Reseting Focus- TAB

Resetting as a Visual Arts Teacher

While I have enjoyed the challenges and adventures of being a PYP 5- exhibition teacher, this year I am starting a new journey as the PYP Visual Arts teacher.

Drawing inspiration

I have spent the past 6 months researching Teaching Artistic Behaviors ( TAB) and exploring how to develop learner agency in Visual Arts to support thinking skills across our PYP  program (Pre-K 3 to PYP 5)

I chose Teaching Artistic Behaviors as my methodology after visiting the American School of Warsaw (ASW) to participate in a workshop on Teaching and Learning through inquiry with Kath Murdoch. On that weekend visit, I saw evidence of a learner centered classroom. There were anchor charts to guide student inquiry and materials were accessible.

Guided Inquiry Anchor Chart

Without viewing teaching and learning in action, I saw evidence that students were in control of their learning and I said to myself, I want to see that at my school!

Artisitc thinking in inquiry in the corridor

As I researched, I learned that TAB has 3 fundamental points:

What do artists do?
The child is the artist.
The classroom is the child's studio.

I see these as key areas of an inquiry based education.

Observing Mentor Teachers

I wanted to see what this looks like in a teaching day, so I requested to observe the art program at ASW to learn about their inquiry process. 
Some things I wanted to see/discuss were:

• How did they design their room to be accessible to all artisits? 
• How do they balance instruction and inquiry? 
• How do they develop agency?
• How do they assess and report?

I was excited to learn that they use TAB and participated in a TAB workshop. ASW has 2 large art rooms in PYP and a series of art inquiry centers in their early years program. In the PYP they have 7 centers and each center is organized so that once it is "open," students can access resources and explore the skills independently.

Studio Centers check in

A labeled Drawing Center

Developing Routines

They were in their second year of implementing TAB and it was at the end of their school year. Routines were firmly established and students had adopted the vocabulary of the domain and the thinking routines.
I observed 2 days of lessons with two teachers in two studios. I saw a consistent TAB routine across all lessons as students:

•  entered the room
• reviewed what they had done last lessons
• got to work on projects
• cleaned up for the day
• shared their progress and reflected on each others work
• left for their next lesson

The Studio Structure

Inquiry in Action

Teaching Methods- 

Once students got to work, the teachers moderated the action by: observing and taking notes, asking questions, and suggesting modifications of materials. I heard teachers asking guiding questions rather than giving instructions.
At all age levels I observed students working on their own projects. Some were working independently, others collaboratively.  Students were taking time to think about what they wanted to do, researching, planning and revising their products.

 Transitioning to a New Practice

As the last school year eneded, I was overwhelmed by how I would go from not having taught art before to opening a TAB classroom. I decided to take baby steps over the summer and baby steps this first year.

During the summer break, I set myself the goal of digging into TAB. I read Studio Thinking From the Start and started a TAB book club. About 200 teachers came together on Facebook to discuss the book. We analyzed what TAB might look like in our different contexts, how we were going to organize our studios, plan our lessons, assess student work in the TAB framework. It was helpful to collaborate with a group of teachers making the transition to TAB.
 This got my mind focused for starting the new school year. 

Going forward:

This year I have set a few goals for myself:

• Develop a Studio Arts room that maximizes student agency using 4 centers
• Using simple routines to develop the basic awareness of the Studio Habits of Mind in my students
• Teach independence in developing a simple artistic portfolio using Seesaw

I hope that by the end of this year I feel grounded in setting up centers and helping my students developing their artistic thinking so that next year I can dig deeper into the practice.