Steve Meeting 7.1.09

I met with Steve yesterday to catch up on our summer so far. At a point that felt comfortable, I steered the conversation toward our research. Through talking with Steve about the problems I've been having with a-evaluating a student's creative work and b-imposing structure on the creative process I believe I may have come upon a new way to approach this research.

It seems to me the two main struggles I have as an "art teacher" are 1). how to fairly evaluate my students' "art projects" and 2). figuring out exactly how much "structure" to impose upon their creative process as they bring their project to life.

The literature I've been reading reminds me that the word "value" exists inside the word evaluate, so if a student's values differ from my own then my evaluation of their work isn't really justified. What to do about this? Be sure that the student understands and buys into the values of the course and creates their project knowing their work will be judged based upon the core common values upon which the course is built.

As for imposing structure, there is plenty of literature to support the notion that the creative process can survive, even thrive if thoughtful constraints are placed upon that process. The constraints must exhibit the values discussed above and must be relevant to the desired outcome of the final project. They cannot be constraints associated only with the natural power struggle that exists between student and teacher.

For our study we need to decide what kind of outcome we want before we can design the assessment tools and exercises. We cannot get protocol approval until we determine what kind of data we will collect and how we will collect it. Therefore: theory+exercises+assessment tools= outcome. We must define and develop each variable in this equation, working backwards from outcome.

Outcome: I wish to shift our emphasis away from the creative project itself to the process by which students make their project. The desired outcome could be simply this: "The student's film was the result of disciplined and creative planning, research and direction." The outcome to be evaluated is the process, rather than the product.

Assessment tools: I wish to shift our emphasis away from our own evaluation to evaluations made by the students themselves. These tools could be online surveys, a blog, a journal, etc. but the students themselves will make these assessments. Each assessment must be tied into a particular stage of the process. A final cumulative assessment will be made by the student on whether their overall process evoked the core values of the course. I would suggest the completion of the assessment tools be considered for the student's course grade but that the actual "scores" on the assessment tools NOT be a part of the grade. (I have a concern that the IRB only understands survey research and would not approve of us collecting data from something more personal, like a journal or blog).

Exercises: This was the most fun part of my discussion with Steve yesterday, but I think the development of these exercises will be the biggest challenge. There are two big questions here: 1). Do we incorporate exercises to emphasize story structure and development in addition to existing coursework or do we weave them into what we're already doing? 2). Are these exercises conducted in class our outside of class? Steve and I agreed that whatever exercises are developed, they have to go beyond the elementary "let's all work with playdough for 5 minutes and see what we come up with." They should incorporate all aspects of arts and humanities, from literature to music to art to theatre. The point of the exercises is to a). enhance the values of the course (i.e. values of Aristotle, Egri, Jung) and to b). get students to think differently about art and the hope is that they will then approach their own work with a new perspective.

Some (brief) examples Steve and I discussed:
1). In-class discussion of an abstract painting, such as a Picasso. Through discussion, help students understand what Picasso was doing and how it could be relevant to making a film.
2). Playing a TV show like "Have Gun Will Travel" while also playing classical music. Help students discover that music carries its own emotional meaning that can easily bleed over into the image, so you have to be very careful about music selection in a film. It has to be a very deliberate choice.

Theory: While I'm still struggling with this one I'm getting closer. I've already made some notes in the blog about constructivist theory. I think we need to do more searching in the film theory world. Perhaps Chris Harris could be helpful. After all, he's the one who actually comes out of an art school.

In summary, a film is only the byproduct of the process (Steve). When we all attend the student screenings at the end of the year we tend to judge students by what we see on the screen. But, I feel there should be more to a film education than that. It's not ONLY about the film they make, because 99% of the students will NOT become film makers. If we put more thought and care into the process by which they make their film they will come out of the program with a more enriched experience and knowledge they can apply to whatever it is they wind up doing for a living... or to the quality of their lives in general.