First Day of Mentorship

Today was my first day of my official mentorship with Ms. Ontiveros at Fishers HS. I immediately knew for sure she was the absolute right fit this morning when I got to my little desk and there sat a binder with a cute cover that said "Miss Maria Pairitz" on it and had seating charts with pictures, syllabi, and course material for each class. I know this is a long way off, but I will definitely make sure I do this if I ever have a student teacher.

This semester she teaches 3 intro to 3D classes, 1 AP class in conjuncture with Drawing 4, and two Jewelry 1 classes. In the Intro to 3D classes they took their first Quiz on Principles and Elements of Design and when finished, began working on brainstorming ideas for the wire shoe sculpture they are going to start working on.

I helped grade during these class periods and Ms. O talked to me about Teacher Evaluation through Standards for Success and let me look through last semester's Targeted Learning Objectives workbook and went through how she selected which class to track throughout the semester. She is very organized and efficient. She said it's difficult for teachers to be rated as "highly effectively" in their evaluations, but she's been rated highly effective four out of her five years of teaching.

I have included more observations in my notes throughout the day which can be found HERE. The most beneficial interaction I observed was between Ms. O and a student with special needs, who I'll refer to as S. S. appears to have issues with fine motor skills and is stronger in her right hand than her left. She is on the basketball team and also comes into Ms. O's jewelry class to draw and make art. Ms. O though S. would enjoy making a keychain with the class so she had S. practice cutting out shapes drawn on construction paper with a jeweler's saw. S. had problems holding the saw perpendicular to the table and also could not hold down the paper with enough force with her left hand. Ms. O initially held down the paper for her so she could focus on sawing, but wanted S. to be able to work on the project independently. So, when it came time to practice cutting copper, Ms. O taped the copper to the clamped board to hold it in place. S. still couldn't keep the blade at a 90 degree angle to the copper plate so Ms. O taped the bottom of the clamp of the blade to S.'s wrist and S. was finally able to saw through a piece of copper all the way! I was really impressed by ms. O's patience and problem solving skills with a student who wasn't even technically enrolled in her class. Ms. O says she's close with the special needs teacher so she often allows non-inclusive students come in to do little art projects on their own. I think this is beneficial because it allows students in her regular classes to help and interact with a student who may not have much interaction with students outside of his own classroom.

During her last jewelry class I learned how to create a design and cut it out of copper. I made a whale tail! I'm happy for this because I haven't taken a jewelry class so I'm excited to have another skill to go on my resume.

Today was a great start to a great mentorship!