How to Balance Instruction and Experimentation in a TAB Classroom

When teaching digital photography to students, I always find that it’s a bit of a dance between the technical elements, with allowing time and space for experimentation and discovery. I once read a quote, ( can’t remember who in the world said it, and google doesn’t seem to be sure either), but it’s good none the less.

 

“ You don’t know , what you don’t know.”

 

If you think too hard about it, your head will actually start to hurt. When I read that quote , I’m reminded of the role that we play as teachers. In world of choice based learning, teaching for artistic behavior, and unschooling, it can be hard to know how much we should “instruct”, and how much we should let them “explore”.

 

If a weaving class hadn’t fit nicely into my schedule in college, I may have never uncovered my love for textile design.

Until I read an article on facebook, I had no idea that being a panda cuddlier was something that you could actually get paid for… ( ummm, sign me up)

And teaching art classes online, was something that I sort of stumbled across while doing some random google searches about art teaching jobs.

 

My point is , that it’s great to let our students experiment, explore, and discover, but it also our job to help them to uncover things that they just don’t even know enough about to discovery.

 

Back to digital photography

 

I could simply hand students a digital SLR camera and send them on their way. But you know what happens 99% of the time? They set it on auto and off they go. Will they get okay photos, most of the time, but could they get even cooler photos if they understood the power of the tool in front of them, ( like aperture, shutter, white balance and ISO)? You better believe it.

 

While there are many lessons that I use to help students to learn the digital camera, one of my favorites is the I wonder what would happen if lesson.

Here’s what we do.

 

After they’ve had a few photo classes, and some hands on time with their camera, for their ticket out the door, they need to complete the sentence I wonder what would happen if…. 3 times ( and it needs to somehow relate to photography)

 

After class, I go through the pile of 5 million ideas on my desk, and write them all on the board. ( a student will always wonder what would happen if they took their camera in the pool, this does always lead a mini lesson on underwater photography. And at least one student usually thinks that there is some reason that they need to take photos in the bathroom.) Carefully noting if there are any that will likely cause damage to a camera, or a student. During the next class we read over the list, students start to get excited, as you see ideas to start to flow, then I tell them to each pick 5 things from the board that they want to try.

 

And then

 

They go and try them, and record what happened, later sharing with their classmates.

 

This works for a few reasons.

 

1. I usually do this during the 4th or 5th class, and it helps students to realize that I REALLY do want them to experiment.
2. It takes away fear of being wrong. Since they can select ideas that weren’t even their own, and since everyone is doing it, students become engaged in sharing their photos, and forget about the fear of failure.
3. They start to realize the power of their camera, and they always return filled with more questions, which then guide future demos, and mini research sessions.

 

You can take this same concept and use it in other classes as well. Trying different ways of painting, different tools to paint , or seeing what kind of colors they can create.

In sculpture, they can play with a variety of materials, experiment with balance and height.
Really, I could go on and on.

 

Sample questions

• I wonder what would happen if I took the photo at a strange angle
• I wonder what would happen if I turned in a circle while taking a photo
• I wonder what would happen if I took photos looking down
• I wonder what would happen if I used a really slow shutter speed
• I wonder what would happen if I took a photo in an almost black room
• I wonder what would happen if I changed the white balance setting on my camera to an orange color
• I wonder what would happen if I set the white balance to cloudy, but was actually inside
• I wonder what would happen if I did a really slow shutter speed, but kept moving the camera
• I wonder what would happen if I took the lens off and tried to take a picture.