Art, Zombies, and Space Exploration: Creative Approaches to Teaching and Learning
Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall teachers get creative and bring their lessons to life.
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Sitting in math class on a sunny Tuesday in May, a group of students is anything but checked out. That could have something to do with the fact that optical illusions are on the agenda for today’s class.
After a 15-minute lesson reviewing some basics of stark contrast and parallel-line illusions, math teacher Karen Sokolow dumps rulers, markers, and graph paper on the tables and instructs the class of eight to make their own optical illusions.
With smiles on their faces, the students get right to work. Some draw the outlines of opposing faces that reveal the illusion of a vase in the negative space. The students at senior Maddie Colman’s table are carefully drawing parallel lines that, when contrasted with transverse lines and shapes crossing them, appear to narrow at one end. As an artist, Colman seems especially enthused by a project that fuses mathematics with her passion: art. It was this class – “Survey of Advanced Topics in Mathematics: History, Philosophy and Art” – that introduced her to the possibility of the subjects being related.
“I took this class, and we did a whole unit about art and aesthetics – talking about the math of beauty, the golden ratio,” she says. “It was super interesting because there are a lot of ways they intersect.”
Colman’s “aha!” about art and math is precisely how Sokolow, who was an artist before becoming a math teacher, defines creativity. Academic subjects are more fluid than isolated and should not be viewed in silos. It’s those connections, like branches on a tree she says, that allow students to work through difficult skills and grasp subjects that may not immediately hold interest for them. Sokolow collaborated with art department chair Jamie Palmer Keating on the optical illusions project. Palmer Keating joined Sokolow’s math class to teach about the golden ratio in the context of art history and then demonstrated how the students could superimpose an image of the golden ratio on top of their own images so they could extend their work in Sokolow’s class. “When I sit down and try to design these creative lesson plans,” Sokolow says, “I work from the gaps, from places where it’s not easy, and I try to fill those in.”
After a 15-minute lesson reviewing some basics of stark contrast and parallel-line illusions, math teacher Karen Sokolow dumps rulers, markers, and graph paper on the tables and instructs the class of eight to make their own optical illusions.
With smiles on their faces, the students get right to work. Some draw the outlines of opposing faces that reveal the illusion of a vase in the negative space. The students at senior Maddie Colman’s table are carefully drawing parallel lines that, when contrasted with transverse lines and shapes crossing them, appear to narrow at one end. As an artist, Colman seems especially enthused by a project that fuses mathematics with her passion: art. It was this class – “Survey of Advanced Topics in Mathematics: History, Philosophy and Art” – that introduced her to the possibility of the subjects being related.
“I took this class, and we did a whole unit about art and aesthetics – talking about the math of beauty, the golden ratio,” she says. “It was super interesting because there are a lot of ways they intersect.”
Colman’s “aha!” about art and math is precisely how Sokolow, who was an artist before becoming a math teacher, defines creativity. Academic subjects are more fluid than isolated and should not be viewed in silos. It’s those connections, like branches on a tree she says, that allow students to work through difficult skills and grasp subjects that may not immediately hold interest for them. Sokolow collaborated with art department chair Jamie Palmer Keating on the optical illusions project. Palmer Keating joined Sokolow’s math class to teach about the golden ratio in the context of art history and then demonstrated how the students could superimpose an image of the golden ratio on top of their own images so they could extend their work in Sokolow’s class. “When I sit down and try to design these creative lesson plans,” Sokolow says, “I work from the gaps, from places where it’s not easy, and I try to fill those in.”
Zombie Apocalypse = Exponential Equations
For Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall teachers, integrating creativity involves more than connecting seemingly disparate subjects. It’s also about making creative connections between a subject and elements of culture in which students are already interested. Like the time Sokolow taught exponential equations – which are “a little dry,” she says – by creating a zombie apocalypse. That’s right: using a website that simulates a zombie outbreak, Sokolow’s class began an infection with one person in a particular location and watched as it spread across the country. Students then changed certain variables – such as where the outbreak began or the speed of the zombies – to see how that affected the speed of infection.
“Who doesn’t love zombie movies?” Sokolow says. “Suddenly we’re right in the middle of exponential equations, and they didn’t even realize it.”
Creative teaching often means designing lessons that encourage students to leave their comfort zones. Working with Maddie Colman ’17 last year, Palmer Keating was able to get Colman to experiment with abstract paintings, instead of her preferred medium of portraiture, to create pieces “she never could have seen herself creating at the beginning of the year.”
“What we have to do as educators is not contain students within that box that they put themselves in,” Palmer Keating says. “We push them to grow in other areas where they need to develop and try to help them see the value in that work.”
For Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall teachers, integrating creativity involves more than connecting seemingly disparate subjects. It’s also about making creative connections between a subject and elements of culture in which students are already interested. Like the time Sokolow taught exponential equations – which are “a little dry,” she says – by creating a zombie apocalypse. That’s right: using a website that simulates a zombie outbreak, Sokolow’s class began an infection with one person in a particular location and watched as it spread across the country. Students then changed certain variables – such as where the outbreak began or the speed of the zombies – to see how that affected the speed of infection.
“Who doesn’t love zombie movies?” Sokolow says. “Suddenly we’re right in the middle of exponential equations, and they didn’t even realize it.”
Creative teaching often means designing lessons that encourage students to leave their comfort zones. Working with Maddie Colman ’17 last year, Palmer Keating was able to get Colman to experiment with abstract paintings, instead of her preferred medium of portraiture, to create pieces “she never could have seen herself creating at the beginning of the year.”
“What we have to do as educators is not contain students within that box that they put themselves in,” Palmer Keating says. “We push them to grow in other areas where they need to develop and try to help them see the value in that work.”
Next Stop, Mars
There’s an interesting observation from the most creative CH-CH classrooms: teachers regularly get out of the way. In a creative classroom, the teacher is not always the center. Many times, students are. Teachers hold certain expertise, but they serve as facilitators to learning that happens at the students’ pace and using the ways that they learn best.
An example: Most astronomy teachers have a standard lecture to teach the names and characteristics of the planets in our solar system.
Not Claudine Kavanagh.
“It reads like a telephone book of facts,” she says. “It’s the most boring thing.”
So instead, the astronomy and environmental science teacher sends groups of students on a virtual mission to the different planets. They research the conditions of their target planet, what the surface looks like, and the success or failure of past missions. Then they use recycled materials to build a model of the vehicle that will explore their planet. In the process of researching their planets and seeing the other groups’ projects, students learn as much as or more than they would in any one-way lecture.
In fact, Kavanagh says she pretty much takes a back seat. “I’ve got the content knowledge,” she says, “but my job isn’t to know stuff. My job is to help emergent learners realize new things in new ways.”
There’s an interesting observation from the most creative CH-CH classrooms: teachers regularly get out of the way. In a creative classroom, the teacher is not always the center. Many times, students are. Teachers hold certain expertise, but they serve as facilitators to learning that happens at the students’ pace and using the ways that they learn best.
An example: Most astronomy teachers have a standard lecture to teach the names and characteristics of the planets in our solar system.
Not Claudine Kavanagh.
“It reads like a telephone book of facts,” she says. “It’s the most boring thing.”
So instead, the astronomy and environmental science teacher sends groups of students on a virtual mission to the different planets. They research the conditions of their target planet, what the surface looks like, and the success or failure of past missions. Then they use recycled materials to build a model of the vehicle that will explore their planet. In the process of researching their planets and seeing the other groups’ projects, students learn as much as or more than they would in any one-way lecture.
In fact, Kavanagh says she pretty much takes a back seat. “I’ve got the content knowledge,” she says, “but my job isn’t to know stuff. My job is to help emergent learners realize new things in new ways.”
Students Take the Lead
Ben Riggs, English teacher and Director of 11th and 12th Grade Programs, had a mission here on earth for his American Literature students: he wanted them to gain the ability to generate and sustain robust academic conversations without the assistance of a teacher. While students were accustomed to taking part in lengthy academic conversations at CH-CH, the ability to drive such conversations themselves will “allow them to hit the ground running in a college classroom,” said Riggs.
Throughout the year, Riggs’s class took part in games and activities, even learning nonverbal gestures, all designed to sharpen conversational skills. A few of the skills included learning how to build upon someone’s point of view, support claims with evidence, and synthesize talking points into a coherent whole.
Throughout the process, students began to learn from each other as much as they learned from the material they were discussing. “Sometimes someone agrees with your point of view, and other times they have a completely different take on it,” said Jackson McGovern ’18. “It leads us into a really deep conversation that helps with the engagement and understanding of the class.”
Riggs’s class ended the unit with a 60-minute conversation on the “American Dream” as seen through Death of a Salesman and student-selected works.
Ben Riggs, English teacher and Director of 11th and 12th Grade Programs, had a mission here on earth for his American Literature students: he wanted them to gain the ability to generate and sustain robust academic conversations without the assistance of a teacher. While students were accustomed to taking part in lengthy academic conversations at CH-CH, the ability to drive such conversations themselves will “allow them to hit the ground running in a college classroom,” said Riggs.
Throughout the year, Riggs’s class took part in games and activities, even learning nonverbal gestures, all designed to sharpen conversational skills. A few of the skills included learning how to build upon someone’s point of view, support claims with evidence, and synthesize talking points into a coherent whole.
Throughout the process, students began to learn from each other as much as they learned from the material they were discussing. “Sometimes someone agrees with your point of view, and other times they have a completely different take on it,” said Jackson McGovern ’18. “It leads us into a really deep conversation that helps with the engagement and understanding of the class.”
Riggs’s class ended the unit with a 60-minute conversation on the “American Dream” as seen through Death of a Salesman and student-selected works.
Graded by a Jury of Your Peers
How do we assess whether students are absorbing the right information? That they’re getting it?
Traditional education relies almost solely on testing to assess students’ comprehension. But tests typically serve one way of learning. CH-CH teachers employ a multiple intelligences (MI) framework for human understanding that acknowledges that people are intelligent in no fewer than nine ways: mathematical/logical, verbal/linguistic, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, naturalist, and existential.
In the MI philosophy, testing is not the only vehicle for assessing student progress in a subject. For instance, when reviewing her students’ interplanetary missions, Claudine Kavanagh is able to assess whether they know the names and characteristics of the planets and whether they are able to apply that information to their virtual mission. Karen Sokolow assessed her math students’ comprehension of polynomials by having them write children’s books explaining the concept to young children, which they then read to some of the children whose families live on campus.
And in Colin Meiselman’s criminal justice class – a new course offered – students set out to answer a central question: Why do we in the United States incarcerate more people than anyone else in the world? After reviewing some basic legal precedents and criminal justice history, Meiselman had students put their learning into practice by staging a mock trial. There was a defense team, a team of prosecutors, and a jury that determined which team had presented its case more convincingly.
“By engaging in simulations like a mock trial, while students might not even realize what skills they’re building, they’re building critical skills that will be fundamental not only to the higher education they might receive in college but also in the real-life situations along the way,” he says.
How do we assess whether students are absorbing the right information? That they’re getting it?
Traditional education relies almost solely on testing to assess students’ comprehension. But tests typically serve one way of learning. CH-CH teachers employ a multiple intelligences (MI) framework for human understanding that acknowledges that people are intelligent in no fewer than nine ways: mathematical/logical, verbal/linguistic, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, naturalist, and existential.
In the MI philosophy, testing is not the only vehicle for assessing student progress in a subject. For instance, when reviewing her students’ interplanetary missions, Claudine Kavanagh is able to assess whether they know the names and characteristics of the planets and whether they are able to apply that information to their virtual mission. Karen Sokolow assessed her math students’ comprehension of polynomials by having them write children’s books explaining the concept to young children, which they then read to some of the children whose families live on campus.
And in Colin Meiselman’s criminal justice class – a new course offered – students set out to answer a central question: Why do we in the United States incarcerate more people than anyone else in the world? After reviewing some basic legal precedents and criminal justice history, Meiselman had students put their learning into practice by staging a mock trial. There was a defense team, a team of prosecutors, and a jury that determined which team had presented its case more convincingly.
“By engaging in simulations like a mock trial, while students might not even realize what skills they’re building, they’re building critical skills that will be fundamental not only to the higher education they might receive in college but also in the real-life situations along the way,” he says.
Students Know Themselves
There’s a common refrain that comes from all CH-CH teachers: they feel at home in an academic community that values creative expression and offers them the freedom and flexibility to innovate in the classroom.
That freedom and flexibility centers around the CH-CH commitment to differentiated learning in an MI framework, which allows teachers to facilitate their classrooms and pedagogy such that each student can learn the way he or she is wired, as well as identify how he or she learns best.
When she arrived at CH-CH eight years ago to teach a naturally kinesthetic subject like art, Palmer Keating asked her students how they learned best as she began working with them in the classroom. Palmer Keating says, “I wanted students to take ownership of their education by having them inform me of their MI strengths, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to help push them in other areas of their art education using MI theory. For example, if they knew they were linguistically strong, I encouraged them to use poetry or words in their work as an entry point, but in later projects they would have to use something with a naturalist or mathematical approach. In this way they could access what I was asking them to do using their own interests, find success, and then be willing to try a different, sometimes harder approach in future work.”
Sokolow finds that, in not being constrained by a state testing system, she doesn’t have to teach math in isolation from her students’ other subjects. “I love that,” she says. “I love that so much.”
For Kavanagh, 75-minute class periods allow for “deep engagement” with the material, while the school’s 42 acres of woodlands, ponds, brooks, and fields allow her to “teach the campus” with star-gazing, nature walks, and in-depth study of the land’s environmental history.
All of this results in more creative classrooms – and more creative students. Graduates are leaving CH-CH with not just the academic knowledge to succeed in college and careers, but with an understanding of themselves, a love of learning, and the ability to take a creative approach to anything they encounter.
There’s a common refrain that comes from all CH-CH teachers: they feel at home in an academic community that values creative expression and offers them the freedom and flexibility to innovate in the classroom.
That freedom and flexibility centers around the CH-CH commitment to differentiated learning in an MI framework, which allows teachers to facilitate their classrooms and pedagogy such that each student can learn the way he or she is wired, as well as identify how he or she learns best.
When she arrived at CH-CH eight years ago to teach a naturally kinesthetic subject like art, Palmer Keating asked her students how they learned best as she began working with them in the classroom. Palmer Keating says, “I wanted students to take ownership of their education by having them inform me of their MI strengths, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to help push them in other areas of their art education using MI theory. For example, if they knew they were linguistically strong, I encouraged them to use poetry or words in their work as an entry point, but in later projects they would have to use something with a naturalist or mathematical approach. In this way they could access what I was asking them to do using their own interests, find success, and then be willing to try a different, sometimes harder approach in future work.”
Sokolow finds that, in not being constrained by a state testing system, she doesn’t have to teach math in isolation from her students’ other subjects. “I love that,” she says. “I love that so much.”
For Kavanagh, 75-minute class periods allow for “deep engagement” with the material, while the school’s 42 acres of woodlands, ponds, brooks, and fields allow her to “teach the campus” with star-gazing, nature walks, and in-depth study of the land’s environmental history.
All of this results in more creative classrooms – and more creative students. Graduates are leaving CH-CH with not just the academic knowledge to succeed in college and careers, but with an understanding of themselves, a love of learning, and the ability to take a creative approach to anything they encounter.
Chapel Hill - Chauncy Hall
Located 10 miles from Boston, Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall (CH-CH) is a private, college preparatory day and boarding school for grades 7-12/PG. CH-CH cultivates intellectual courage, creative ambition, and unwavering empathy that drives students to achieve their best.
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