A Studio Classroom is where students create with purpose & share with audience on the page, stage & screen.
Turn your classroom into a Studio by creating original content with your students for the Page, Stage & Screen. Write to be read, speak to be heard and represent to be seen. Create written, spoken & visual stories with purpose for authentic audiences. Adopt a Maker Mindset and design learning experiences with students that follow the creative journey from Imagination through Creation to Exhibition! Build your #VisualLiteracy and #CreativeConfidence by practicing the habits of creators with your students to make print, visual, live, media and physical creations that you are proud of!
For a little inspiration, start by listening to first-grader, Brookleyn, as she shares about what it means to be a maker.
Make. Learning. Visible.
Write to be read, speak to be heard and represent to be seen by publishing on the page, presenting on the stage and producing on the screen. Making learning visible means fostering creative confidence through the three acts of the studio process: Imagine, Create & Exhibit. With a purposeful Maker Mindset, create high quality, original text, images and designs with your students and share them with real audiences.
Write to be READ
by publishing on the page! |
Speak to be HEARD
by presenting on the stage! |
Represent to be SEEN
by producing on the screen! |
The Studio Process in Three Acts
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Act I
IMAGINE Design projects with originality, empathy, curiosity & purpose. |
Act II
CREATE Draft original creations, critique & revise with cycles of feedback. |
Act III
EXHIBIT Share quality work with an audience & reflect on the experience. |
Studio Lessons
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Imagination, Originality & Creativity
Above all, encourage students to create original work that is rooted in their own imaginations. Avoid worksheets, colouring books, black-line masters, fill-in-the-blanks, crosswords, multiple-choice, and instead favour blank paper, blocks, raw materials, and time to daydream. It might feel like it's easier to let students to crib images from the internet, rather than fostering a culture of creativity through original imagemaking. But #VisualLiteracy depends on the opportunity to learn by doing, to experiment, to draft, to critique, to revise, to practice artistic competencies using the same tools as artists from time immemorial. Originality can be taught by creating the conditions and expectations for students to making their own art and artifacts. The imagination is like a muscle that needs exercise, and using the images and words of others to create is like having fast food on a diet. Learn the principles of design by creating original words, images, inventions and artwork. There is joy to be found in making things you are proud of and sharing them with the world. Originality, purpose and audience are the key ingredients to #CreativeConfidence.
Develop #VisualLiteracy by creating original digital images with mobile devices or physical drawings, sketches & illustrations on paper.
Creative confidence is built through opportunities for students to create and share stories with mentorship, peers and audience .
Make, Create & Do... Outside!
Take your classroom outdoors as often as possible. Journal Walks, Photo Walks, Literature Walks & Art Walks - well, any kind of walk that connects you and your students to the rhythms, textures, sights and seasons in your community will provide bright light for the imagination. Learning with the land and connecting with community through daily outdoor walks is a rich source of inspiration for original writing, storytelling & imagemaking. Qualitative and Quantitative observations can be captured through writing, sketching and photography in paper journals or on digital tablets, suitable for reflections in all grades and all subjects.
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Make & Create Visual Storytelling Projects
Visual essays are an engaging way to share student writing & storytelling on the screen and they are wonderful assets for your classroom channel and student portfolios. Beginning with Imagination, the first act of the Studio Process, students generate ideas with their teacher and begin writing their ideas down. Next, the act of Creation takes students through the feedback cycles of drafting, critique, revision and editing that are essential to making a quality piece of work that will engage the intended audience. The final piece is a video in which the student narrates their writing and arranges photos, text, videos & music in iMovie or any video editor. The final result is Exhibited as a high-quality visual story that is preserved in a student's portfolio, and that the teacher shares with the classroom learning community on their channel. The example below features Evalina's essay about Life After Isolation, which she created during the spring school closure of 2020 for the Skills Alberta showcase. Scroll down the page for more examples of student work.
This visual essay by a high school student during the 2020 spring closure was selected as one of the top ten submissions for the Skills Alberta virtual video showcase.
Create & Curate a Channel to Connect with Your Community!
Whether we are learning at school, at home, online or on the land, the opportunity to make, create and learn by doing is vital to our wellbeing! Making Learning Visible means to create with purpose for your audience by making engaging written, spoken and visual stories & artifacts on the page, stage & screen, including messages, lessons, presentations, prototypes and documentaries. Record yourself and your voice, and add stills, clips, narration, music and titles to assemble visual stories. Organize and share your videos with your audience on your video channel, and embed your videos into your online classroom, website and social media. Stay connected with the rich network of colleagues and resources in the #rvsed learning community!
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Whether it's on papyrus, parchment, paper or pixels, the best worksheets for original artwork always begin blank.
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Galleries
Examples of Publications, Presentations & Productions from students & teachers.
The RVS Student Showcase
Click on the image to enjoy a playlist of student-created short films, documentaries, tutorials and animations
in the Student Showcase on the RVS Channel.
in the Student Showcase on the RVS Channel.
The RVS Learning Stories Gallery
Teachers create and share stories about learning design in their classrooms by documenting, storytelling and sharing to make learning visible. For inspiration, click on the image to dive into the teacher-created Learning Stories on the RVS Channel.
The RVS Bookshelf
Students in RVS are publishing books and magazines of art, stories, photography, essays, science and more! Whether it is digital or print, student storytelling is shared publicly with audience. Pictured above is author/artist, Mackenzie Lynne Cox, as she creates the artwork for her first published children's book, When I Grow Up, and which she features on her exemplary portfolio & blog, Macki Makes! Click on the image above to visit our Bookshelf page for more stories about student writing & publishing.
RVS Presentations of Learning
The RockyTalks gallery on the RVS Channel features presentations by students, teachers and leaders, who share engaging stories, learning designs, projects, experiences and reflections from #rvsed classrooms. Click on the image to view the full RockyTalks Gallery on the RVS Channel. If your students are sharing original stories, speeches or presentations for a live audience, contact us to arrange to capture it on video as a RockyTalks event!
The RVS Channel
Engage with the galleries of RockyDocs, RockyTalks, Animations & Tutorials that share what learning looks like in #rvsed from the perspective of leaders, teachers and students. Every story is meant to inspire creativity, prompt reflection and make learning visible. Click on the image to visit the RVS Channel for examples!
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Design for Originality, Creativity & Quality, with purpose for audience.
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Celebrate Virtually!
There are so many ways for us to connect with our parents, students and teachers by creating and sharing our exhibitions of learning online! In order for us to design engaging programmes for our communities in #rvsed, we recommend a workflow that invites home-made videos from the community, such as speeches, presentations, addresses, testimonials & performances, then assembling the content into a video programme, and sharing the virtual celebration on #rvsed school Channels and social media.
Teacher Workshops & Professional Learning
Stay tuned to the RVS Professional Learning Calendar for upcoming Writers' Workshops, Visual Literacy & Storytelling sessions, which are held in a variety of formats, including live zoom sessions after school hours with RVS Learning Specialists.
