Getting Your Instruction Across

So now that we are a couple of days into the grid project, I am still having trouble getting the point across to the students that they need to be copying/following the grid exactly in order to create a duplicate image.  I have demoed each day, informed individual students, given them all viewfinders to narrow their line of sight and a good majority of the students are still not following the grid transfer process correctly.  I don't know what to do, am I expecting too much from middle school students? I don't think that I am expecting too much and I feel like I am very clear my instructions. What is a student teacher to do?! I really don't think they are doing terribly, they just aren't following the projects specific instructions.

Question # 7

So this is a topic that I know Rachel Kirby talked a lot about and it is something that the middle school that I'm at is facing, is the task and challenge of budgets and fundraising.  Rachel said had named off a couple of ways that she fund raise for her department that sounded great and I think that you had mentioned something about T-shirts to raise money (correct me if I'm wrong) but what avenues would you maybe explore for fundraising at a school with limited resources (i.e. no screen printer lol).  And, I also think it would be great to involve your students/school in fundraising for nonprofit organizations. What do you think? Have you ever raised money for a source other than your classroom/art club and if so which organizations did you choose and why?

Beginning an Art Project

Oh JOY! Today was the first day of the semester (and of my middle school experience) where I actually got to begin and teach an actual art project.  I decided to begin my students with a grid project (although rather dry and process oriented, I needed something with little choice involved in order to act as my constant for my Action Research Project).  I think, and hope, that the students will see value in this lesson and understand that it is important to practice looking at details when drawing not just drawing the symbols their mind refers them to when drawing portraiture.  We just scratched the surface today by getting our grid drawn on the photograph and the poster board, so starting Monday the students will begin filling in boxes and practicing their transferring skills. 

Testing

This week we did our first test in class, a relativity simple one on the Elements and Principles. I was just able to grade these tests and was pleased with the results.  All students received a B or higher, with most receiving an A.  It appeared that most of the students understood all concepts evenly across the board, the questions that were missed seemed rather random, aside from one specific question.  To preface the next sentence, I will defend myself by saying that I did not write the quiz, it was given to me by my mentor teacher as the test I needed to use. The question, although based on a principle and therefore a slightly more difficult concept, was missed by at least half of the students and this really threw up a red flag for me.  When seeing something like this on the test, with such a high occurrence of wrong answers, it is likely NOT a misunderstanding on the students part, but rather either a poorly worded/written question or I failed to teach this concept well enough.  I was glad that the students did well on the vast majority of the test, but it was also good to have the experience of seeing one question go particularly wrong and learn about how to reword that question or teach it a different way.

Managing Communication

Today my supervisor came in to observe me for the first time this semester and had some great tips for improving my practice.  He helped me see and better understand areas that I needed to work on, such as being in command of my class.  He suggested that I find a spot in the class and choose that to be my "podium" while I give instruction. When I'm there, the students will know that all attention should be on me and they should not be talking.  Also when I am talking and they are talking over me, I need to remember to address the disruptive students by name and not the whole class as "hey guys...".  All of these things I will take to heart and plan on implementing in my class in the next couple of days.  This classroom management thing is pretty tricky, but I appreciate all advice and input that I get from the masters around me. :)

Playing Games to Solidify Knowledge

Today we played BINGO in class to help the students go over the E&P again so that they will be better prepared for their test next week.  This activity was so fun, it took little preparation, and once kids started getting bingo's the excitement really started flowing in the class.  This was the first time, I think, that they really had some fun in class since the semester started so it was really encouraging for me and them! The best part of my day was when they were begging for more bingo ( probably because there was candy as an incentive) but none the less we all had fun and I think that this review will really helped them solidify some of the information that we have been covering over the last couple of weeks by seeing the definitions and having to verbalize the meaning as well.

Overall, from this experience, I think that educational games are a fun way to review material for a test or to wrap up a heavily vocabulary/concept laden unit.  I think this strategy would be fun for middle school students as well as high school students; any way to insert a little variety into the class is exciting for everyone.

Wrapping up With Elements and Principles

Yesterday we wrapped up the Elements and Principles unit.  I definitely think the students were ready to move on after two weeks of definitions followed by examples, as was I. However, I really did try to do a job at moving through these concepts quickly and the unit still took two weeks, and in some cases, I think that I could have spent more time explaining some of the E&P a little better.

This lesson was a good practice run for teaching the elements and principles. I would like to change the method if I taught them all again at the same time by condensing the lesson down to one week.  I don't know if this can be done effectively or if I would just be wasting my time and theirs by rushing through everything too fast. Possible solution: cover elements in one week, create a project with these and slowly incorporate the principles into lessons, this way we could get into some fun stuff earlier on. 

I am still struggling with whether or not I think teaching the elements and principles in this way is a good thing, or if it is more beneficial to just dive into projects and cover them along the way.  I see clear benefits  and possible deterrents to both methods and I think this is something that  I will need to continue to ponder in my practice.

Question #6

Short and sweet.  what would you say was the best marketing tool for yourself when you were getting interviewed at your first (or any) teaching position? What may be more helpful now, in this economy, versus when you were hired?

Exit Strategy

Today went remarkably well...gotta love sleepy "Mondays"... they girls that were being troublesome were in in-school-suspension, partly due to the referrals I wrote and, I believe, partly due to other issues.  We finally wrapped on the Elements today and will blaze through the Principles by the end of the week.  Then next week start into the good stuff!

The one thing my mentor teacher advised me on was to find a better way to wrap up the class (my exit strategy).  I thought today went rather well and I can only hope for more days like this, but my mentor wants the students to be more engaged with each other during the wrap up.  So I have been thinking of ways for them to chat and discuss questions about the E&Ps for that last few minutes before the bell rings.  I want the questions to be thought provoking and relevant to the day's discussion, but I also need them to be mulled over and responded in like three minutes. 

Question #5

This is kind of a repeat of an earlier question with a little bit of a spin/addition made to it.  So earlier I asked what you do to encourage a student who is disengaged.  You answer was great, but was targeted toward the behavior of one student.  My situation and request for help is that there are three "rough around the edges" girls in my class who are interacting with each other (in some cases from across the room) and not only not producing anything themselves, but disrupting others around them and causing them to fall behind too.  I have taken steps to try to reduce/ eliminate this behavior by pulling them aside individually and talking to them about the student/teacher relationship that I want us to have and that that is build on mutual respect.  However, if they choose to break that relationship by showing me and their fellow classmates disrespect then there will be unpleasant consequences.  I've had the pleasant/supportive talk with them and told them that I would give up some of my personal time to help them get back on track, but my question is, how long do you hold their hands and what is the turning point where you excuse them from your classroom (and send them to detention or something similar) so that they are no longer a disruption to the entire class? Keeping in mind the unit that we are doing right now is 90% me giving instruction at the front of the class, with very little time to walk around and monitor and redirect students' activity.  HELP! :)

Sincerely,
Student Teacher in Distress

(By the way, my mentor teacher has been very helpful guiding me through this path of redirection/discipline but new and fresh perspective students are always welcome.)

She only needed someone to listen...

So I had my first interaction with a "problem" student today.  There was a set of three girls that happened to get assigned seats together in the back of the room (worse luck ever!) who were , how do you say, rough around the edges and as a threesome, were not producing work.  So today I informed them that that seating arrangement was not working well for me and that I was going to assign them different seats.  One girl stayed at that table and I moved the other two closer to the front.  Both girls complained, but when I escorted the two people that were going to be taking their seats near them they both got up and began to move.  One girl grumbled but took her seat where she was suppose to  and the other one, who I'll call Brook, said that she refused to sit in her new seat and would only sit by her friend. AAHHH... I didn't know what to do with an outright defiant student, and with the rest of the class waiting for instruction, I relinquished control of this student to my mentor teacher and had my teacher pull the student aside and talk some sense into her.  The student came back into class, sat at her new assigned seat, but refused to do work for the rest of the day.  Because I was in front if the class the entire period (versus walking around as they worked independently) I didn't really have a chance to sit down with Brook and coax her to start doing her work, besides due to the circumstances of her attitude, I didn't want to kick the hornets nest, again, in front of everyone. At the end of class, each student was asked to hand in the glue stick they were using so that none were left uncapped upon leaving, and Brook and her friend left the class with a "I don't have one"...not a battle I wanted to fight at that point either.  Both of us would be hot under the collar and likely to be a bit defensive, not a productive discussion environment.

Because I had the most trouble with Brook, my mentor teach suggested that I send a note to her next class and have her called back down to talk with her one on one so that the situation didn't escalate more the next day.  This was what I really wanted to do all along, but didn't know the policies for pulling students out of class or having them come in during their lunch.  So I set up a nice, non-threatening area in our storage room (which had doors that I could close for privacy) with comfy chairs so that we could talk and she could feel safe and not in fear of punishment.  Although, she certainly had done things that deserved reprimand, I got the sense that she probably experienced enough of that from other teachers and possibly parents that I didn't think she needed it again from me. Once she got to the class, we sat down and I started to have a discussion with her, rather than a talk at.  I asked her what the deal was and if her new seating arrangement was such a big deal, what could we do to make it better? She explained that she didn't know why she reacted that way, and that it wasn't that big of a deal.  She told me that she got angry pretty easily and that her life at school and home has kind of been tough.  My heart broke for the poor girl.  I explained that sometimes when we get mad, we don't know why and that it's just a part of being a teenager, and that the key is to know how to calm down quickly and not let it ruin our day. She said she enjoyed art and that she liked to draw (which I was totally stoked about) and had her show me some of her drawings.

I know that other teachers see her as a red flag and  I wish they would all take the time to sit and talk with her for 15 or 20 minutes like I did and see that she's not a bad kid, she just has some bad circumstances in her life that she is out of control of and that she just needs nurturing and understanding.  I am hoping tomorrow our conversation and agreement will hold and that for the rest of my time in the class we can have a good connection.  I think she needs some positive role models in her life and I hope that I can be that for her, if only temporarily.

(Sorry for the long post, but this experience really touched me today and I felt that it was important to share out.)

Time Management and Flexability

On Tuesday, I started our unit on the Elements and Principles of design.  We are working on defining and illustrating examples of each element and principle in our altered book, which we will use as a sketchbook/journal for the rest of the semester.  My goal was to walk the class through the first three elements, a feat that I thought would be reasonable in an hour, and was apparently not. I made it through line...not that hard but it obviously took some time and killed an entire class period.  After this, I realized that, although calendars are helpful and necessary in most cases, we need to be flexible and teach at the pace our students are learning, rather then trying to cram too much information in at once, have then not understand, and waste a whole day anyways. 

So today I tried to pace myself better, maybe get through a couple more elements...yep..only got through shape.  This flexibility thing is really testing my "planning" mind, and tomorrow will be no better, we are doing color and that WILL take all hour since they are mixing paint to obtain their options for color.  I think that this is the biggest variable when student teaching is knowing how long these lessons will take, I can set a calendar, but that does not mean that my students will follow in the same time frame as I intend on them to and that is just fine. :) 

Back to teaching!

Well I have been back to teaching for three days now and things have been crazy, but in a good way.  Although it might be smart to space my entries out a little further, I had three wonderfully unique days and would like to share out on all of them for my weeks three entries.

A lesson on organizational management...

Starting Monday, the students begin an altered book assignment (that will really continue through the semester, seeing that one day was definitely not enough time for them to complete the project).  Friday I had prepped a cart with all of the supplies that I would offer (they were and are encouraged to bring in as much as they want to attach to the front of their covers, however the school has only a finite amount of supplies on hand).  I felt organized when I left on Friday, assuming that everything would go smooth on Monday and as planned.  Monday morning, I got the lesson underway, gave them my expectations and criteria for the project and turned them loose.  What I didn't anticipate was the inevitable traffic jam that 48 students at one small cart creates when everyone is trying to find the perfect doodad to go on their book.  I saw the problem and tried to alleviate it by  asking students to grab supplies quickly and leave so other students have the opportunity to root around.  It was wasting time and creating a horrible mess on the cart that kept getting worse throughout the class period. 

After a reflection period and a brief talk with my mentor teacher, we agreed that I should have utilized the counter space a little better and created stations for the students to work at or draw materials from, rather than a mob around one defenseless cart.  It was a great learning experience for myself  in organization skills and what happens when you ask almost 50 students to do something all at once. 

Wrapping up the first week

Well, that was a wrap on the first week of school for the semester.  The students worked on and completed their name tags with great success, however they did not really do any "getting to know you" activities.  Maybe these were too juvenile for my mentor teacher but I think that they are quite necessary, especially when you have SO many kids in your class. I want my students to feel safe and comfortable around their peers and to know that they won't be judged when displaying their work.  I think that this feeling of security can really only come when my students know they classmates a little better, instead of them feeling like they are in a class with a bunch of strangers for an entire semester.

What are your thoughts on ice breakers or "getting to know you" activities? Too elementary?

Question #4

Well after this last week of grading for the semester, I have all kinds of questions about grading. So in the class I'm in now, we use a visual arts grading rubric, which grades on focus, use of elements and principles, craftsmanship and creativity and uniqueness.  Students are not graded down for late work, and, although new assignments are introduced in the class, all assignments are due by the end of the semester.  I really like this method and would strongly consider using this in my practice (with a modification maybe limiting turn in dates to the 6 week grading period, depending on how the school system I work in functions). 

So my question(s) to you is how do you grade? What are the foremost criteria students are evaluated on? Do point values change per project? (Because we use the same rubric on everything, the point values stay the same on all major assignments). Do you have deadlines or due date? Really any information you have about your grading methods or philosophy would be highly interesting to me, I would love to hear anything you're willing to divulge.  

Gettin to Know ya...

So on top of the regular administrative paperwork mumbo jumbo that new semesters plow through, the student's first project is a name tag to hang on their cubbies.  I think this is a wonderful idea for a first project (at South High we did something similar with sketchbooks), it gives the kids a taste for projects with criteria to meet and how they'll be graded but also allows us (the teacher) to begin to measure students ability and motivation so that we can have a general idea of who we could target to offer more challenging projects to and who will need more TLC when it comes to honing their artistic abilities.  That's not to say that these students will now be pegged into specific categories until the end of the semester, but it gives us a good first feeling for the students that we have out there...

Oh...and did I mention, we have 48 students in the class...madness! This will be a test on me for sure.

Begining of the Semester

As a new semester begins, a whole new assortment of challenges are presented to a student teacher.  New faces and names to learn, deciding on a seating chart, deciding on new lessons, all things that take practice and patience for a novice.

This semester, the art class that I will be teaching has a whopping 46 students packed into a classroom who only has tables for 40 to sit around.  Overcrowding is certainly the biggest obstacle I feel like I will have to conquer this semester, being able to manage that many student effectively will be an interesting task and an a major learning experience. 

I think the most effective way to teach a class of this size is to have a good grasp on mutual respect (when I'm talking they need to listen, which will in turn allow them time to work longer and more effectively on their projects).  Organization and preparation of tools are essential also for a class this size, if you expect them to work well, you need to be have what they need to be successful at their fingertips right away.