The Art Class of Beijing Royal Foreign Language School: We can find beauty from the stones!
The National Holiday is over，what kind of art work can the students bring out？They presented a report about the stone texture, which included both the entity and the theory. Some of them were written by English. This was the first MYP task in the new semester.
A Discussion on the Relationship between the Art and Nature through the Stones
Students explored the source of beauty. They started from finding out the nature. During this period, they looked for stones, recorded and analyzed. And at last they submitted a report. Among them, some analyzed the causes of stone’s formation from different regions, and some analyzed the shapes and lines. Some used the five sense organs to observe the shape of the stone, touched the texture of the stone, and judged the growth environment by smell. This is an interesting kind of interdisciplinary learning, combining art and geography.
Teachers offered the students overall guidance and individual guidance. The team with strong capability not only completed the assigned task in advance but also put forward many deeper problems. While to some students who were not skilled in this field, the teachers used some specific examples to inspire them. For example, they put forward whether the oracle was a tool to record the nature or just a form of art. Such thinking method can let the student study actively, and maintain the curiosity to the knowledge, and then they can develop the habit of studying independently.
Set up a learner profile and make the students manage their studies from a young age.
In the international school, grade 6 students have been incorporated into the junior high school education. Their course is no longer in the elementary student’s cognitive stage, but the transition to the exploration stage. In a nutshell, it is the students’ plans which is made by the students’ themselves on the grounds of their actual condition and study progress. In the end of the semester, everyone has their own portfolio.
Under this kind of teaching mode, the students have three features: First, the students have strong learning ability after lots of practice, exploration, analysis and feedback. Therefore, when they confront some new contents, they know how to grasp them. Second, the students have strong creative ability and dare to explore things that others do not dare to do. Third, the students are full of confidence based on their full understanding of their learning progress.
We can cultivate our children’s learning habits and provide learning methods, but we can’t keep them in front of lots of prepared knowledge. The cramming method can restrain the students’ willingness to learn. So the best teaching idea is to study autonomously.
