A course combining art and math at Oakridge Secondary School is carrying on, even through COVID-19.
The class was originally conceived as a grade 9 course by math teacher, Jeni Van Kesteren and art teacher, Laura Briscoe.
“I think we had a commonality in that we were both noticing in our classrooms that there were students who had a little bit of anxiety around the subject of math,” said Van Kesteren. “And some students were just able to communicate their understanding in a different way. And I think many were looking for that visual connection to the concepts and this program just seemed to be a really great way of combining those ideas together.”
Although the two subjects seemingly oppose one another, Briscoe said that her and Van Kesteren found that making connections between the subjects was helping students gain a better understanding of both art and math.
“When you’re having to design a math question for a peer, you have to have another level of understanding of that,” she said. “And in, art where we traditionally share our work with others, and we explain our work. They’re now not just explaining their visual art concepts, but they’re also explaining their math.”
Students spend half the day together, creating various visual projects to help them make mathematical connections. They are able to acquire both a math credit and an art credit by taking the course.
“We get them for half of a day and as a result of that extra time together and that block of time together are able to to explore and accomplish some amazing things,” said Van Kesteren.
Briscoe and Van Kesteren no longer teach Art of Math, but it’s still going strong at Oakridge with a two new teachers in the lead roles.
What does a class look like?
Van Kesteren said it’s hard to describe a typical day in class because every day is so unique.
“We had students in the dance studio working on math questions up on whiteboards, we’ve used the atrium for projects like building ramps, we’ve gone to the cafeteria,” she said. “So really a typical day is show up and then go from there.”
Briscoe further added the flexibility of the program, which is driven mostly by students’ needs, made it easy to adjust to COVID-19.
“We could pivot on our initial plan,” she said. “It might have been to do a lesson between the two of the art and math, but we can then focus in on ‘Okay, we need to take more time on math today.’ So it gave us that flexibility.”
Students use creative visual projects to interpret complex math problems. For example, students might use rules of linear patterning to create a piece of art, which would then be observed by other students who would try to determine which rule they used.
Briscoe said this approach is helpful to anyone, even if math and art are not their strong suits.
“I learned a lot about linear patterns just by being in the same space and approaching it with a different lens,” said the art teacher.
She described how student creativity helped push the linear patterns project beyond the curriculum. One student introduced the idea of decreasing linear patterns by creating an art work based on Pac Man, while another helped introduce non-linear patterns by drawing a city skyline.
“So it started with with for us with those linear patterns that were increasing, but the students were able to take it beyond what we initially had planned,” said Briscoe.
Student success
Student response to the program has been incredibly positive, according to both Briscoe and Van Kesteren.
“So we had very positive feedback from students in terms of meeting their learning styles and being able to take their time to go to go through the math at a pace in a way that made sense to them,” said Van Kesteren.
Neither teacher expected the course to go beyond grade 9, but with the support from students and parents alike, Art of Math is now also available as a grade 10 course for students at Oakridge Secondary.
Briscoe shared a story about one student who was able to apply the skills he learned in Art of Math to his EQAO test.
“And he said, ‘wow, we actually did work this year.’ And he said, ‘I looked at a question. And I realized that was just my shattered image,'” retold Briscoe.
Students that had once felt anxiety about math were now teaching younger grades about what they were learning in Art of Math.
“I think the opportunity to really make those connections to the learning in a way that made sense to them, allowed them to express their learning even on things like the EQAO and in traditional math assessments with much more confidence,” said Briscoe.
Art of Math continues to be available for students at Oakridge Secondary, but parents looking to introduce these concepts at home can find curriculums starting in kindergarten on the Art of Math website.
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