What went well? What did you learn?
Choice!
Choice to choose a hamburger with cheese or no cheese…choice to choose a gas guzzling monster truck or a plastic Prius. Choice is what America is all about and it becomes relevant in the art classroom as well. Right away we as teachers realized that choice was something we needed to consider if our unit was going to be a success. Our initial idea was to have them create a traditional zoo, with traditional animals. That was instantly shattered when we saw their first sketches and their scratch art. They wanted to be able to let their imaginations run wild and create imaginary creatures. We recognized this and made the necessary changes to the unit plan. By allowing choice and freedom we empowered them and they were more engaged throughout the semester. This taught me to keep an open-mind and not get frustrated if things changed (especially a lesson plan you spent five hours on).
Provide a wide variety of materials!
What do all artists need to create an effective piece of artwork, besides an idea and a functioning hand/foot? Materials! The same goes for elementary art. The more materials we provided the more we were able to reach out to different learning styles and by giving the students choice, they were able to determine if the materials were a good fit for their ideas or not. Some of the materials we provided like pipe cleaners and puffballs were a bit childish, but the students utilized them in an effective and creative way. Feathers allowed for students to portray that their creature could fly whereas the plain clay was harder for them to express those ideas. Through all of these lessons I was able to learn that teachers need to supply a wide variety of materials to reach out to all different learning styles. This will be difficult as class sizes become larger and I’m dealing with much more that 18 kids, but the world is abundant with many materials that are free!
Exploration and persistence!
One cannot truly be born into this world being the holder of all knowledge and know everything as if they were the creator. One must explore ideas and pursue them through failure and exploration. One does not simply learn by having success after success. It was important for me to emphasize this throughout the semester. Students would often get down on themselves and at times gave up, but I was there to keep encouraging them to not give up. As a youngster, it is hard to have this mentality in a society that looks down upon failures. But I believe one does not become good at anything without failure. I learned to engage and persist with the students who become increasingly frustrated due to their failures. This taught me to be conscience of their age and what is going on with them. Many of them considered “good art” to be art that was real whereas I disagree. Good art explores an idea/concept to the end and in the end it strengthens the individual in many aspects (emotional, spiritual, skill-wise, etc.) of life. By exploring, students realized they could come up with their own ideas and solve their own problems.
The importance of planning!
But teacher why do I need to plan, art doesn’t need planning! Well child you are wrong and if you want to be taken seriously as an artist, you need to plan and able to justify your decision making. Whether you’re planning the materials or planning to have no plan and create conceptual artwork, there’s a purpose for a plan. I started to realize this as the semester went on. I do not like planning but the more I started to plan and/or take notes of students, the more comfortable I felt in the classroom. Not only is a lesson plan effective but also it helps one formulate ideas and then build upon those ideas. Once the ideas are there then one can plan on how to implement them into the lesson. However what I learned is that plans change, just like ideas or beliefs. One important learning process for me was to not get down if a plan didn’t work or if it went in a completely different direction.
What would you do differently?
One can always improve as the saying goes. That applies to our unit as well. First I would get to know my students better through a range of pre assessments and classroom discussions. Figure out what their interests are, their learning styles, cognitive levels and then try to generate a unit plan around those findings instead of inferring what they like. I realize art is meant to challenge, but in this case we only had a limited amount of time to work with them, so the more enjoyable and relatable the unit is the more they are engaged and persisting in the unit. Once I know my students, then I can differentiate the lesson for each learner. For instance in our unit, we had students who worked fast and who worked slower. For the fast students I would allow them to work larger whereas the slow students I would encourage them to work smaller. This would be accomplished by having boxes varying in size.
Another thing I would show through the use of technology is a much wider range of artwork. We mainly showed the students realistic/representational artworks of animals. To truly capture all students there needed to be a wide variety. From abstract to architectural forms, students would be shown a variety of images throughout the semester. This would allow them to make connections and realize not all art needs to look like actual things. Showing artwork from early aged individuals to their artwork currently (for example: Salvador Dali's work as a kid to his end work) would help students see artistic progression and alleviate some frustrations. When one is able to see that progression, then one is able to see that it took years upon years to reach the level where they are at now.
One thing I need to continue to work on is my management skills and developing a classroom routine where the students know what needs to be done and what is proper behavior. This is accomplished through practice and developing relationships with students. My philosophy of art teaching has somewhat maintained the same premise and that is to provide the students with choice, allow for experimentation and to not kill an idea (I’ve highlighted on the first two previously but as far as not killing an idea, I will expand). It is important to listen to student’s requests and to hear them out. Give them the ability to pursue an idea and not be afraid to say ok, go with it. This is important and I’m not sure how to pursue this especially if the idea arises with two weeks left of class.
In the end, this was by far the greatest learning experience as far as art teaching and I look forward to student teaching,
Choice!
Choice to choose a hamburger with cheese or no cheese…choice to choose a gas guzzling monster truck or a plastic Prius. Choice is what America is all about and it becomes relevant in the art classroom as well. Right away we as teachers realized that choice was something we needed to consider if our unit was going to be a success. Our initial idea was to have them create a traditional zoo, with traditional animals. That was instantly shattered when we saw their first sketches and their scratch art. They wanted to be able to let their imaginations run wild and create imaginary creatures. We recognized this and made the necessary changes to the unit plan. By allowing choice and freedom we empowered them and they were more engaged throughout the semester. This taught me to keep an open-mind and not get frustrated if things changed (especially a lesson plan you spent five hours on).
Provide a wide variety of materials!
What do all artists need to create an effective piece of artwork, besides an idea and a functioning hand/foot? Materials! The same goes for elementary art. The more materials we provided the more we were able to reach out to different learning styles and by giving the students choice, they were able to determine if the materials were a good fit for their ideas or not. Some of the materials we provided like pipe cleaners and puffballs were a bit childish, but the students utilized them in an effective and creative way. Feathers allowed for students to portray that their creature could fly whereas the plain clay was harder for them to express those ideas. Through all of these lessons I was able to learn that teachers need to supply a wide variety of materials to reach out to all different learning styles. This will be difficult as class sizes become larger and I’m dealing with much more that 18 kids, but the world is abundant with many materials that are free!
Exploration and persistence!
One cannot truly be born into this world being the holder of all knowledge and know everything as if they were the creator. One must explore ideas and pursue them through failure and exploration. One does not simply learn by having success after success. It was important for me to emphasize this throughout the semester. Students would often get down on themselves and at times gave up, but I was there to keep encouraging them to not give up. As a youngster, it is hard to have this mentality in a society that looks down upon failures. But I believe one does not become good at anything without failure. I learned to engage and persist with the students who become increasingly frustrated due to their failures. This taught me to be conscience of their age and what is going on with them. Many of them considered “good art” to be art that was real whereas I disagree. Good art explores an idea/concept to the end and in the end it strengthens the individual in many aspects (emotional, spiritual, skill-wise, etc.) of life. By exploring, students realized they could come up with their own ideas and solve their own problems.
The importance of planning!
But teacher why do I need to plan, art doesn’t need planning! Well child you are wrong and if you want to be taken seriously as an artist, you need to plan and able to justify your decision making. Whether you’re planning the materials or planning to have no plan and create conceptual artwork, there’s a purpose for a plan. I started to realize this as the semester went on. I do not like planning but the more I started to plan and/or take notes of students, the more comfortable I felt in the classroom. Not only is a lesson plan effective but also it helps one formulate ideas and then build upon those ideas. Once the ideas are there then one can plan on how to implement them into the lesson. However what I learned is that plans change, just like ideas or beliefs. One important learning process for me was to not get down if a plan didn’t work or if it went in a completely different direction.
What would you do differently?
One can always improve as the saying goes. That applies to our unit as well. First I would get to know my students better through a range of pre assessments and classroom discussions. Figure out what their interests are, their learning styles, cognitive levels and then try to generate a unit plan around those findings instead of inferring what they like. I realize art is meant to challenge, but in this case we only had a limited amount of time to work with them, so the more enjoyable and relatable the unit is the more they are engaged and persisting in the unit. Once I know my students, then I can differentiate the lesson for each learner. For instance in our unit, we had students who worked fast and who worked slower. For the fast students I would allow them to work larger whereas the slow students I would encourage them to work smaller. This would be accomplished by having boxes varying in size.
Another thing I would show through the use of technology is a much wider range of artwork. We mainly showed the students realistic/representational artworks of animals. To truly capture all students there needed to be a wide variety. From abstract to architectural forms, students would be shown a variety of images throughout the semester. This would allow them to make connections and realize not all art needs to look like actual things. Showing artwork from early aged individuals to their artwork currently (for example: Salvador Dali's work as a kid to his end work) would help students see artistic progression and alleviate some frustrations. When one is able to see that progression, then one is able to see that it took years upon years to reach the level where they are at now.
One thing I need to continue to work on is my management skills and developing a classroom routine where the students know what needs to be done and what is proper behavior. This is accomplished through practice and developing relationships with students. My philosophy of art teaching has somewhat maintained the same premise and that is to provide the students with choice, allow for experimentation and to not kill an idea (I’ve highlighted on the first two previously but as far as not killing an idea, I will expand). It is important to listen to student’s requests and to hear them out. Give them the ability to pursue an idea and not be afraid to say ok, go with it. This is important and I’m not sure how to pursue this especially if the idea arises with two weeks left of class.
In the end, this was by far the greatest learning experience as far as art teaching and I look forward to student teaching,