Author: Yang Liu

Reflection & Refraction

Does the Education humanize us? As the question show in Parker Palmer’s article, I also asked the same questions. Before answer this question, we need to identify what education is in 21 century. Transfer knowledge is the essential task for educator and institutions. Especially in the digital era, the various methods to transmit information and knowledge. It is a significant challenge to highlight the critical structure and promote the face-to-face communication skills. Moreover, self-learning is another aspect for students to practices. Study on campus is a short time, while learning is a whole-life project. So, in the high educational environment, it would affect the personality and habits. But hardly to modify all the students in the same.

It is general for art students drawing the same style in the facsimile task. In the primary level of drawing class, facsimile task is necessary and essential works to improve the technical ability. But, the familiar styles will not stay for a long time, after the several weeks or months (it depends personally), the diversity in styles and technicals will show in the works. For example. Lin Fengmian, a Chinese painter and is considered a pioneer of modern Chinese painting for blending Chinese and Western styles. His works below, show all the process of changes in different periods: studied in France, president of CAA, and rear lifetime.

 

The experience of study abroad is important for Lin Fengmian. During the 1920s, impressionism and Cubusion is the mainstream in the scholarly cycle. His artworks in that period show the familiar technical as what he learned from professors. After graduated, he perfect blend all technical he learned with his culture, which is the works he painted in the rear life.

Education is access for the learner to broaden the horizon. Diversity is the key word in 21 century. Hence, the humanize would affect the students in short period. After the working time, students will combine the background knowledge with what they learned together; then the new styles will be constructed.

 

Language⇌Image⇌Action

The cultural and language diversity is normal in today’s high educational class. It not only an opportunity for the students to understand the various knowledge but also enrich the teaching approaches in class. While in the studio class, educational diversity is one of the small parts in the multitasking section.

As you know, there are several significant sections in the art studio class. First of all, lectures are the primary form to highlight the history of the art and design. Educator plays the role of hero to transfer the knowledge. At the same time, the participation of students in the discussion section would stimulate the new understanding and explore ways for the history.

Meanwhile, the individuals learning division is part of the class, which improve the create and practice to transfer the language that teachers emphasize to visual art. It is the most difficult steps for both students and educators. In the contemporary drawing class, Professor Travis organizes a game to highlight the critical point of composition in the drawing.  All students have a blank paper and charcoal. There are ten questions all students need to answer and drawing followed requesting. For example, Drawing a line, then drawing a rectangle, drawing a circle to overlap the rectangle, etc. From the feedback of the students after the game, they feel unseated during the process because they have no idea about what is the next task. It is the game both focus on the essential principle of composition and the quick swift form language, abstract image and action.

Besides, digital media is a contemporary method for the artists and designers in nowadays. Every new tool shapes the way we Think, as well as what we think. (Clive Thompson, 2013). Sometimes, in the class, students at least need to face two screens to follow what the teachers mention to run the program. Multi-tasking is the necessary section that in the modern art and design class. Through the teaching and training in the high education level which is more comfortable for the students set in the industry.

Role Reversal

Nowadays, educator spends increasing time focus on the academic researching than teaching. According to one of my professor’s experience, he told me only 30% of the working time using in the teaching area, which including the individual meeting and tutorial time. As all of us who have the teaching experience, the moment we are preparing the teaching materials is 3-4 times in the educated time. Even the educator shows the fantastic and well-organized handouts, some of the students reject to participation the class. It is frustrating and abhorrent. In my opinion, there are two ways to understand the reason why students would not join the class.

Is the information you mentioned that appropriate the individual study plan of students in the class? In the art and design studio class, the study plan is essential for both teachers and students. Basico on the syllabus teacher posted, students will know more details about the course and re-schedule the study plan. Due to the study plan submitted, the educator would do little changes and make sure that every student in the class would gain from the information and materials. According to Freire, the responsibility of educator not only to teach and transfer the knowledge but also to encourage students to explore and construct the experience. Especially for the art and design program, the independent study ability is more important than others. There is no exam in the design project. Thus, each level of the process will support the final grads, which the most of the students curious to know at the beginning of the semester. Every student has a different personality, some of them are good in communication, while others prefer individual projects. As a successful educator, the primary challenge is knowing and understand the student. So, I will use the rear of class as a tutorial time to talk with students about the process of the projects and answer the questions.

Besides, the “one day teacher” is a project that every student have 10-15 minutes to teach or present the personal research in class. It is an excellent opportunity for students to understand the teacher, and push them to think about how to display and show the research topic in class. The role reversal is also another challenge for both students and educator. For example, in the Motion Graphic class, every graduate student must teach at least one of the skills of After Effects in the class and make sure other students understand and well used the skills in the class. To prepare the project of “one day teacher,” students need to think about which area they want to share and how to present the concept. The student will think about how to attract the attention and the difference with others. For the teacher, it is a chance to receive new energy power and methods in teaching experience.

Everything we do well will be the past. Creation is the most critical section in teaching and learning. In other words, the information and knowledge transfer in class need to connecting contact with social issues, which would engage the student to explore the own research direction. Compared with the wholes lifetime, the study time on campus is a brief moment. It is particular to teach the student how to construct knowledge, and the ability to analyze the issues is more than others.

Team Diversity

Globalization is the phenomenon that appeared on nation, economy, education, culture, and society. It to enrich a civilization through a cross-cultural education environment. Especially the increasing number in the high educational institution. There are different voices towards the changes in class. Many people hold the negative attitudes towards new coming nations and culture. However, no doubtfully it will experience the culture shock, at the same time, the immigrate culture push the development of multi-cultural diversity. According to Katherine W.Philllups, the Key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity.

It is an extraordinary experience for both educator and student to learning with individuals primary on a different language, educational background, and culture. There are various understand the issue in class through the cultural environment. For example, in class discussion, there is variety explanation based on the discipline, experience, inter-culture awareness, and knowledge. The new voice, sometimes, is the engine to explore the unfamiliar research area. The inter-cultural innovation thinking method offers various ways to explain and solve problems and improve the cultural communication.

The inter-cultural communication also happened in the class. Especially in the group work. For example, the course project named Renaissance of Dessau Bauhaus I experience when I study in London. It is a unique and initial change for me to cooperate and to learn with professor and classmates in worldwide. There are four team members and two advisors, the students from China, India, Austria, and London; the two professors are from Bauhaus University and Kingston University. There are the different background of team members, which including art history, exhibition design, fine art, and contemporary design. Hence, in the project proposal, we claim the essential ideas and concept of how to renaissance the excellent reputation of Bauhaus in the contemporary design world with different aspects relevant personal experience. Our group is the only one to display the concepts of the project in unexpected ways. It is an example for professors and students in the class that the diverse cultural communication is a positive to the development of learning, education and knowledge structure.

Teaching yourself

What is the most important aspect for the educator? Is it the high grads that students archived, the teaching philosophy, or the success for students? Educator is not a prophet.It is hard for them to know what will happen in future. In my opinion, the purpose for the educator is to create a comfortable environment for students to learn, and training them to gain knowledge in various methods.

Based on the Chinese culture, the definition of the teacher is one who passes on the truth, imparts knowledge and solves puzzles. Students highly respect teachers, no distinction should be made between the noble and the humble or between the young and the old. Where lies the truth, there is a teacher. To be a good teacher is a challenge for the educator. First of all. In the class, the teacher explains the strategies to students. It gives students enough space to arrange study plan. I hate the emergency works. I know most of the people do like it. It is an opportunity for the students to understand now important in the schedule. Even in the class. Well-organized the workflow in the class and the coherence between each class is not only improve the efficiency during the study time but also as an example for students to show how to learn.

Besides, to build an academic and comfortable study atmosphere is a positive approach for students in learning. Especially in the art and design class. Sometimes, when the students present they have no idea about the projects. Then the teacher needs to rethink profoundly the teaching method. Is the student follow the teaching step? Or maybe they need more example to broaden horizon and support. In the art and design class, the easiest part is to teach the technical skills, like how to use the software in 2-D and/or 3-D as a tool for drawing. To prepare what you want to show and drawing in the software is the hardest part, which is the create section. Students have the limit study time in class and teachers have a very short time along with the students. Then, in my class, I will spend most of the time focus on how to gain knowledge. It is the same mean of ” Give a man a fish and he can ear for a day. Teach him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.”

The teacher will never always with students. training students how to learn and gain knowledge for the life is the advanced task for the educator. Learning for people around us, like the classmates, friends, and families is the ability to explore and gain knowledge in the ordinary lifetime that I will highlight and teaching students in the class. During the study time, the teacher enables to guide and give comments and suggestions for the student but never instead the students think and organized the study plan. I will encourage all the students not only following the steps of the teacher but also need to do in advanced.

Create Your Own Life

Nowadays, we spend most of the lifetime in the school and university, no matter the roles we play is a student or an educator. As a student, the main purpose to join the campus life is to gain more information and learning about how to create a bright future. A student who has the goal and curious about everything is more easy to achieve. Human is nature learner. Therefore, the navigates of the educator is more important than others. Especially for the teachers in the art and design areas.

What is art? What is design? Is it the same? Is it important? “A real education has to give equal weight to the art, the humanities, and the physical education.” Many people consider art means understand art history. ok, let’s play a game. Please tell me the name of five artists. If you would answer immediately, which means you are familiar with art history. But “art” is an abstract concept. General speaking, the definition of art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts, expressing the author’s imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.(Defined by Wikipedia) In other words, there is not a standard to judge the good artworks. Creativity is the engine to be an outstanding artist.

It is a challenge for the educator how to organize in the inside class. In the primary step of art class, teachers focus on the training of technical skill and the expressing in the visual art. For example, in the drawing class, the teacher will set a group of still-life objects, and draw as an example. During the process, the teacher will emphasize the key point, like the composition, shadow and sharp, etc. After the longtime training, teachers will organize the practice of observation and imagination. It is the most interesting part for the students display their artworks on the wall. Even the diversity art pieces are all present the same topic, the students will display the personal understanding to express the various traditional and digital methods.

In the higher educational level, students need to connect the campus life to the social life. It depends on the choice for the future life, part of the students will continue study in the institution, while others will work for the industry. Whatever the choice is, in my opinion, the experience is important for the students for the further learning. Attending the internship project. It is a chance for students to narrow down the research direction.

Choosing the language to express the idea and concept is the tough part for both students and educator in art and design. Broden the horizon and enrich the experience are the ways to receive the energy and get the achievement.

Choose your love, love your choice

High education faces variety challenge during the 21 centery.-the digital era. There are a great many methods that student access the information, books, Ebook, the internet, forum, online course, and tutorial.  How the high educational institutes keep the state of major educational center? What the students will experience in their life time? It is the questions that educator needs to face and think about.

Studying in the classroom is the major part of this step in our learning life. As we all know at the first class in each semester, the professor always gives us the syllabus and announced the schedule of the semester. Then, students will introduce themselves, like the name, the study background, the purpose of the study. Is anyone thinking about why the professor plans to do this? Communication and cooperation are the important part in learning. Even in the studio course, these are many group works and discussion in the class. It is not a chance to sharing the thoughts and ideas, but also the ways to enhance the ability of social communication. Learning from others and studying with classmates is the essential part, which the access of learning from the virtual world would never be replaced. Moreover, the another task for the professor is how to guide the student in further research independently. There are two different reasons to select the major: to choose the major followed by the mind, or select the major depends on the salary. It is easy for the professor to instruct the first type of student. They have a clear goal and schedule. But, it is a challenge for the professor that how to lead to the second type of students in the specific research area which they are not familiar and interested in.

A group of approaches that professors would use during the process of teaching in the digital era. The lecture is not the only ways in the class. As the student in the digital media, or be a teacher in the future. The main purpose for the students in this area is to use the digital media to enrich our learning and daily life. Therefore, learning from the game is a trend that widely used in the institutes that education is the main responsibility.  For an instant, my classmate Lisa Liu graduated on May 2017, her final project “Forbidden City In The Immersive Virtual Reality World” is a VR game which presents the history of the Forbidden City. The audience not only to appreciate the historical heritage in Beijing but also learn the historical background and aesthetic information about this Empire building. Besides, outside classroom learning is the essential part in the rest of life. In other words, the ability of self-learning is be training in the school. Where to learn and how to gain the information efficiently is the big task student faced after they graduate. The Master said, “When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teacher I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them.”

“Choose your love, love your choice”

 

 

Week 1: From fine artist to digital designer

As we all know that 21st century is the digital world. But, individuals are rarely to understand the purpose and impact of the network for the life. Internet is one of the essential parts of our social life even is hard for us to imagine in the couple-decades ago. It is also a platform for people to communicate, sharing the sources, learning and interactive with others. People, who may not know each other and have the different experience and interdisciplinary background, would discuss a topic through intellectual and/or emotional activities ideas. The blog is a basic form to collect all kinds of voice in the virtual world. Blog change our life, not the blog itself. Actually, the variety of ideas and concepts post on the blog effective our daily life. My educational experience is an example to show this point.

There is a gap between traditional art and the digital art. As the student graduate from fine art, I unable to understand why scholar define the digital artworks is an important part of contemporary art history. However, after I saw the artwork created by Detuch digital artist Daan Roosegaarde, my perspective changed. After I posted my thoughts on my blog and lot of friends added comments, which included positive and negative voice. We try to persuade the individuals who have the different understanding. In my opinion, it is the key to blog exists, or in other words, it is the respectability the blog play in the modern world.