Integrating Authentic Digital Resources in Support of Deep, Meaningful Learning

"Integrating Authentic Digital Resources in Support of Deep, Meaningful Learning," a white paper prepared for the Smithsonian by Interactive Educational Systems Design Inc., describes instructional approaches that apply to successful teaching with the Smithsonian Learning Lab.After defining its use of terms such as deeper learning and authentic resources the authors review the research basis of three broad approaches that support integrating digital resources into the classroom:Project-based learningGuided exploration of concepts and principlesGuided development of academic skillsThese approaches find practical application in the last section of the paper, which includes seven case studies. Examples range from first-grade science, to middle-school English (including ELL strategy) to a high-school American government class. In each example, students study and analyze digital resources, going on to apply their knowledge and deepen their understanding of a range of topics and problems

Promoting Cognitive and Fine Motor Development in the Art Room for Young Students with Exposure to Trauma: an Exploratory Case Study.

Despite the overwhelming research that suggests visual artmaking experiences can produce positive outcomes for individuals, many state art education policies fail to implement and integrate the arts into core academic curriculums. Specifically in the state of West Virginia, kindergarten through twelfth grade students often lack the access to a quality and consistent art education. With high teacher-pupil ratios and inclusive learning environments, educators face the difficult task of meeting all the individual needs of their students’ in the classroom. This not only affects whole student populations, but also poses risks for children who have been exposed to trauma. Traumatic experiences in early childhood can cause a range of severe negative outcomes. West Virginia has seen a rise in child victims and the occurrence of traumatic childhood e since 2015, making it more apparent than ever that children need resources to help them heal and mitigate the impact trauma can have on their lives. School communities are increasingly implementing trauma-informed programs that provide students with the proper interventions they need. Although these programs already have invaluable benefits, there seems to be a gap in research between the interventions of currently established programs and the possibilities artmaking experiences can provide for trauma exposed students. This exploratory case study investigates how to design art lessons that promote the development of students in the kindergarten through second grade classroom who have been identified with exposure to trauma. This research particularly focuses on understanding how art lessons can promote cognitive and fine motor development for these students in the art room. Finally, this research examines the role an art education can play in supporting these students within trauma-informed school communities

Graphicacy within the secondary school curriculum, an exploration of continuity and progression of graphicacy in children aged 11 to 15

Graphicacy is the fundamental human capability of communicating through still images. Graphicacy has been described as the fourth ace within education, alongside literacy, numeracy and articulacy. However, it has been neglected, both within education and the research field. This thesis investigates graphicacy and students learning, structured around 3 objectives: establishing what graphicacy is and how it is used in the school curriculum; demonstrating the wider significance of design and technology teaching and learning by collecting evidence of the importance of graphicacy across the curriculum; and establishing how the abilities to understand and create images affect students learning. A literature review was conducted focused on three areas. Firstly, identifying the meaning of graphicacy, elements contained within it and relevant prior studies including its use in different subject areas and image use within teaching. This formed the foundations for a new taxonomy of graphicacy. Secondly, the levels of drawing and developmental stages children go through were investigated and the need for further research on children s abilities aged 11 to 14 was identified. The well balanced arguments concerning the nature versus nurture debates are described. Thirdly, the methodology used to measure graphicacy, and map the results to reflect levels of different competencies were reviewed. A naturalistic and often opportunistic approach was followed in this research. The research methodology was based on the analysis of textbooks and later, on research within practice. The research included the development, validation and use of the taxonomy of graphicacy; case studies in Cyprus, the USA and England on identifying graphicacy use across the curriculum; and the creation of continuity and progression descriptors through the analysis of students work. This work covered: rendering, perspective drawing, logo designing, portrait drawing and star profile charts. Research methodologies developed and implemented for conducting co-research and the Delphi studies are also described. Through interviews with experts, the taxonomy was validated as an appropriate research tool to enable the identification of graphicacy use across the curriculum. These research studies identified links between design and technology and all other subject-areas studied. Similar patterns of graphicacy use were identified across 3 schools, one in Cyprus, USA and the UK. Photographs were the most commonly used graphicacy element across all subject areas studied. Design and technology within England was found to use the widest variety of graphicacy elements, providing evidence towards research objective 3; establishing how the ability to understand and create images affects students learning. Continuity and progression (CaP) descriptors were created for each area covered by this research. The success of the CaP descriptors relied on the technical complexity involved in the creation of each image. Some evidence was found concerning the limits of natural development and how nurture can further develop graphicacy skills. In addition, co-research as a methodology, its limitations and potentials are identified

Portraits, Likenesses, Composites? Facial Difference in Forensic Art

The police composite sketch is arguably the most fundamental example of forensic art, and one which enjoys considerable cultural prominence. Intended to produce a positive identification of a specific individual, composites are a form of visual intelligence rather than hard evidence. Based on verbal descriptions drawn from memory deriving from highly contingent and possibly traumatic events, composites are by definition unique and precarious forensic objects, representing an epistemological paradox in their definition as simultaneous ‘artistic impression’ and ‘pictorial statement’. And despite decades of operational use, only in recent years has the field of cognitive psychology begun to fully understand and address the conditions that affect recognition rates both positively and negatively. How might composites contribute to our understanding of representational concepts such as ‘likeness’ and ‘accuracy’? And what role does visual medium – drawn, photographic or computerized depiction – play in the legibility of these images? Situated within the broader context of forensic art practices, this paper proceeds from an understanding that the face is simultaneously crafted as an analogy of the self and a forensic technology. In other words, the face is a space where concepts of identification and identity, sameness and difference (often uncomfortably) converge. With reference to selected examples from laboratory research, field application and artistic practice, I consider how composites, through their particular techniques and form, contribute to subject-making, and how they embody the fugitive, in literal and figurative terms

The Art of Steel: As Seen Through the Eyes of Norman Rockwell

For this project the author partnered with the Steel Plant Museum of Western New York (SPM) in South Buffalo to create a special exhibition focused on their 14 prints of Norman Rockwell paintings in the museum’s collection. The exhibition used supplementary artifacts to add personal narratives to Rockwell’s paintings. The exhibit diversified the audience of the SPM and created a potential new audience the museum could target, while still appealing to their current audience through the use of personal narrative. The museum had not curated an art exhibition before and this project proved to be beneficial by exploring new themes that dealt with art, chemistry, biology, and labor history. In developing an exhibition proposal the author researched the Norman Rockwell paintings and supplementary information and artifacts and provided the museum with a research paper on the paintings and contextualized items from their collection. Text labels were created for the exhibit including, an introductory panel and individual labels for each artifact were also created. To compliment the exhibit, lesson plans were also created for classrooms to use. Teacher packets were created and distributed to local schools as a from of marketing. Other marketing techniques included using social media and print advertising. Exhibit installation utilized proper hanging, artifact placement, and label placement. Appropriate lighting and seating were installed for the exhibit. Overall, the exhibition used knowledge from all of the training received from the Museum Studies Program. It required the knowledge and application of exhibition design, curation, marketing, education coordination, and objects management. The successful planning and installation of the exhibit required extensive research and planning. The exhibit has helped the SPM to broaden its audience and be a catalyst for new partnerships with local schools and museums

Film, Parable, Reciprocity: Frederick Wiseman's "reality fictions" and Social Change

This essay argues that social criticism may be an effect of Frederick Wiseman's "reality fiction" films only if that effect is understood as analogous to parable, that is, through an awakened responsiveness to the unknown and the unresolved. Here I develop the analogy of Wiseman's films as parable that I begin to consider in an recently published essay "Silence-effects: Frederick Wiseman's films as parables" which explores the idea of parables and Wiseman's films as "silent": disturbing narrative explanation and creating new possibilities of relation, human and animal. The present essay looks at Wiseman's filmic techniques used to intimate these relational possibilities (portraiture and, using Davide Panagia's term, "democratic noise") and contends that his unflinching realism effectively opens up a space of parable with its vision of reciprocity and more-than-reciprocity

Drawing on Imagination: Soul Care for Adolescents Through Art

The most inescapable part of the human condition is aging. One of the most challenging periods of growth involves the transformation of a person from a child into an adult. Every human being descended from Adam and Eve, has had to pass through the crucible known as adolescence. While some seem to thrive during this period of life, others can have an extremely difficult and overwhelming experience. Inaccurate self-image, peer pressure, lack of acceptance, confusion, awkwardness, bullying, perceived lack of agency, high sensitivity, and high expectations are all stress factors that consistently plague this age group to the point of feeling anxiety and depression. In our modern world. The around-the-world reach of technology can be both a blessing and a curse. Teens can now be influenced by individuals with no in person accountability. Mistakes that might have only been known locally before, can now be published globally. This can create a magnified world of failure from which teens feel they cannot escape. Some teens turn to self-destructive activities for relief, while others give up altogether. Art is a unique opportunity for adolescents to create and find relief from stress. Adolescents can be strengthened and renewed by the emotional, physical, and spiritual benefits of art. For the Christian adolescent, art can be an amazing opportunity to experience a unique connection to God. The realization that they were made in the image of their Creator, helps them know who they are

ПОТЕНЦІАЛ ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ РІЗНИХ МЕТОДІВ ШТУЧНОГО ІНТЕЛЕКТУ У ЗАДАЧІ РОЗПІЗНАВАННЯ КРЕСЛЕНЬ ТА ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЇ 2D→3D

The article analyzes the main methods of artificial intelligence in the task of recognizing drawings and transforming a 2D model into a 3D model. With the rapid development of information technologies, and especially in the pursuit of the most realistic reproduction of the project of the future product/house and other objects in digital form, the question of recognizing drawings and transforming a 2D model into a 3D model is very acute. As the number and complexity of tasks arising from the digitization of existing paper-based drawing and technical documentation grows, and the parallel need to transform two-dimensional models into three-dimensional models for visualization in three-dimensional space of complex objects, researchers have drawn attention to the possibilities of applying technologies and systems of artificial intelligence in the processes of drawing recognition and transformation of two-dimensional models into three-dimensional models. The first studies devoted to the application of artificial intelligence in the tasks of recognizing images on drawings began to appear in the early 90s of the 20th century. The analysis of approaches to the recognition of drawings allows us to consider the potential of using different methods of artificial intelligence in the task of recognizing drawings and transforming two-dimensional models into three-dimensional models. To analyze the potential of improving the work of CNN, as well as its architecture, without resorting to extensive expansion of the convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture, as well as taking into account the need to solve the task related to the logical vectorization of primitives and/or conditional graphics recognized by means of a convolutional neural network markings on drawings to perform 2D to 3D transformation. In the future, this stimulates researchers to look for alternative methods and models for image recognition systems on drawings.У статті проведено аналіз основних методів штучного інтелекту у задачі розпізнавання креслень та трансформації 2D моделі у 3D модель. Із стрімким розвитком інформаційних технологій, і, особливо, в прагненні максимально реалістичного відтворити проект майбутнього виробу/будинку та інших об’єктів в цифровому вигляді, дуже гостро постає питання розпізнавання креслень та трансформації 2D моделі у 3D модель.  В міру зростання кількості та складності завдань, що виникають при оцифруванні існуючої на паперових носіях креслярсько-технічної документації, та паралельної необхідності трансформації двовимірних моделей у тривимірні моделі для візуалізації у тривимірному просторі складних об’єктів, дослідники звернули увагу на можливості застосування технологій та систем штучного інтелекту у процесах розпізнавання креслень та трансформації двовимірних моделей у тривимірні моделі. Перші дослідження, присвячені застосуванню штучного інтелекту в задачах розпізнавання зображень на кресленнях, почали з’являтися ще на початку 90-х років 20-го століття. Аналіз підходів для розпізнавання креслень дозволяє розглянути потенціал застосування різних методів штучного інтелекту в задачі розпізнавання креслень та трансформації двовимірних моделей у тривимірні моделі. Проаналізувати потенціал покращення роботи CNN, а також її архітектури, не вдаючись до екстенсивного розширення архітектури згорткової нейронної мережі (CNN), а також враховуючи необхідність вирішення завдання, пов’язаного з логічною векторизацією розпізнаних за допомогою згорткової нейронної мережі примітивів та/або умовно-графічних позначень на кресленнях для виконання трансформації 2D в 3D. В подальшому це стимулює дослідників шукати альтернативні методи та моделі для систем розпізнавання зображень на кресленнях