7th Grade Art: Avivi Wang, Donald Harmon

Project introduction
7th Grade’s art project requires them to create a photograph-like collage of a specific animal in their habitat using pieces paper they’ve torn by hand. It also requires them to work collaboratively, following the complementary color scheme, including different shades and tints.

Student Interview

Avivi

Do you mind having a project posted around the school?

No, it's okay. 

What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
I am quite satisfied with the outcome, because I worked pretty hard this time. It was a little tough to find the colors, and to fill in Ms. Yung's requirements. 

What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
As I said, some colors were really hard to find and match together, for the gradations of color. Also, it was hard to match the sizes of the magazine pieces together. 

Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
Actually I had an inspiration from a pretty dolphin picture that I found online. The original picture was also showing dolphins under sunset, so I thought I also want to make an artwork like this. 

How do you feel about the recommendations?
Actually I was really surprised! I never expected that my work will be recognized by people other than my art teacher :)


Donald

Do you mind having a project posted around the school?
Yeah, sure. It's fine for me. 

What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
I think I could have done better, so I'm not very satisfied. I ran out of time, so it is kind of not totally complete for me. 

What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
For me, the challenge was matching the different types of papers and colors. 

Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
I wanted to involve eagle in my project, which represents the American emblem, freedom. 

How do you feel about the recommendations?Cool!

Teacher’s Opinion
“Both art work came out great, they did a very good job and each of their’s are unique.” 
“Avivi used three schemes, as the project shows; the blue water and warm colored sky creates a complicated feeling, however expressed the shade of the different colors very well.”
“Donald’s project is quiet complex, the mountains show an obvious shade of dark to light green which made the crimson eagle stand out. It was not easy to accomplish.”


Selector’s Opinion

Avivi
Like Ms. Yung said, we thought the use of colors demonstrated a very pleasant mood of the project, it looks very complicated, the gradation and different colors made the artwork stand out, making it more realistic!

Donald
Donald’s work looks simple but the details included (green backgrounds, shades and tints) really expressed the complementary aspect of the project. Additionally we found it really cool that the background also included the shadow of the eagle and not just the terrain background!

Project #1 Student Interviews

Avivi

Do you mind having a project posted around the school?
No, it's okay. 

What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
I am quite satisfied with the outcome, because I worked pretty hard this time. It was a little tough to find the colors, and to fill in Ms. Yung's requirements. 

What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
As I said, some colors were really hard to find and match together, for the gradations of color. Also, it was hard to match the sizes of the magazine pieces together. 

Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
Actually I had an inspiration from a pretty dolphin picture that I found online. The original picture was also showing dolphins under sunset, so I thought I also want to make an artwork like this. 

How do you feel about the recommendations?
Actually I was really surprised! I never expected that my work will be recognized by people other than my art teacher :)



Donald

Do you mind having a project posted around the school?
Yeah, sure. It's fine for me. 

What do you feel about your project? Are you satisfied with your work?
I think I could have done better, so I'm not very satisfied. I ran out of time, so it is kind of not totally complete for me. 

What were some challenges? How did you solve those?
For me, the challenge was matching the different types of papers and colors. 

Did you have any inspirations / motivations for this project?
I wanted to involve eagle in my project, which represents the American emblem, freedom. 

How do you feel about the recommendations?
Cool!

Day 7

Day 7

• Plan out questions that we are going to ask Mr. Gray
• Mr. Gray wasn't there
• Went to Ms. Yung and interviewed
• Viewed the 7th graders' art work and chose which student to interview

Today we have made a good step forward. Firstly we prepared the questions that we will be asking to the teachers, including Mr. Gray. However, because he was not in his office and he looked busy with other teachers, we decided to interview him later.

Although we had some troubles when finding a teacher to interview, because they were all having classes or very busy working, we were able to go to Ms. Yung and interview her about the art projects. We briefly explained about our project, and asked her if she recommends any projects that were very interesting or impressive to her. Consequently, she replied that the 7th graders’ projects were interesting, which was making a photo using scraps of magazines.

We went down to the 2nd floor to see the displays of 7th graders’ works and voted to decide which project we thought was good and impressive. We came up with a student’s artwork, and now we are planning to ask permission to Ms. Yung later (because she was very busy), and start the interview with the student. Moreover, we are also going to interview Mr. Gray and Ms. Lee tomorrow. 

Interview Questions (Teachers)

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What project is your class currently working on?
2. What are some projects you thought were interesting and impressive?
3. Do you have any recommended works for our project?
4. Why do you think it deserves to be recognized?

Day 6

Day 6

On this day, we presented about our project in front of the class, Ms. Curtis, Mr. Burns, and Ms. Kruse. The purpose of this presentation was to introduce our Challenge Based Learning project, to explain our goal, action plans, challenges and essential questions we are trying to answer.

In order to successfully run through this presentation, first, we divided parts and assigned each part. Then we wrote the script to make the speaking more effective and send the written script to the group member who was in charge of creating the powerpoint. While making the presentation, we made sure that the group member uses more visuals than text so that the presentation is less boring. We went over the video about 5 main presentation skills, memorized the script, and practiced the presentation like real for several times.

Overall, our presentation was not bad. The teachers gave us great comments on our work and gave positive feedbacks on our Creative Project Overview project. They commented: they love how we have thought of the concept of showcasing creativity of the students to the whole community. Moreover, Ms. Curtis added that  students will be able to gain confidence by our project, which makes a positive effect on overall.

What we might have done better is that we could have showed our emotions and feelings to the audience — such as some enthusiasm towards the project --, or project our voices for clear listening, or included some body motions, in order to engage the audience better. 

Day 4 & 5

Day 4 & 5

• Got acceptance in using black bulletin board
• Start preparing the presentation
• Be aware of the presentation skills
• Decide what to include on the posts: summary of the project (written by the student)(optional), what they want to say about the project (interview)

In those two days, our team really started to take actions in our plans. On Day 4, although the time given was extremely short, we were able to get permission from Ms. Curtis, the principal, to have access to the black bulletin boards. The bulletin boards are originally in purpose of showing the art works of both Middle School and High School students. However, now we can use the extra bulletin board if there is any, or discuss with the art teachers and share the boards together.

On the next day, which is Day 5, we started the planning session of the presentation that will be very significant. It is important, because all CBL groups in our technology class are presenting their CBL projects, and the group that presents the best will receive 1000 RMB, as a support for our project. Consequently, we decide our roles in the presentation and which section will we present. 

Day 3

Day 3

• Made a website
• Can we display the students' works like art works do?
• Make a presentation
• Have permission whether we can display the works
• Email Ms. Curtis
• Let's also involve in the elementary school!
• Decided the name of the project

Today, our group had shared the website from Anna, which looked pretty good. We put our daily reflections and pictures on the blog, which was later fixed due to other additional problems. We discussed how we are going to put our collected information, and decided to organize the categories so it is easier to see. I, Ha Young, have took pictures of us discussing so we can upload them on our reflections.

Next, we talked about how we are going to show our works to the people; if we are going to do it only in online or also offline. We got up with an idea to print out the QR code of our blog, and paste it around the school. By doing this, people who are not interested in school e-mails can check with the code. To carry out this plan, we sent an email to Ms. Curtis to get permission on pasting things on the bulletin boards.

Lastly, we were curious if we are going to search for the projects of High School, or also Middle School's. By discussing and asking the teacher about this idea, we decided to deal with the whole SIS community, and we also added Elementary School. Moreover, we made a name for our group, which is Creative Projects Overview (CPO). 

Day 2

Day 2

• Have Big Idea & First 5 Steps
• Topics overlap with other group?
• Make website / wall to put other students' works and promote them
• Fix from the very beginning
• Decided the roles again

We came up a better plan than the last day, and also had the First 5 Steps. However, after we examined the plan with our teacher, we came up with a conclusion that our topic somehow overlaps with other group's. Actually there was another group working on similar topic with us, which was: guiding the students or teachers to the proper use of MacBook and other Mac programs. The teacher thought that as we progress on our plans, that group and our group will have a overlap on the project, which does not make effective results.

Although we considered the plan that we built up until now was very precious, we changed our plan according to the teacher's advice. She advised us to plan a project that involves the students in a different way, such as posting the students' good school works on a blog and promoting them. This project will result in a valuable site where there are students' excellent works, which students themselves can review afterwards or helping the teachers who are planning to have a similar project in their classes.

So we came up with a new Big Idea: promoting students' work so we would not forget them easily even after the project is over. Since this project is noticeably different from the previous ones, we had to newly decide the roles. We made another role called communicator, email sender, in order to divide roles that will efficiently help us to run on the project. 

Day 1

Day 1

• First planning day
• Nursery room?
• Decided roles
• Public survey?
• Art or Outside lunch?
• Guide people's use of technological presentation tools
• Drew up a list of tools

It is the first day of Challenged Based Learning (CBL) project, and our goal was to decide the big plan as well as the individual roles of group members. At first, we collected the members' ideas about the CBL ideas that they had from the past. 

We tried to decide the Big Idea by have a vote, and consequently making a nursery room in our school was selected. However, as we were planning the details -- such as the Essential Questions, the First 5 Steps, etc. -- we thought that this plan is too unrealistic for us, the students, to accomplish. 

As a result, we changed our Big Idea from making a nursery room to guiding people's use of technological presentation tools. We all thought this idea was very excellent, since the majority of students, including all four of us, were having trouble in using technology to have an effective presentation. We drew up a list of tools, such as Glogster, Blabbering, Voicethread, etc. 

Interview: Mr. Gray

   1. Do any students come to you with the lack of self-esteem?

Yes, students concerning their self-esteem is very common in high school, since it is closely connected to their academical and social success. 

   2. Do any students come to you because they are not recognized enough?

Actually they do, but not consciously. There certainly are students who feel that way, because they are struggling with the expectations to satisfy their teachers, parents, as well as themselves. 

   3. What are some of your advices for those students?

I would suggest them to recognize your own strengths. I think self-awareness is extremely important for high school students, and of course all the students must be recognized in different ways. Everyone of us is unique, so appreciate your powers. 

   4. What do you think about our project?

Cool! Your projects will reveal a lot of great things that were unnoticed before. Working and communicating with the teachers is a big part in this project, and courages are greatly needed in order to put those out from the closed classrooms and be recognized in the community. Also, your project creates positivity!

   5. Do you have any suggestions for us?

I would suggest to maybe present your idea in assembly and present your creative ideas. There are certain students who receives honors and recognized, but I want everyone to be recognized.