IB Courses: Group 6 sample (Visual Arts)

Our teacher guide for Visual arts is Abeera Atique

Links: 

Visual Arts SL Subject guide

Visual Arts HL Subject guide

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Transcript

Jon Peterson 0:00

Welcome to IB Matters. In this series, we're building an audio catalog of IB Diploma Program courses and CP core experiences designed for students, parents, counselors, teachers, and colleges around the world. Each episode gives voice to the syllabus, the real learning, and the student experience behind every course. I'll have the subject brief linked in the podcast notes if you'd like to use it as a reference while you listen. Hi folks, in this episode, we're describing the IB Group 6 visual arts course, and our teacher guide is Abira Atik. Ibira, why don't you go ahead and start by introducing yourself? Kind of tell us a little bit about you and uh what your current role is. What courses do you teach?

Abeera Atique 0:38

So I'm basically an artist by profession, and I combined that into teaching. So I've been a with the IB visual arts since 2010. Um, and I absolutely loved it. Uh, the moved on towards becoming an IB visual arts examiner. I have taught NYP and currently teaching DP visual arts. I'm also an IB workshop leader, and mostly my workshops are related to visual arts in the DP program.

Jon Peterson 1:02

Yep, and that's where I met you. You came to Minnesota. Thank you. Uh let's jump right into it. Why don't you tell us some highlights of the course? You know, I think people will be interested to hear how uh arts is taught and assessed and so on. Why don't you talk about the syllabus and the internal assessments, uh, how they do the final evaluations and so on?

Abeera Atique 1:19

So basically, the IB Visual Arts is very different than any other art curriculum. Uh, part of that is because the IB Visual Arts is a studio-based curriculum. It's not like a classroom where everybody's doing the same thing. In this course, the students actually decide what they want to learn. And then the teacher facilitates that. So it's the two the students are not dependent on the teachers. In fact, a lot of freedom is given within the course where uh based on the artist genres they want to discover the type of art styles, the type of media they want to use. So they have 100% full-on freedom. The best thing about the IB Visual Arts course is you become an artist, like unlike any other course, you know what you're doing, you're investigating it, you're determining what do you want to say to the world. So you know you're not just making art, you're actually treating art as an inquiry. So the whole course, like the IB core, is like you know, the extended SA, EE, and the cast, but the visual arts course, it's all determined around the art making as an inquiry. So you're not making a painting, but you're inquiring about the media, about the variety, about the subject matter, about your intentions. So you're inquiring constantly. And the core has like three main things, the three C's, that's what we call it. Create, communicate, and then connect with the outer world. So you as an artist are at whatever you're making, it has a bigger impact. And art students, IB art students, they understand that that they their impact is not just creating a painting and then hanging it on the wall, but the impact of that artwork with the outer world in general. So that kind of is like, you know, just a little bit of a summary around it. Yeah. We know that in any DP course, you have the the choice of being a standard level or a higher level. So the standard level course, the artists are doing three components of it. Um, they are doing art inquiry portfolio, which is also the higher level course. So, like, you know, both of the uh standard level and higher level, they both are doing art inquiries portfolio. In this portfolio, they have uh to write down 15 screens. Now, in the past, artists would have like artist journals. You do have the option of having an artist journal and take a picture of it and convert that into a screen. You can handwrite it or type it. Normally, students of today like typing better than writing, but again, it's a choice. So 15 screens with a maximum of 3,000 words, so which would be around like 250 words per page. So art making inquiries portfolio is like you are investigating different art forms, art genres, artist movements, and you're making different inquiries about the medias and all that. So that's number one. Number two, there is a thing which is in IB terms known as resolved artwork. In simpler words, simple finished artworks. But in IB terminology, it's known as resolved artworks, like when a student feels that he's completely done with an artwork, right?

Jon Peterson 4:08

Thanks for clarifying that because I saw the word resolved when I was looking at the subject brief, and I go, okay, that's good to know what resolved means you you think you're done, right?

Abeera Atique 4:17

Okay. So and and then the thing is that because IB is constantly telling and encouraging the students to communicate and connect. So what happens, like you make an artwork, and then you decide uh you have a conversation, a dialogue with the community members, your teachers, your school, and then you come up with like, oh, you know, I could do this better, or I could make that change, and you know, I develop I can develop this in a different manner, whatever. So that is why, like, there's a lot of going back and forth, there's a lot of reflection and a lot of dialogue. So that is why they call it resolved artwork. Like that when you fully think that, okay, you know, now you're done. This is the artwork which is finished. So the standard level students, uh, they would produce five finished artworks or resolved artworks, and then the higher level students, what they are going to do, they're gonna make a body of coherent artworks. Then they will select the best five out of those. So they will be submitting five, but they will be choosing from a minimum of eight uh and five. And not only that, they would also be required to write down a rationale for why they chose those five artworks and why do they think that they should be in the exhibition, uh the final exhibition. So the rationale is also marked, so that is for the higher level students. Um the other thing is which is like fabulously interesting, is the artist project for higher level students. The artist project is based, it's it's an amazing, like you know, I'm an artist by profession. So whenever I have to go into a gallery, I need to propose, give them a proposal and then show them the type of works I want to do. So IB is making them prepared for the real world situation. Well, how are you going to talk to the galleries? How are you gonna go to the museums? How would you have your artwork displayed in this park or a jury'd artwork? How is it gonna look like? So the students they are going to submit a proposal and they have a total of 12 screens of that artist project. The first three screens should be about what is your proposal about. Um, then you're going to situate your artwork. Situate is a is a term which means like how would you display your artwork in your current community, in your current surroundings? Because art is so different. Like I just want to give one example here. Like, for example, let's say the color white is used for bridal dresses in this part of the world. But if you go to India, white is a color which is only worn by a woman who's lost her husband, who's a widow. So the the perception of the color white in this part of the world and that part of the world will be totally different, right? So situating an artwork means like how would people perceive that artwork in the States and how would the same artwork displayed elsewhere have a different reaction from the audience? So you so as an artist, the students are constantly analyzing how they are connecting to the outer world through their art. And then after that dialogue, they write down a reflection. And what this is what I love about IB, they create this critical thinking that what you might have thought like is a happy moment might not be perceived by the audience as a happy moment uh when they're viewing your artwork. So what you're what the art is trying to say and what the audience is perceiving can be two separate things. And this is a very fine line when we go to even exhibition. So these students who come from the IB world, they and I've been teaching for IB for like 20 years and I have a passion for it. They always come back and tell me, Mr. Bira, university was a piece of cake. We could easily talk about our artwork, we could easily uh dialogue with the artists and the art uh world in general.

Jon Peterson 7:49

So, what's your favorite thing about teaching the course? I can totally hear in your voice the enthusiasm that you have for it. Uh, what's your favorite thing about teaching it?

Abeera Atique 7:57

What I love about this course is every artist is individual. Art classes for the IB Visual Arts is not a class, it's a studio. So it's really open for the students. They can come in anytime. Obviously, there is a fixed schedule, but you know, they can come in anytime after school hours. I always have like art nights where we paint the whole night through and it's so much fun. It brings the individuality of every single child separately. The traditional way of teaching is different, right? So students come up with their ideas, they collaborate. So the the collaboration part, the communication part, it what I absolutely love as a teacher is like I have a bunch of students who are from different parts of the world, all coming in from different backgrounds, but every single one is doing a different type of an artwork. So within the same classroom, it's not like everybody's doing the same watercolors. Everybody's working on something different and they're learning different techniques while they're working together.

Jon Peterson 8:51

Yeah, this is a you know, I knew it would be a unique course because you can't sit down and take a written exam, you know, for a visual arts.

Abeera Atique 9:00

That is actually one of the the highlights of it that you do not have to sit down on a written exam. And one of the things which the students need to know is that they finish their IB art curriculum by like the curriculum is done in February, but in April they have their exhibition and then they're done with it. So then from April to May, they can actually prepare for the actual examinations. So the art is out of the way, and then they can focus on the other five examinations, which they have to actually sit in.

Jon Peterson 9:27

Oh, great. Yeah, that's kind of a cool benefit, isn't it? Some of this is done internally as in with the teacher and the student together, but uh, how are these pieces? Because they take all shapes and sizes, as you said. How are these pieces uh shared with outside examiners?

Abeera Atique 9:40

Oh, that is a so everything is digital. You're submitting your digital pictures of your artwork onto IBIS. Every student is submitting five finished artworks, like a picture of that. Now, sometimes when there's a sculpture and you want to focus on this one part, so IB allows you to submit like two supporting documents, which means like you can put a close-up of your artwork, whether it's a sculpture or 2D, 3D. That's also one of the other things is like students have the option to choose from a variety of medias. Not everything has to be 2D, not everything has to be 3D. It could be 2D, 3D photography, cinematography, oil painting, watercolor, charcoal, like you name it, they can do it. Okay. So they have that individualism, and but everything is submitted through pictures, even like the artist journal, which uh are uh this the students they write, they are converted into screens. So whether it's handwritten or typed, they're converted into screens, and each screen would have a good chunk of visual images of the process or whatever the the student wants to show, along with the written context of what they're trying to show.

Jon Peterson 10:43

Okay, yeah. So in other words, if it's a sculpture and you'd like to do a walk around of it, that's you could conceivably send a video of the of a walk around so you get to all the dimensions, or you can go up close and look at texture, that kind of thing.

Abeera Atique 10:56

Yes, and and the the the limit is three minutes. So you can cover up your entire thing for the three minutes for the artist projects. Normally it is a sculpture, it doesn't have to be, but no, and it could be a last large um mural-sized artwork. But the students, the way they do it, they actually start the video from the surrounding and then bring the camera towards where the actual police is located. So that gives the examiner an idea that how does it uh relate to the situation or the community.

Jon Peterson 11:24

Yeah, how is it placed? Yeah, this is this is wonderful. I'm sure people will be excited to uh learn more about the course and to take it. Why don't you give us a few uh final thoughts, just your final impressions uh holistically, talk uh for a little bit about the course and then we'll wrap it up?

Abeera Atique 11:39

IB is actually looking for the students to uh show evidence of seven things, and this is what if students understand that it would be easier. So I'll mention those seven things. Number one is curation. How are you gonna curate your artwork? Number two is investigation. How are you investigating what you're producing? Um, are you investigating an art movement, an artist or a painting or a sculpture in particular? Then how are you generating your ideas? So generate is like a really important thing. Then after you've generated, after the dialogue, after the critical feedback, um, reviews, how are you refining your artwork? So refine is another term. Then after refining your artwork, how do you actually say that, okay, now this is my resolved artwork based off all the things which I've got, this is my resolved artwork. After that, how am I going to situate? Meaning placing my artwork in a gallery setting, a community setting, how does it look like that? And then synthesizing that, okay, I went through this experience, I got this feedback, and moving forward, I'm going to do this. These students are so ready to do their art exhibition as soon as they graduate. Literally, as soon as they graduate, they can go to any gallery because by that time they've they have captured so much confidence in being able to communicate and analyzing the work of other artists that with that quantum knowledge and back and forth within the same classroom, like somebody might be studying Renaissance and somebody might be studying Impressionism and somebody might be studying pop art within the same class, and there's a constant dialogue. So you're learning so much at the same time that it's just fabulous. And as art teachers, this is amazing because you are looking at different talents coming from different parts of the world. IB is truly international, right? So despite the fact that I am in Canada, but yet I have students from Nigeria, from Ukraine, from Russia, from China, from Taiwan, like I get I learned so much about different cultures and what art looks like in that culture and how that translates into a country over here. And you know, all that. So it's like these connections which you make, it's fabulous. It is really amazing. Um, I would strongly, strongly encourage students who want to take visual arts. They don't have to be professional artists, but art is something which they can use, even if they're going to be doctors, they will still need to draw the dry germs, right? They will still need to study the human anatomy, draw the human anatomy. So it comes in handy. It is integrated with all other curriculums, whether it's math, science, physics. There is some part which is related to art and it benefits them in every way uh in the university. And a lot of testimonies from my students, they say, Mr. Biro, university is a piece of cake. I can easily make those connections. So I strongly recommend that even if you don't want to be a professional artist, try it out.

Jon Peterson 14:27

Yeah, great. Well, thanks, Sabira. That is uh wonderful summary, and uh, like I said before, your enthusiasm, I'm sure it's encouraging me. I wish I was taking the course, so I learned a lot. All right, thanks.