about the week's adventures here, #AGOCSEA. And have a look at the A.G.O. Schools and Teachers Facebook page here.

- Patrick