Thinking Back, Looking Forward
2006 | CW Post Campus Long Island, New York
PROJECT PARTNERS:
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Empire State Partnership Summer Seminar
Collaborative learning and image-making through inquiry
A multifaceted process of reflection and action with Empire State Partnership (ESP) summer seminar participants, resulting in the collaborative creation of a gallery installation at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University.
CONCEPT
Thinking Back, Looking Forward was an interactive, multidisciplinary experience that reflected the collective voices of the 2006 ESP summer seminar attendees and modeled partnership through social collaboration. Participants connected to the theme “thinking back, looking forward” through a number of contemplative, educational, and creative processes. By teaching and learning through the arts as well as using “backward design” as a strategic planning tool, this project deepened exploration of the seminar’s two central concepts. All activities for fun and growth in the process of creating Thinking Back, Looking Forward were occasions for collaboration.
The process of social collaboration transcends individual privileges, where separate expectations are replaced by equality and collective self-interest. Facilitating experiences of dynamic demographics, with exercises that allow everyone to create, results in collective unification and the emergence of a new, inclusive community.
METHOD
All participants in the 2006 ESP seminar were asked to bring inquiry questions as part of the partnership. These questions served as starting points for the Peer-to-Peer Team Preparation Curriculum developed by ESP faculty members and constituents (teachers, administrators, and artists) to help seminar participants learn from each other and create their ideal learning community.
Five artmaking workshop periods of the ESP seminar served as multidisciplinary learning and teaching exercises, while simultaneously creating the works for the gallery exhibition. Building on visual art practice, Literacy Through Photography exercises, and contemplative education strategies, participants transformed the peer-to-peer inquiry questions into “ideal inquiry statements.” Incorporating the ESP central concept of “backward design” curriculum development, participants used the ideal inquiry statements as direction for making the images that served as the foundation of the Thinking Back, Looking Forward installation.
Finally, participants collaboratively prepared a series of drawings created from photos taken of activities at the seminar. The large drawings were projected on the walls of the C.W. Post Gallery, accompanied by the ideal inquiry statements and documentation from each of the five project workshops. Seminar attendees then colored in the large drawings together.
Thinking Back, Looking Forward aimed to empower ESP seminar participants by involving them in the process of beautifying the C.W. Post Gallery with artworks featuring their own voices and imagery.