2013 IIME REPORTCountry [ Canada ]School[ Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School ] Teacher [ Anura Bellana ] grade (9-12) student number (12)JP School [ Tagara Metropolitan High School ] Teacher [ Harumi Nagashima ]# Subjects, Activities and Times of the lessons
Subject
Conception of the lesson
・Creative process, planning in collaboration (not only with the Japanese students
Visual art
but also with our own group)・Creative process: producing in collaboration (not only with the Japanese students
Visual art
but also with our own group)
Visual art

・Creative process, reflecting in conversation and writing

Times4 weeks
3-4weeks
2-3 days# Theme and Message of the mural
Theme

Our Cultural Influences on the environment

Message・Culture and environment are interdependent
・This dependency must be examined and as well respected# Effects and the Problems
Effects your students have gained・Some understanding of collaborative image making
・ Some understanding of cross-cultural and global
concerns
・An understanding of the creative process

Points for further improvement
・ Devise better means of improved collaboration
between two participating schools
・Use still images and videos to communicate when timedifferences would not allow for real time communication
・ Use images when language becomes a barrier forcommunication# Have you made your activity open in your school or in your local area? How was their reaction or reputation?

PR you did inside/out of your school・Made school-wide announcements on the PA system
・ Invited other students and staff to view work inprogress

Reaction/reputation from around・Made board wide announcements on the school board
website・Contacted and gave interviews to local newspaper

# Flow of the Activity
ContentMonthIntroduction

SEPT.

ResearchCompositionPainting

NOVNOV-DEC

JAN-FEB

Appreciation

FEB

What you did･Intro video
・Photographs
・Brainstorming sessions
・Brainstorming video

Your students attitude/reflection･ Students were excited about theprospects of a dialogue between us andour partner school

EnvironmentCulture

・Collected news articles
・Referred to internet

・Learned about environmental issues
related to Canada and the global
community

Environmentand Culture

・Discussed partner school’s
composition･ Began sketching various
compositional ideas

・Came up with various compositionalideas
・My students found it bit difficult towork without any images from ourpartner school

Environmentand Culture･ Sketching and painting
sessions
・Reflected on the process

・ My students were very excited toreceive the painting from our partners
school and began the painting processright away
・ Did not have sufficient time toappreciate the mural – we only showed
it at our school for two days

・Exhibited mural in the foyerof school
・ Calledin
community
newspaper

Subject

Environment
and Culture

Environmentand Culture# Aim of the Lessons and Result
Aim: Rank A to C in order you put emphasis on (A: very much/ B: much / C: not so much)
Result: Rank 5 to 1 (5: very effective / 4: effective / 3: so- so / 2: not so effective / 1: not effective at all)

Expected Effect

Aim

ResultUnderstanding our owncultures

B

4

Understanding theother’s cultures

Communication ability
In the class/with partners

IT skills

Creating friendshipIn the class/with partners

A3

A

2

C3

A

3

How your students have reached it
・Visual research; they referred to many current media sources fortheir research・Once the email communication started with our partner school mystudents furthered their understanding of Japanese culture by doing
more internet based research・I would have preferred this to be more of direct learning experiencefrom student to student
・I wanted my group of students to communicate with their Japanesecounterparts and get to know their culture and their environments
first hand. This was somewhat hampered by delayed responses andnot having the means of direct communication between students.
・Not so much, as they are quite competent already・There were friendships created amongst the students that workedon the mural together at our own school. I wish this kind of collegiality
could have been extended to our Japanese partners at least at avirtual level.

Collaboration
In the class/with partners

Attitude in learning

Expression ability

Appreciation abilityABAA

2・The collaborations were mostly word based through exchange ofemails. I think this could have been better with more exchanges ofphotographs, videos and hand drawn sketches. This kind of visualcommunications would sure to have helped with the language
imposed barriers.

5・I was really encouraged by the students’ attitude toward learningthat took place during this project. They arrived on time and left lateand enjoyed being engaged in the process. The students were alsoable to solve many aesthetic and interpersonal problems that
occurred during the process by themselves.
・They had daily reflective conversations about the mural, its theme
and the composition.

5・They planned the mural as a group, not only considering the view
points of our Japanese partners’ but also each others. This
eventually grew into a mosaic of individual and small groupexpressions.

4・We showed the mural in the front foyer of our school for two days.
Students that worked on the mural interacted with other peers andschool staff by conversing about the theme and the process ofpainting the murals. They also interacted with the lager community bygiving interviews to the local newspaper.

Please submit to jam@artmile.jp. Thank you for your cooperation.