week7 - reply to Burnt Toast

I hear what you are saying about "unconsciously tend to give up on those students." I have some of those. The one I am thinking of is also in 5th grade, he too is sloppy and lazy (his teacher tells me he is the same in most every subject). I have tried talking to him outside of class casual at lunch, but I can't seem to get him interested.
I too hate to be interrupted when working, this is why I struggle with my short classes. I tend not to eat lunch, because I'm working on one thing or another. I do sometimes work along side my 7th and 6th grades but my other classes are too large or too needy.

Week 4 Blog 4 - Revised

Amy suggested I share my original metaphor. Like I said in my first post this was hard assignment. I am my own worst critic, I thought this metaphor was cheesy, but Amy likes it. So here we go...

I started with watercolor paints symbolizing my classroom. I have 6 table in my room and above each are hand made colored collage fish. Six table = six colors. I then started thinking of connections; between myself and all my students, between students and each other, students and families, students and other teachers. My school is part of a very small community. It seems like everyone knows everything about each other. At the beginning of the year I felt like an outside, try to introduce something completely unfamiliar to them. My student past experience with art at Hatton has not been up to my standards of art education. It consisted of coloring pages, crafts, no technology, and very little 3D projects. I want to use the connections in this small community to help change the view of art education at Hatton and my school district. I have already had students, parents, and administrators excited with the changes I have introduced. This is due to the small community, connections, and communication. Butterflies symbolize new life, so in this visual metaphor each butterfly is a student at one of my classroom tables and they are starting their new lives in art education. The background is made up of my student's artwork.

Week 6 Blog 6

Alright let me start off by saying I really dislike watching myself on camera, Eeeeckk! The lesson I decide to reflect on is part of a 5th grade unit on Pop art. I have 5th grade for 30 minutes two times a week. Whenever I introduce a unit  I start with a powerpoint discussion, VTS discussion or a related activity. Which ever introduction I choose always has student involvement, I never just lecture. My Pop art unit is a long one, with two big art projects (print making & ceramic food). After introducing 5th grade to pop art I assigned homework... to THINK! We had compared popular culture of the 50's to today. Their homework was to think about what popular culture is and how it changes. the next class period we researched images of popular culture. Each student had to choose a popular recognizable icon of today's popular culture. I got lots of different aspects of Minecraft, One Direction, Underarmour, etc.

This gets us to the lesson I am reflecting on; I am demonstrating how to carve into Styrofoam with a pencil and how to create a print. The first thing I can see wrong is how flustered I get when explaining about positive/negative space. Ok to be completely honest I hate the stupid elements and principals of art. I understand them and the relevance of them in a work of art, but when I or any artist is creating are we are not really thinking "I'm focusing on the negative space in this work" that is just a cop out to explain a piece of art afterword. Ok now let me get off my soapbox. I just don't know how to explain how the positive space of the drawing will become the negative space of the print to 5th graders without confessing them. Should I just not even try? The second thing I notice is I am too sarcastic! This is difficult for me because I teach K-8 and I can be more sarcastic with my Jr high students but I can see even my 5th graders look a little lost.

I have another aspects of my teaching that I would really like to change. Because I see elementary students for 30 minutes twice a week my units are generally longer. I have my Intro and artwork but I don't feel I review enough though out the time it takes to finish a project, but how can I add into a unit? Assessment is also an area of my concern. I WANT to know if my all students are retaining what I teach them, but I don't like to always do writing reflections (not everyone is the best at expressing themselves that way). And when I ask the whole class questions about the unit I can't determine if everyone knows the information. Should I try actual "tests" I really don't like that idea, but how can I know for sure? Their artwork and their attitudes tell me if the like what we are doing, but.... ????

Week 5 Blog 5

If I had to choose which tradition I identify most with it would be the Generic Tradition, this is because there are several traditions I would like to classify myself with but could not decide on one. I have always been a person who can't wait till I reach the next stage in my life, but I have been trying to change that about myself in my teaching life as well as my personal. I have come to accept that I am ONLY 1/2 way through my 2nd year of teaching, and have a so much to learn. I have so many ideas and thought it become very over welling. I think the biggest thing I struggle with is whether my students are truly benefiting from my teaching in the long term. And the only way I can really test that is by observing, teaching and assessing with the same student over the next 8 or more years.

I need to know where my weaknesses are so I can improve them. Their for I plan to video several lesson this week. Due to snow days this past week was a lot of review and finishing past projects. Week 6 will be perfect for me to video because I am start new lessons with several grades. what I hope to see is student engagement and enjoyment of the lesson. Currently after I teach a lesson I have an image of how it went in my head (sometimes positive, sometimes negative), I hope to see if my image is correct and not just an exaggeration. 

I feel I may not be expressing a clear image of my teaching self, but I don't know how to specifically share that. Could you all ask me more specific questions you want to know?

Week 4 Blog 4

8x10 300 resolution photo
Ok, this was hard assignment. At first I thought it was going to be fairly easy (Like Amy's middle school students do at first). I started with a watercolor painting of my classroom, but that is just a place. Then I started working on the idea of my students symbolized as butterflies with photos of their artwork behind them. As if the metaphor was "I help students create their new life", but that was weird and a little too religious sounding for me. So I took a break and was about to eat these chocolates when it hit me. Forest Gump famous metaphor but with a change. "My Classroom is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get, but it will be a pleasant surprise."

Week3 Blog3

1. Some argue that teaching is too demanding and complex to expect teaching to be very reflective about their work? What do you think?

 

yes education is a field under appreciated.Very long work days/weeks, not including bringing work home, Mental exhaustion on a daily basis, Low pay, we are often portrayed negatively and blamed for the educational status of the country. High stress job - demanding parents, difficult students, unrealistic educational expectations from the administration/state (ie. No Child Left Behind), non supportive administrators, etc. But it is also the most fulfilling job in my opinion, why wouldn't you want to be the best you can be. Reflection on your work (if implemented correctly) can help you feel better about all those cons and help improve the learning experience of all your students. With the amount of vacation time we receive there is no reason to say "I don't have time to reflect on my work"

 2. When you think about a classroom problem, do you try to see it from different "angles"?

 

Not as much as I thought I did before this course. Its easy to blame your students for their misbehavior and punish them for it. But if you take the time to analysis why they misbehave you can possible reduce the misbehavior in the future.

 

3.  Do you think that teachers should play leadership roles in curriculum development, program development and school reform or just stick to their work in the classroom.

I think we can only changing how we are perceived by others is by standing up and showing everyone. I myself hope to one day after more experience to lead such areas, but for now I'm want to learn what I can from my students and fellow teachers.

Do a little digging. Do you know who wrote your curriculum? When was it last

changed? How is it different from(or the same as) your own schooling

experiences?

 

In my school district we have BYOC Build Your Own Curriculum... I hate this program. Going into this program I thought I could layout how, what, why I teach, but the design of the system is horrible. It is not user friendly. Basically the idea is you share your lessons in a the areas of the curriculum agreed upon by the other elementary art teachers in district, thus allowing for any new art teachers to grab a lesson and teach it. This works great for math, or science teachers, but not for art. My biggest complain about BYOC it there is no way for you to attach a picture exemplar to the lesson you create!!! pointless! 

I have based the broad areas of my curriculum off Columbia Public School's curriculum and plug my lessons into the grade levels appropriate. 

I must say that is one good thing about teaching a subject that administration doesn't care about, they don't check up on you to insure you are following the exact curriculum. As long a there is cool stuff on the walls their happy.

I often think about lessons I like in art as a child and teach a similar project. like my clay owls I teach to 1st grade, my mom keep my clay owl on the wall until high school (when my sister broke it). Plus I find parents are 50% more likely to keep ceramic art then drawings or paintings.

Week 2 Blog 2

This class does come at a perfect time because I know there are things I need/want to change about my teaching practices. Am I being too hard on myself? My students/parents/colleagues/administration all say I’m doing a wonderful job, but to what standards? My students say “you’re the best art teacher we ever had” (I am their 3^rd art teacher), but I don’t want to be better then two art teacher I know weren’t very good, I want to be better then the best! My biggest question I am asking my self is how do I ensure what I teach will reflect onto future projects a year from now, 3 years from now? For example my current 8^th grade class have had poor experiences with art and are very badly behaved, I am sorry to report I have given up on letting them have freedom in the classroom, their class has become very much like the idea of objectivism. My hope, my goal is to build up a community within my other k-7^th grade classes, based on communication allowing them to add to the learning experience. I want them to trust that I don’t know everything and want them to feel comfortable finding the answers together.

I feel the idea of objectivism and Abba Felix are two opponent extremes to teaching. I want to be a in the middle maybe closer toward Abba Felix. If you give students complete freedom they will have no idea where to start, there has to be some insight, some structure.