Week Four

This week I took over the seventh grade class and continued with the eighth grade, so I am now at 50%!

I ALSO FINISHED MY EDTPA PORTFOLIO!!!

During my free time I am watching demo videos for the upcoming projects since I will be teaching clay to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Sixth will be making clay rattles, seventh slab buildings, and eighth slab shoes. I am working on my lesson plans to really be successful and helpful for me. I have step by step procedures and what I want to talk about and cover, questions I will ask during the demos, and step by step instructions for the demonstrations. These are longer demos, so I will demo one day and then the students will do the project I demonstrate the following day.

This week I also put up my display case of the Alexander Calder Wire Sculptures. It looks very nice on the black background. The students get to display an artist statement, a title/name card, and their wire sculpture either hanging or standing on the shelves.

The high school studio art is coming along. This week was very distracting both at the high and middle schools due to homecoming week. The high school students are learning that they really need to get going with their projects and finish up their work quicker, especially the AP students. I ran studio visits this week on Friday and the students shared one of their books about an artist or style that they are using for inspiration from their pieces.

Fifth grade finished their animal designs and then continued on to make patterned fish using found objects as stamps and tempura paint. The students got to choose four colors on black paper, then the fish was cut out. Next they are making clay fish dishes. My CT rolled out slabs, the students traced a fish pattern, and then used the found objects to make imprinted patterns in the clay. Then the students got a banding wheel, a paper bowl, draped the clay fish over the paper bowl, attached a coil or slab foot on the bottom, wrote their name on the bottom and then left it in the kiln room to dry.

Sixth grade is continuing to learn primary colors and mixing secondary and intermediate colors from the primaries in shapes on their Picasso inspired portraits. It was pretty impressive to hear some of the very low students recite the intermediate colors, when only a week or two ago on a pretest they did not know the primaries!

Seventh grade finished up their pinwheels and then I began setting up and teaching the students still lifes. Seventh grade has never done a still life before like this, so I had them travel to each still life, rotating clockwise to all four every 6-7 minutes. At the end of the day the students set out all four of their large marker drawings and talked to their partners and decided which was their favorite. The following day I did a demo on using a pencil as a tool for measurement and angles.

Eight grade finished their wire sculptures, Frank Stella pieces, and then I began teaching still life lessons. The eighth graders did still lifes last year, however they will be finishing them in a different way this year. The students chose which still life they would like to do after the demonstration and then continued to do a sketch of the composition of the still life they chose. Next I demonstrated the final pencil drawing and cleared up any confusion that came up during the sketch. The students continued on silently drawing their final piece. Friday I did a demonstration similarly to the seventh grade to teach how to use a pencil as a tool for measurements and angles.

This week was pretty chaotic, because so many things are being finished up and the students are all at different places in the projects. A lot of students are coming in during their resource time to finish up work that wasn't finished. Students are not punished for having things done on the ending date, because many of these students put extra time into certain areas to do an excellent job with their artwork. Teaching still lifes was successful. All of the students worked quietly during work time, which is completely necessary for still lifes because they students need to be so focused. During seventh grade I turned on the radio while they were working at each station. At the end of class my CT asked the students whether they liked working on still lifes with the radio on or if they liked it better silent. I did not realize that normally when she teaches this lesson she keeps the room silent. The results showed that most of the students liked working with the radio, but I was surprised that many students liked the silence as well. I asked eighth grade the same question, and most of them liked working with music as well. I am thinking about doing a little bit of both for the following drawing days.

Things to work on:

• Quit saying "So..." so much
• Relax while teaching
• Take time for students to raise hands, and really look if anyone has his or her hand up

Week Three

While teaching my students, the relationships are really coming along. The students are treating me like I am the teacher, but also I can tell that the students are comfortable with me to talk and also listen to me. My CT taught these middle school students while she was working at the elementary school. This way she really knows the students difficulties and strengths. She is so helpful when I am working to know how to deal with situations with specific students.

This week I taught I lesson in the high school Studio Art Class on Photoshop. The students will be using it to edit photos if they decide to use photography as one of their credits. Many of the students are also interested in doing typography projects, so we use Photoshop to posterize the chosen image they want to use. I will then print these images out for the students when I have time to use the print facilities at Stout during my first Student Teaching Seminar. Talking to my CT after the lesson she told me that I use "So..." way too much. I also need to be concise with the words that I use and make sure I don't babble when things get quiet. I also should have asked the students at the end how much they learned during this lesson and what else they would have liked out of it. Before teaching I asked the students how many had used Photoshop and only one or two of them had. I also asked after if this lesson was helpful. They all agreed yes, but I should have asked for more specific feedback. The students got a lot done this week and their first project was due on Wednesday. All of the students had to turn something in even if they weren't finished, because my CT needed to get something in on the grade book. This way my CT will have enough grades in the book, but the students can also edit their work later and get it regraded and replaced in the grade book.

 

Photoshop Handout

Fifth grade finished up their patterned animal. The students completed drawing their animal, outlined it in sharpie, brainstormed six different patterns, and then glued it on a black piece of paper to matte it. This flowed very well off of the first lesson and basically just grew and added more of the principals and elements of art and design. This class is moving very slowly due to the large class and many of them are lower level. However, many of the students are finding success. There was one new student that got added into this class as well. He is very well behaved, but another body in the classroom does make it more crowded and is another pull on this class. Many of the students didn't quite understand how to matte their project correctly and my CT covered this in the Assessment Rubric. She introduced it to the class since this is the first of many that they will be filling out at the middle school. The students learned that if they made a mistake or could have done something better they can talk about this on on their assessment sheet and also fill in questions talking about what they really learned and what they thought was successful there. I also really enjoyed that my cooperating teaching really set her curriculum and works with her Professional Learning Community to focus on the principles and elements of art and design. She asked the students and pointed to the posters on the wall referring to which they covered during the first project and asked how they grew and what they learned during this project.

Sixth grade worked on Picasso paintings this week. My CT presented and described what cubism is and then had the students begin a color wheel using colored pencils. She was observed on Tuesday when the students did practice sketches and a demo of Picasso pieces. The students learned how to see the face from different planes and abstract the shapes of the human face. The students did four sketches, and then chose one with help form their partner, and then continued to draw out the final one larger. They continued to outline the piece with black sharpie. They finished their color wheels and then wrote where each color will go from the color wheel on their painting.

Seventh grade is continuing to work on their pinwheels. The students finished the Op Art, and then worked on the final, Georgia O'Keeffe water color lesson.

Eighth Grade this week was my edTPA lesson. Overall it went very well, and also went much better than my lesson from last Friday. Monday I reviewed the lesson I taught and also continued each day to make sure the students knew what they were doing step by step on the board. I gave the students time to talk to their partner and review vocabulary and then bring it back together afterwards. I found that the students really did learn the vocabulary words, but I also struggled because some of the students took more time with the project while others worked quickly and more minimally. There was success in both routes that the students went though and that's what I wanted, I wanted students to find their own solution to the project. I should have just offered for them to continue their Frank Stella project while they were on their free time instead of trying to push them to keep working and talking about what else they could to with the sculpture when they decided to be done. I also could have written out my reflection sheets better and have had them more clear. This was a great experience though and I feel much more confident and comfortable in front of the classroom now.

Things to work on and learnings:

• I really liked how the curriculum is based around the principles and elements of art and design, and making sure the students know all of these.
• I need to work on my questioning skills.
• Do not say "So..." or "You guys..." use "next" or "8th grade class"
• I also need to work on writing all of my objectives on the board before the lesson.
• I find that observing my CT is much more purposeful now to compare my teaching to hers and to apply things that are successful and try different ways to do things.
• Always state objectives as well, because even if I don't teach my lesson as well as I'd like to, the students will still know what to do.

Week Two

As time continues on I keep getting more and more comfortable in the classroom. I feel like I am beginning to make good relationships with students and staff; some students look to me for advice and help, or ask me if they can move onto the next step, which really makes me feel accepted and happy to be in a teacher role.

The Studio Art class is really coming along with their work. The Friday Studio Visits compared to last week were much more interesting and helpful to students. Last week they weren't very far along in their work, and to get the students comfortable in the classroom we just went around and looked at what each student was working on and they explained their plans. The students this week really were able to talk about their work and take feedback. I don't want to be too tough on the students, however, I tried to give helpful advice, ideas, or if I think an area needs work, I would ask what the students thought could be done here for the piece to be more successful. None of the work from the studio visits were finished, so the students are still working on changing and developing their projects. I was so impressed with how many of them were so open to the critique. They had great questions about what they should work on, they took critique well, and they most of them were adding to the conversation. Especially that this was the first full critique it was absolutely amazing. Since I am doing my edTPA Lesson this week, my CT did the weekly lesson in the Studio Class. She showed how to make a slab plate and print a pattern (we used fern leaves) on it. I created my own too. Being able to show the students that I, too work as an artist is a rare opportunity. I asked students for advice as well and they also critiqued me and we had a conversation about our artwork while we were working. Last week I also set up a studio at my desk similarly to how they do. This shows students my professional practice in art. This also gives them examples of what I can help them from my experiences and what is inspirational to me.

My Studio Space

Our fifth grade students on IEPs are really coming along. My CT set up an area where the students can work on their fine motor skills by working with blocks and drawing on a white board. There are two mats in the middle of their work area that they need to sit on. This has really been helpful in keeping the distractions down for the rest of the class, but also helping the students work at their level and learn how to be appropriate in the classroom social setting. We still work for them to do a drawing or a tracing of what the rest of the class is working on, and once they are finished they get to work in their block/white board area. The rest of the students finished their names and I graded them. The students continued to work on learning about line and line design through a worksheet where they brainstormed more patterns working with lines. The students didn't work up to their potentials on this worksheet or didn't take the time to do the reading that went along with it. While grading these worksheets, I called up students who needed to take more time on it and I gave them suggestions as to what else needed to get done with the worksheet to make it more successful. I told the students that if they did not get full credit on the assignment (5/5 points) they could ask me what else could be done, work on it more, and then turn it back in for more points. The students are now working on four sketches of animals. One gets enlarged, traced in black sharpie, and students get to fill in the animal with different designs and then cut it out. The biggest thing that I found that the students needed to do was to JUST DRAW. They needed to find the confidence to make marks on paper. They might not be perfect, but that is why we have erasers. I made sure the students had a contour line drawing start before I helped them find the shape better. I also administered a pretest and graded to see what the students need to learn as far as vocabulary goes. While grading, my CT told me that I should have marked each word that was wrong. For example: If the students said that the Primary Colors are Red, Blue, and Purple, we need to know that YELLOW needs to be focused on as a primary color; not just focusing on all of the primaries (although this also needs to be touched on).

Sixth grade worked on their shoe drawings. The students showed a lot of improvement from where the fifth graders are at for their drawing skills. The students were able to put the marks on the paper and show the details. I was there to help the students really find the correct angles and shapes in their drawings; to take a pencil and look at the angle that the tongue is coming out of the shoe, or how the toe of the shoe can be drawn as an oval pointing upwards, it is not flat. Next the students outlined their contour drawing with sharpie and chose two color theories to color in the shoe with colored pencil or markers. I walked around the room asking students what their color theories were to make sure students had understanding, and if they didn't I explained why these colors went together on the color wheel.

Seventh grade continued working on their pinwheels. They finished Piet Mondrian, continued onto Vincent Van Gogh, and are beginning Op Art. During work time my CT showed videos of Vincent Van Gogh, and Op Art to help introduce and go into more depth of these subjects for students who are interested, which also doubles as an enrichment tool. For the most part students could work on their own on this project, but I did walk around and help students, especially with the Vincent Van Gogh piece, making his stylized marks with colored pencil. The lines needed to be short with a wide variety of colors that made sense in the area.

Eighth grade finished up cutting out their Frank Stella pieces and are working on painting them. My main focus for this time was working on their Xacto knife skills. I wanted the students to realize that especially cutting with Xacto knives on cardboard, you are not going to get through the piece in one cut. Do not saw with an Xacto knife. Use it like you do a pencil and go over it numerous times until the piece is cut out. I worked a lot with the students on Xacto knife safety. My CT also gave a demo on working with spray paint: how to use it safely, correctly, and how to clean up after it.

Week 2 Schedule

This week I focused on prepping for my edTPA a lot as well. I edited my lesson plan more, my presentation, previewed the Alexander Calder video, and cut wire. The students are going to begin the wire sculpture next week, but brainstormed how to show movement in their own chosen subject during class.

 One of my Alexander Calder Wire Sculpture Examples

On Friday I began my edTPA lesson while being observed for the first time. All in all, it went well, but there are a few things mentioned below that I will be working on that I am very happy to receive from this experience. Going into the day I felt very prepared, but butterflies would appear every once in a while, but I worked to settle my nerves as much as possible. Throughout all of the planning and preparation I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I was going to handle the class period. HOWEVER, nerves set in, camera was rolling, the students were behaving angelically, but were completely silent. I did not wait long enough for answers in questions that I asked and I went very fast. I believe that the students found understanding of what they were to be doing during the class period, but I needed to take more time with collaboration and making sure the learning objectives sunk in. So, to prepare for the next lesson, I wrote out bullet points of questions I want to ask, when I want them to work collaboratively, and how I want the day to go step by step. This way I will have it out in front of me to refer to, a bold: "SLOW DOWN!" written on the top! Once again I am a little nervous, because I would prefer to not use video clips from Day 1 of my lesson, but if necessary it will not be a problem. I feel confident once again going into the lesson, because I know what I need to work on and what my strengths are. I was very happy to hear that through the observation I seemed confident in front of the class (the only reason she knew I was so nervous was because my observer already knew me), I have good rapport with the students, the students are interested in my project, and my lesson plan was well written. I really need to work on student collaboration and slowing down my own teaching. Of course all of these areas can still be improved greatly and I am going to continue working on all of them, but I am happy that I have a little bit of a hold on some areas of teaching so I can really focus on others while hopefully improving in all.

Goals and Main Learnings

• Continue finding teaching voice and developing a teaching persona in the classroom.
• Help the students think about their work in depth. What are their ideas? What could they do? If I give students a couple ideas: Which one would work best with your work? 
• While testing, make sure to take very exact results of the information. This is necessary in knowing exactly which information needs to be reviewed or covered.
• It takes time to figure out what works best for students. This process is always changing and SHOULD always evolve as the students show growth.
• I want to work on finding how far is appropriate to push individual students with their work.
• Slow down. Make the students take time to answer the questions. I feel uncomfortable waiting for answers, but if this happens maybe have the students work collaboratively and talk to their desk partner, and then bring the question back in front of the whole class.
• SLOW DOWN!!! The students will find more success this way.
• Make objectives and "I can's" more clear. Write them on the board and talk about them as well.
• Have one definitive definition for vocabulary words.

My Introduction

Week One

Prior to the first day of school with students was five days of inservice, one including an open house. I was able to use this time to become comfortable with the classrooms, my cooperating teachers, and professional learning community.

My cooperating teacher (CT) is so on top of things, that I was able to brainstorm for my edTPA lesson and even get started on it. Since I had the experience as a practicum student working the same classroom two semesters prior, I was already familiar with some of the projects and rules of the room. My CT went over the syllabus for each class, each project, the learning essentials, and the curriculum as a whole. Through Build Your Own Curriculum (BYOC) I am able to see each lesson, K-12, and how they build on each other, while also fulfilling the standards.

The first day of school was a different experience, because it is such a long day for all of the students as well as the teachers. The Studio Art class in the morning knows exactly how things are run. They set up their studios, gathered art supplies, and went over the syllabus. I was impressed with the students drive to begin their work; some students were brainstorming since they signed up for this class. My CT described what the difference was between taking AP Studio Art versus Studio Art. The students have the opportunity to take a 2D AP Studio Art Course, 3D AP Studio Art Course, or the Studio Art Course offered by the school. Many of the juniors are suggested to take the regular studio course to build their portfolio and to take the AP course next year. The students knew what they were doing immediately and got started on their various mediums and personal ideas.

On Friday I taught my first lesson in the Studio Art course. I worked on my edTPA for the last week and a half and was still continuing my experimentation with wire as practice on my own. As I gave my presentation on Alexander Calder, the history of sculpture, and how Calder transforms his drawings into wire sculpture, I became worried that I wasn't doing well. The students seemed tired, and I only had one or two out of the eight advanced students answering my questions. Later I had the students work with "Twisteez" as a practice for wire work. We had a small work group going and then we talked about the lesson. I was pleasantly surprised that they actually did find my lesson interesting; I just had "Friday Morning Syndrome" happening. The students created some interesting sculptures with only one "Twisteez" and then we discussed them and my presentation. I trust in these students opinions because they are closer to the 8th grade class at their age than I am. The students said that they actually really enjoyed my presentation!!! I had some suggestions to  
A) show Alexander Calder's "Circus Video" via YouTube during the lesson as well as 
B) go over vocab PRIOR to the lesson. The students didn't remember "contour line," which is very important to my brainstorming for the project, and 
C) tell the students which medium was used to make the sculptures I showed during the presentation of "The History of Sculpture." 
The students have not experienced much with sculpture beside craft and ceramics sculpture. I feel this is part is very important to the project in showing how much sculpture has changed throughout time. I was very excited to present in front of the high school students to get their honesty and experience with my presentation. I didn't feel good about it at the beginning while I was presenting, but was pleasantly surprised with the success, especially when one of the students decided to start working with wire IMMEDIATELY after!

I gained confidence by teaching this project to the Studio Art Class, and that is a goal of mine throughout this year. I know what I should do, but I need to be CONFIDENT in my presentation. I feel much more confident in my presentation after this experience.

The middle school classes go quickly. The prep time is filled with travel time, students coming in during their resource hours, and lunch.

5th Grade Bubble Letter Scratch Art Example

Fifth grade came in wide eyed as it was their first time being at the middle school. This class is going to be a huge challenge for me. Their are upwards of 25 students, three of which are very low and need a lot of special attention. Each day they come with an aide, however with her, myself, and my CT, it is still very difficult to keep these students interested and productive. While listening to the rules on the first day, I was very distracted by these students, and I am sure that the rest of the fifth grade class struggled to pay attention to the instructions as well. My CT and I are currently brainstorming ideas for how to keep these students motivated and still include them with the rest of the students. We tried making drawing books for them to trace shapes, lines, and draw cats, houses, flowers, etc. It was still very difficult to keep them motivated and was still above their level at some points. My CT then had the idea of setting up a mat in a more secluded part of the room where they can work on their fine motor skills using blocks and drawing on a white board. Thus far they have loved it. The rest of the students are working on scratch art bubble name designs. This class will be a huge challenge, but I will learn a lot about inclusion and modifying projects. I helped students trace their names by writing the name out beforehand in bubble letters and they got to follow the lines. Another modification is having the students scratch out the bubbles instead of making designs inside of the bubble letters.

Adaptive Learning: Working to Provide Lessons at the Correct Level

Sixth grade is working on learning value. They began with a couple worksheets making a value scale in pencil, colored pencil, crosshatching with pencil, and stippling with markers. Next, they took a pretest with vocab words to see the degree of understanding each word is at, and which words to emphasize throughout the year to gain more understanding. My CT's goal for the school year is to improve the class's vocab retention by 20%. Next the students began applying their knowledge of the value scale and started putting shadow on shapes. They chose a point where the sun is shining down on a shape and show value from light to dark accordingly. Most of the students were able to find understanding in this and showed great improvement when they came up to the CT or I to give them some advice. Most students were able to show success with graphite before colored pencil, and the biggest difficulty was showing a gradient between light and dark. Not just separated shades: light, medium, dark. My CT showed a demo on drawing shoes and then they started doing practice shoe drawings working with contour line.

Seventh grade is working on their pinwheels. I did this project in the past in my CT's rooms, and it is one of my favorites. The students separate a square piece of paper into quadrants and then do designs with influence from Piet Mondrian, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Op Art. On the back they do a splatter painting influenced by Jackson Pollock. At the end the paper is cut and folded into a pinwheel. Each section of the pinwheel takes a couple of days and students move along for the most part at their own rate, but can catch up in different areas if necessary.

Eighth grade learned about Frank Stella and the numerous art styles that he worked with. The students brainstorm what some of their favorite things are and are able to work around these ideas to create something completely their own, whether it is abstract, heavily influenced by Stella or a style, or very representative of their own work. They are using cardboard, paint, and other patterns. To cut the cardboard they use scissors, xacto knives, and the paper cutter. SAFETY IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Only five xacto's out at a time.

Week 1 Schedule

KEYS TO MY OBSERVATION

• My CT teaches and explains the way she does things to the students throughout the process. I really like the way she does this, because she tells the students what they should be getting out of the project and the main point.

• She has the students write down what their learning target is on worksheets or asks what the learning target was for the day to see what students learned. (The target is also on the board)

• My CT is INCREDIBLY organized. She was not worried about the beginning of the school year because everything is always in it's right place. She keeps up on her website, curriculum, and lesson plans, so that she can get it all done at school. 
• This makes ME organized! This is the reason I am so far along in my edTPA and why I can come into school knowing what is happening today, next week, and even have a broad picture of the rest of the semester.

• Keep the students comfortable ESPECIALLY within the first couple of days. Some students need to get out of their comfort zone, however the students (especially 5th graders who are new to the building) work best when they feel safe and comfortable in their workspace.

• She has the students come up and get their own supplies when they are ready. At the middle school level they should be able to handle this and can put things away afterwards (clean up by themselves).

•  Handing back papers is a GREAT way to learn names!

•  Write down that safety is gone over in the lesson plan to make sure it is done. 

• I began worrying about how I was doing and how my lesson plan for edTPA was coming, but she told me that she will always be honest with me, and with that, worries disappear.

• Combat the smart comments with humor and positivity (easier said than done).