Learning




Plan of our interactive board

 

Many skills developed throughout this process, my confidence built and my ability to work as a team grew stronger. My communication and people skills improved massively. By the end of this process, I felt I had become self-assured and it helped me figure out what I wanted for the future. This experience made me realise many things, which relate to my own practice. Some skills I already had because of developing them through university and from working in retail, which allowed me to put them into practice in the school. Although I felt I was shy in the beginning of this process, I felt I opened up and took control when I needed to. As a group we made sure, we were all on task and had a good co-operation system.  I felt this was vital, getting along with colleagues is necessary in any area and it allows you get along and do things efficiently. If communication is poor, it can affect your work and your self-confident. Our group planned a group on Facebook so that we could all communicate with each other and if we had any problems we could tell each other through that. I felt it worked very well and encouraged us all to stay on task.

The workshops developed through the unit, the first workshop made me realise what materials I could use and could not and how the kids reacted to it. Teaching children from the age of seven is very different from what I expected but it was a revelation and so later, I developed my workshops catered to them and their needs. The way their minds work was different to how I thought and so things had to be simplified. The use of materials had to be simple and easy to use. The workshops that we were taught in the beginning of the project helped massively and gave me a variety of ideas, not just for the workshops for myself as well. It made me more confident to use weird materials and this is something I could look into further for my own practice.

I enjoyed participating in the primary school; I felt I had gained a new set of skills that I would have not imagined to gain from there. Communication, organisation and planning skills were important and understanding of the children was another. I came out here to teach the children a new set of skills and I feel through the process I did. The satisfaction you feel when teaching these children these workshops was amazing and it was a self-achievement for both of us. As a group and teaching these workshops, I felt everyone gave their input of what they wanted and in the end; we are making a 3-D interactive piece, which is something new to me because I have never worked with wood or in that area. It made me see how others work and what they do in their practice. We all brought our own practices into one, I coming from textiles brought texture into the workshops and the final outcomes, some from art history brought the history side of space into it and the wood workers brought their ideas of how the final outcome should be created.