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).