Thinking about Demos

    Demos are one of the essential parts to successful learning. Exemplifying a skill, how to do something, creating understanding and inspiration. Especially with young learners, a good demo really goes a long way when asking them to create a work of art.
    When thinking about creating a video demonstration, I can't help but think about how to create something that young learners (Who I'm learning about/observing now in my Art Education Curriculum and Instruction class). Those small people who think in a really different way than us. I decided to make my demonstration focused on the concept of texture. How different objects, that we might not always relate to art making (sponges, sandpaper, bubble wrap, mesh) can help us think about using materials in a new, different way. How different textures made by these objects reflect on things we notice in every day life (examples: soft grass, tough tree bark, etc.). However, preparing for a demonstration such as this definitely takes more planning than one would think. Although it's a simple idea, there are a lot of things you need to think about being in the position of the teacher, giving your students the necessary resources to understand and be successful. So far, I've made samples of the different textures to be introduced in the video demonstration. I also plan on taking detailed shots of them to be seen and understood from a closer point of view. In terms of making a video, these areas of the demonstration will be explained with voiceovers of what I want to be learned and understood.
   We discussed the importance of different points of view in a video demonstration to make it a concept that is much easier understood compared to a video of a person preforming a task. There is more to learning than watching someone create, do, or say something, and doing that same thing back. I think that this is also an aspect of teaching that not many people fully understand. For example, this video doesn't really have any real parts of it that make it easy to understand. There are no explanations, or different perspectives. The whole thing is just hands sculpting clay into a face- and although it is something very wonderful to watch, it is not really a good learning resource. When watching something with the intent of learning about something else, there should be many aspects of it that reach through to the viewer/learner and make this apparent and easy.