Spirals are everywhere in nature just as art is everywhere. The overall goal of this powerful S.T.E.A.M. Spiral unit is to get students to become better observers and thinkers, as well as to open student minds to possibilities of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math connections through the spiral. I hope students will come to desire learning when they seek independent knowledge of spirals. While engaged in critical inquiry, students will come to see how a spiral is actually all around us! I want students to develop skills in self awareness and students will come to build their self-confidence when identifying which kind of spiral they were internally drawn to investigate and research.
I want my spiral teacher's google slideshow example to inspire students to graphically depict the spiral area of their choosing in an amazing, eye-catching way! Next, I look forward to students using their hands to create an oil pastel composition that also depicts the spiral direction of their choosing. I believe both hands-on activities will deepen the meaning for this new obtained spiral knowledge. In this unit some responsible internet decision making skills will be gained as well. Students will gain some practice in public speaking. Increased listening skills and self control when respecting other student ideas during class oral presentations will be expanded. Students will have an outcome evaluation or rubric of their spiral idea creation as well as a personal reflection on spirals all around us and their google slideshow presentation.
This Spiral unit will also help middle school students with independent self-motivation, impulse control, self-discipline, time management, organizational skills, peer interactions and peer communications skills. This unit has an element of teamwork when the students work together to brainstorm and then each student will independently select a direction to research their chosen spiral. Students use social engagement when they “pair share” or “bounce” their ideas together and begin to build peer partner relationships. After students have selected their spiral to research, students then create a google slideshow and request feedback again from their peers. Lastly students create an oil pastel composition and students will again “pair share” their artistic suggestions for oil pastel student revisions or changes.
On the surface this unit may seem to be solely about art elements, principles, and line creations focused on smudging etc while visually appealing. The reveal is amazing that this oil pastel creation is actually inspired by a deep dive STEAM Spiral unit! I want students to gain an understanding of how professional artists go about their art creations. Students will see other artists who were “moved” by spirals in their professional art works as well.
The Spiral unit will hopefully be deeper and richer than any Art unit so far this school year due to the multi-content layering S.T.E.A.M. involvement. The goal of this unit is also to allow academic and artistic independence as well as students being able to utilize previous skills taught during this school year and now independently applying them. I am hoping by having the students take control of their own spiral learning directions, that the students will be internally driven by their own inspirations as well as take their learning to a more concrete place of gaining forever knowledge. I am hoping this spiral unit Spirals in S.T.E.A.M. will be an introspective experience that students remember. This unit will support students into becoming deeper critical thinkers as well as strong observers of spirals all around them. I want this spiral unit to be self guided instruction, thinking, and investigating the learning process to transform student learners.
I wish to review some technology “rules” when searching the internet. I want to remind students that they could accidentally stumble upon inappropriate or “off” topic information and that students are not to be distracted. Students are to redirect themselves or log out and redirect back to appropriate “on” topic spiral territory.
To inspire art creations I will be providing a list of artists that are associated with Spiral art in case students wish to do a recreation or “in the manner of” that particular artist style: Vincent Van Gogh, Katsushika Hokusai, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Earle Miller, William Pritchard, Merton Simpson, Hale Woodruff, William Yeats, Andy Goldsworthy, Marcel Duchamp, and James Yeargans are just a few that I will include to give the students a variety of inspiration.
School Setting
My unit is part of a study of spirals intended for all grades PreK-8 Art, including a self contained special education classroom at the Nathan Hale School in New Haven. This is a solid S.T.E.A.M. unit. The seven foundations of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) include: Observation, Creativity, Innovation, Planning, Revision, Collaboration, and Presentation. This Spiral unit touches on all seven foundations. The mixed age group that I am focusing on for this unit will go through all seven foundations. Students will learn about Spirals as an Art term as well as spirals in Nature, Math, and even Psychology. Students will be spiraling upward and downward gaining knowledge on spirals. Students will then see the power of a spiral during the end of the unit Art show when the bulletin boards will display all the Spiral possibilities from all the grade levels. I will be having grades 5-8 as a focus group.
I want the students to have viewed a variety of spirals before they select what spiral direction they choose. For the student who can not pick the direction of their choosing I will be happy to assign a spiral direction in order to have our final share out be more rich or varied in S.T.E.A.M. connections of spirals. Students will have a few days to explore, peer share, and to select their own spiral direction. I want the students to tell me orally their proposed plan so I am fully understanding of their independent direction each student is heading in. I will be teaching approximately 150 plus students in the middle school focus group and over 250 students in the other groups experiencing the spring spiral unit.
While I will be presenting spirals in nature to the entire Nathan Hale student body in the spring, I designed a focus group for this unit of grades 5-8. The middle school has a mixed 5-8 grade age group and I will do a deep dive into spirals with that focus group only. Many 5-8th grade students will present their selected spiral topic and google slide show to the younger 2-4th grade levels. This mixed middle school age group I see three days a week, with each class an hour or more.
The middle school students range in art abilities as well as have different interest areas, so this Spiral unit will certainly internally motivate each student differently. This S.T.E.A.M. unit is a step into all Nathan Hale students gaining skills into making connections between Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. I look forward to seeing the students who might weave in Math and working with the golden ratio or fibonacci spiral much like artist Leonardo Da Vinci!
This unit will be taught in the spring after gaining some student rapport as well as students gaining background knowledge in making connections all around us and feeling more comfortable with navigating around the art studio. The spring is also a time of year that all students have some comfort level with working with many different tools and materials throughout the school year as well as knowing clean up protocols. By spring in any given school year the students can better manage independently working aside peers without projects all being the same.
