E L E M E N T A R Y R E F L E C T I O N
M A N A G E M E N T
BUILD POSITIVE CLASSROOM DYNAMICS & STRUCTURED ORGANIZATION |
M O T I V A T I O N
REVEALING ART DISCOVERY & KNOWLEDGE THROUGH MULTIPLE RESOURCES |
R E L E V A N C E
CATCH INTEREST IMPLEMENTING MULTISENSORY LEARNING |
The area of strongest growth, I began to find a comfortable ground in my management through teacher presence, having clear and concise instruction, appropriately implementing systems in the classroom, and assessing student readiness. Having experience in public speaking, I walked in with firm voice projection and confidence in distributing information. However, I was challenged with timeliness of speaking to students, waiting until they were 100% ready, and slowing down to ensure that they were engaged and understanding. I became to be familiar with preset systems that kept the instruction organized and effective. Through utilizing these systems of clean-up, material storage, seating and positive praise incentives, students were actively participating in the organization and ownership of the class. They were reinforcing important studio habits that are imperative to art making at all ages.
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When I was a student, I often was stunted by projects that did not capture any interest; this is a result of poor teaching. Being a good teacher is a means of being motivational, relational, and teaching interesting content with passion and vigor. It is important to be relatable, and show that you have a love for the content and that you are not always a bearer of knowledge, but a learning/practicing artist as well. It is not about the product, but what it takes along the way to learn, and ultimately to think like artists. In this, we are teaching them transferrable skills and creative thinking that can be applied to all walks of life. Through utilizing multiple motivational materials, I found a comfort in addressing concepts, ideas and information from various perspectives: using technology, literacy, physical examples, modeling process, and presenting inquiry questions to delve into broad, deep thinking. Providing multiple resources allows them to find a perspective that they are the most interested in to gain investment in class and ownership of their work.
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Often, I needed to reevaluate my teaching and presentation in order to keep the transferrable skills and abstract art concepts age appropriate and in total, relevant. To grasp student interest, I came to realize that it must be interesting to date, engage them in multiple ways (visually, kinesthetically, auditory, etc.) and in all, relate back to the state standards in order to achieve objectives. Whether it was to show an animated video, we must do what it takes to support key concepts and make information obvious to gain understanding. I also found crucial to make a distinction between teaching students skills and teaching students to be creative/innovative; they are not exclusive of each other. For students to create original and unique work, it is important to teach them the skills they will need to achieve the goals of each project but allow room for their own creativity and innovation that utilizes these tactile skills.
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A S S E S S M E N T
The area that I find I need the most improvement on is post/summative assessment. Although there were many areas of formative assessments that were successful and integrated into my lessons (checks for understanding, activities to teach kids skills prior to final project, feedback & questioning, etc), I felt that I did not close up each project with enough summative reflection that allowed students to discuss the final product. In many instances, Mrs. Awsumb-Conn introduced me to her way of post-assessing students through video reflections and simply telling students to "Tell me about your artwork." In this, we would go back into the videos with a Student Learning Objectives checklist and documented overtime students discussed their process, used art vocabulary, and demonstrated understanding in the project's objectives and process. Often, I felt this was a very natural way to assess student's success and understanding on a project, but sometimes I could tell that students were stunted by the fact that they were being recorded and do not like to speak much under the spotlight. I wish I would have integrated silently written or group critique like activities at the end of some of my lessons.