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.