TEACHING SUGGESTION

Independent work is a hard thing, especially for students who may be very conditioned to being told what to do. When you ask students to use their own ideas, they will struggle. They will complain and want you to give them the answers. When this happens—GOOD! It means that you are on the right track. Students are experiencing productive struggle, and that frustration will lead to deeper understanding when they work through it. Your job is to provide students with the knowledge to do the working-through part. Explorations and the teaching of Artistic Thinking Process methods are designed to do that, but each student has different needs. Let struggle happen as you increase the level of student responsibility and provide more support to those who can’t work through it on their own. This may look different for each student.