{"id":5040,"date":"2014-04-03T09:06:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T13:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2014-04-03T09:06:17","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T13:06:17","slug":"new-ways-of-thinking-solving-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/2014\/04\/03\/new-ways-of-thinking-solving-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"New ways of thinking, solving problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

RISD outreach unleashes creative process for elementary school students<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Nature
Items from the RISD Edna Lawrence Nature Lab reveal the geometric shapes and patterns found in the world around us, giving young students at the Jewish Community Day School in Providence new insight and perspective on manmade and naturally occurring design.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"seashell\"<\/p>\n

Sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor of the Jewish Community Day School\u2019s design laboratory, Melita Morales, a graduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design, motioned to the group of objects between her\u00a0and a\u00a0class of\u00a0fourth graders.<\/p>\n

The RISD Edna Lawrence Nature Lab collection ranged from sea to land, including a starfish, seahorses, seashells, honeycomb, and turtle shell.<\/p>\n

Morales instructed\u00a0the students to pick out one\u00a0item\u00a0and\u00a0then asked what geometric shapes they saw. One by one,\u00a0they pointed to circles, squares, octagons and lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do we\u00a0call\u00a0shapes without a name?\u201d asked Morales,\u00a0introducing the concept of organic shapes. \u201cMaybe with a squiggly line on one side?\u201d<\/p>\n

RISD undergraduate Ingrid Lange, who is studying industrial design, pushed the thought process a little further: \u201cWhy do you\u00a0think\u00a0we even talk about geometry in the real world?\u201d<\/p>\n

After the brief introduction to shapes, both manmade and in nature, Morales and\u00a0Lange guided the students to nearby tables, with instructions to build either an architectural shape or an animal, or even housing for a creature.<\/p>\n

\"building\u201cYou can use whatever you want,\u201d Morales said. \u201cConnect the wood dowels with clay like we did last week, or go with a whole new shape. You can connect things by putting corners together with clay or you can use tape. There are no rules. You can figure out what works best. Use one shape or a whole mixture of shapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teacher Melissa Kranowitz observed the give and take between the younger and older students, noting that her class had wrapped up studying decimals and was heading into geometry, which fit perfectly with the RISD experience. The youngsters were learning about right, acute and obtuse angles, and parallel and perpendicular lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey love the hands-on activity, building things, seeing what kind of structures are stronger than others,\u201d Kranowitz said. \u201cIt\u2019s a different way of doing a math lesson, great for all different kinds of learners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten-year-old Tamar initially began connecting her dowels with clay, but switched\u00a0course and\u00a0opted for small foam cylinders, constructing a pyramid topped by a towering antenna with yet another foam cylinder.\"experimenting<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI like that we can build stuff and see how it holds up and doesn\u2019t,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Asked what class she liked best in school, Tamar responded without hesitation, \u201cArt!\u201d<\/p>\n

Had she realized that art was connected to science and math?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Therein lies one deliberate intention of these collaborative RISD\/Brown University outreach sessions.<\/p>\n

Lange said the budding relationship with JCDS and students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) clubs at\u00a0RISD and Brown, both Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR partner institutions, involved figuring out how to combine art and science in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, when we collaborate with art and science, art acts more of a visual element rather than a process of thinking,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to see if this iterative process or problem solving can come through. We want to see if the way artists think \u2014 rather than just their work or what they end up with \u2014 has any impact on how the kids\u00a0learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morales said she and Lange sought to get the students thinking about how two dimensional shapes become three dimensional forms as well as how humans and animals are architects, and how shapes inform design.<\/p>\n

Morales, who is pursuing a master\u2019s degree in art and design education, said the outreach provided the opportunity to see what methods worked best in the classroom: \u201cIt\u2019s really inspiring to be around that energy. The kids get their hands on\u00a0things and build. It brings an excitement to learning. There are no constraints on their imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a prospective teacher, Morales said she was particularly interested in observing how different models of education worked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we create spaces in the schedule for integrated learning that\u2019s really authentic and project-based?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

Lange added, \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0really fun to see how this learning process can go as young as these children are, how it works early on rather than waiting until you get to college like with me. I didn\u2019t get exposure to this kind of\u00a0thinking until I got to college.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"students<\/p>\n

\"findingAdam Tilove, JCDS head of school, said this type of exchange met his vision of design thinking and discovering, where learning is driven by students and based on their passions and interests.<\/p>\n

And, he said, bringing in\u00a0college students to work with elementary school-age children benefits all involved \u2014\u00a0the college students gain from the teaching experience and the younger students reap the benefits of learning from someone new and in different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to mix it up,\u201d Tilove said. \u201cThe spirit of what they are teaching fits perfectly into the mission of the school \u2014\u00a0hands-on, embracing creativity. There is no letter in STEAM for creativity, but it goes hand in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story and photos by Amy Dunkle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RISD outreach unleashes creative process for elementary school students Sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor of the Jewish Community Day School\u2019s design laboratory, Melita Morales, a graduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design, motioned to the group of objects between her\u00a0and a\u00a0class of\u00a0fourth graders. The RISD Edna Lawrence Nature Lab collection ranged from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}