maria pairitz's
community of teachers portfolio
iv. curriculum development
evidence
Effectively adapting and developing new curricula so it is of relevance and value to your students is a key skill required of highly effective teachers. The ability to consider and connect content, standards, student needs and interests, and prior knowledge and experience in a meaningful way requires constant reflection and desire to learn. Through my evidence, I believe I demonstrate my competence in curriculum development.
The evidence I have collected include my Intro to 3D curriculum and corresponding materials and resources, my daily planner, my philosophy of art education, the format of the course art "problems," my EdTPA Learning Segment (Task 1), lessons and materials used in my wheel throwing unit, the visual arts department curriculum tiers, sources that keeps me up to date in the latest curriculum trends, and journal excerpts from my mentorship.
The opportunities to develop curriculum from scratch and adapt from provided resources have allowed me to consider what ways I want to deepen student learning and connect to past learning experiences and individual needs. It has also allowed me to practice being more explicit with my students and communicating why I am having them do the activities, lessons, art problems, and processes and how there are skills being developed that are transferrable to life outside of my art room. I have also learned to be more thoughtful about designing curriculum to meet individual needs and learning preferences.
All of these experiences and artifacts have been used as a launching point in my student teaching. As this is my first time implementing this curriculum, I have constantly reflected on my choices and how I could make them better in the future. I will use this curricula to help inform my future curriculum and as a resource to draw from.
For a pre-service teacher I believe I have exceeded my own personal expectations for this teaching competency. I believe the experiences and artifacts I have collected for this expectation reflect my ability to successfully adapt and develop curriculum. While I only have my pre-service and student teaching experience, I have learned so much and have developed habits and practices that will inform my practice for years to come. I believe I have met the expectations required of ready to teach for curriculum development.
Intro to 3D Curriculum
As I have been with Danielle for a year and half, I felt very comfortable with the Intro to 3D curriculum and asked if I could take over the course and change up the curriculum for my student teaching. Danielle thought it was a great idea as she had been wanting to change things up for a while and allowed me to entirely make up my own curriculum.
I started by referencing the art department's curriculum tiers to see what goals should be accomplished in a tier one level course. With the visual vocabulary, composition, and artistic process being three main goals, I looked to the Intro to 3D scope and sequence and began to create new units and lessons. I centered my curriculum around the theme "Identity" so that each project would connect to individual interests and experiences, deepening student learning. I completely modified all of the materials Danielle offered me, either modifying them, redoing some, or making others from scratch to ensure that I was teaching a curriculum that I believed in and knew inside and out. Additionally, I made sure to try and fill some of the weaknesses I saw in her curriculum from the past year and half of observation. These included an absence of critiques and documentation of work from start to finish. To help strengthen these areas that I believe are essential to deepening student's understanding of the art making process, I created a process log assignment that asks students to take a picture of their work in progress every few days and write a reflection about what problems they're facing and how they plan to overcome them, how their project has changed from their original idea or plan, or what discoveries they are making with the medium. This also serves as a good piece of evidence when it comes to assessing student work as I can see their progress throughout the span of a project. I have also included a day of critique at the end of each project as I believe it is important to the artistic process.
I worked the entire summer to create lesson plans, handouts, assignments, assessments, and presentations to create a curriculum that I believed conveyed my personal enthusiasm for art, engaged students, and deepen student learning.
Daily Planner - Reflection on Curriculum/Instruction
I keep a daily planner on me all at all times so I can take notes about how each class period has progressed in the curriculum, problems that have occurred in earlier periods and how I addressed them proactively in later periods, notes about what I should talk about or remember to do tomorrow, etc. It serves as a record of my curriculum actually put into action that I can compare to my pacing chart. Being able to reflect throughout the day and improve my curriculum for future class periods and future semesters and school years has been invaluable. I am always amazed how my lessons evolve throughout one day.
Aside from fulfilling expectations set by the state standards, district objectives, and departmental goals, a teacher's personal philosophy and beliefs about education should be incorporated into their curriculum. I almost didn't think to include this as a piece of evidence which goes to show how teacher's personal beliefs are often left out of the picture when developing curriculum to appease the many expectations of the powers that be listed above. Incorporating my personal beliefs about purpose of education and my role in it bring curriculum to life, a computer or robot may as well teach it if otherwise. A philosophy of education is a set of beliefs that regulate my decisions as a teacher and though subjective, it helps map my own actions and its implications. It is a map that drives me positively in my profession, and without that positivity and belief in education, my curriculum would suffer.
Art Problems
EdTPA Learning Segment
For the EdTPA, I created a series of four lesson plans that demonstrate my ability to develop a coherent sequence of lesson plans, my awareness of and ability to adapt for diverse learning needs and styles of students, my ability to incorporate prior knowledges and experiences, and my ability to create my own materials. I will not elaborate much more here as my 9 page planning commentary reflects on and justifies many of my decisions and strategies.
Wheel Unit: Ceramics 1
I am including a weeklong unit on throwing on the wheel for ceramics 1 that I created and taught during my mentorship. In this unit I implemented several different instructional strategies including, project based learning, authentic assessment, adjunct display note taking, activating and connecting to prior knowledge and experiences, wheel and deal system, daily objectives, demonstration/modeling, individualized instruction, affirmation, guided discussion/discovery, wait time, humor, multimedia presentation, examples, observational learning, and practice. I tried my best to put a label to every strategy I used but there are probably many I missed or don't have a name to give because almost anything can be an instructional strategy if it's efficient, effective, and engaging for students in helping them meet learning objectives.
For the unit on the wheel, I wanted students to have a goal to work towards while recognizing that most of them would not be able to produce anything by the end of the week since this is just a taste and not enough time for them to master the wheel. I had them select a cup to mimic and then asked them to sketch the cup and draw relationships between different parts of the cup so they could understand how slight changes in proportions can create a whole new silhouette. They had five days to upload their image and sketch onto Canvas for a completion grade. So their project for the wheel was to try and mimic the contour of their cup on the wheel. The assessment was going to be through a cookies and milk critique where students would be able to drink from their cup and assess if their lip was uneven, too sharp, let milk dribble down their chins, if the cup felt good to hold, if it was too heavy, if it didn't hold enough liquid, etc. This is an authentic assessment because they are actually using something they made off the wheel to assess it's functionality. Unfortunately, I was way too ambitious thinking they would all be able to produce a cup at the end of the week so they will not be doing this, but I will keep the idea for a more advanced ceramics class.
I also made sure that I structured the presentation in a way where they were prompted to make new discoveries and create knowledge based off of their prior knowledge and experiences through guided discussion/discovery. Some examples included asking them issues they faced during an earlier project where they created coil constructed vessels. I then used the issues they provided and connected them to similar issues people faced thousands of years ago and the need to solve those issues was the beginning of the creating of the wheel. I formatted it in a problem/solution format. So the problems of hand building ceramic vessels included not being perfectly symmetrical, not an efficient means of constructing multiple items, and it took a long time. So the solution to those problems were the potters wheel. Another instance I had them connect to prior knowledge was when I introduced the first predecessor to the wheel which involved ancient peoples uses mats or large leave to place their pots on so they could easily turn them. I asked if we used a similar device when constructing our coil vessels and they related it to the lazy Susan that they used. Another example of connecting to prior knowledge was when I introduced the kick wheel I showed a video of an artist who still uses the kick wheel as opposed to electric wheels. I asked my students why they thought he would choose to use the kick wheel when the electric wheel exists. A lot of them guessed that you could feel the speed change and be more physically connected to the wheel. So I asked if anyone drove stick shift. A few raised their hands. I asked them why they preferred stick shift over automatic and their response was similar to our guesses: they liked being in control of the speed changes. There were several other instances I connected to prior knowledge and experience as I made an explicit effort to have everything I presented connect to my students, but I'll only share these few.
I created a notes sheet for them with two columns. The first column for them to jot down their observations while I threw on the wheel silently. I didn’t tell them anything I was doing so they could hone in on their observation skills and be more engaged in the process of creating their knowledge of how to work on the wheel instead of me walking them through everything step by step and half paying attention. I told them their goal was to make an observation that they think no one else would make during my demo. During my first demo they were all so focused and engaged in what I was doing. When I finished the first demo, I reset my wheel and then asked them to walk me through their observations from beginning to end. When they told me their observations I was able to clarify and give additional information that they then wrote down in the adjacent column. This strategy and worksheet was such a success. It was so effective in keeping students focused and engaged because sometimes when you listen to someone talk and give a demo it’s easy to drift off in your mind and miss important information, whereas when I ask them to actively build knowledge from their own observations, they were more invested in learning the additional information I had to give.
During my time at IU, I had one ceramics professor that would also pose art "problems" where he gave an objective and we had to create a solution to that problem/objective. Posing the objectives as a problem that we had to solve helped stretch my creative responses as opposed to him telling us the objectives and exactly what end product should be. I knew that i wanted to incorporate this into my own curriculum, so I created a outline that structures each art problem that I will guide students through. So this has been the underlying structure behind my entire curriculum for Intro to 3D. I walked students though the format before our first art problem and explained the concept and reasoning behind structuring it the way I have. I talked to them about developing their problem solving and critical thinking skills and how I was most concerned about developing those skills above all else. This definitely has provided a wide variety of responses and finding the balance between looking at their thinking and process as opposed to their final product as been difficult, but I think they're more engaged and invested in their designs when they were told this was an art problem versus an art project.
After the first day of presentation and demos, students had the rest of the week to practice on the wheel. I could demo a thousand times and tell them every tiny detail they should know, but they won't understand it or be able to apply it until they try for themselves. That is why a large portion of the unit is solely dedicated to practice in class on the wheel. I make sure to have daily objectives on the projector each morning so they can refer back to it if they get stuck. I adjusted the objectives each morning based on my assessments during the previous day. I have included my original powerpoint with my objectives for the week and what the powerpoint became after adjusting it each morning in the Unit Materials and Resources link above.
Overall, this unit was very successful and a great opportunity for me to practice a wide variety of instructional practices with students. Through this experience I have been able to evaluate and assess what instructional strategies were most effective, efficient, and engaging and know what to keep and change for next time (I go more in depth in my reflection in the link above). This experience was invaluable to my development and implementation of instructional strategies in the classroom. I would use all of the strategies I listed above again.
Visual Arts Curriculum Tiers
The art department at Fishers has outlined the curriculum objectives of each level or tier of art classes offered. This map helps guide the individual curriculums of each art teacher to make sure that s/he is helping students develop the skills and knowledge required by the teachers of the next tier up. I have been working within Tier 1 and Tier 3 during my mentorship so I have a strong understanding of the expectations. In the units and lessons I have created for Intro to 3D and AP 2D/Drawing, I have referred to this overarching curriculum plan to make sure I am addressing the core objectives of the corresponding tier. For example, in my clay unit for Intro to 3D, I specifically incorporated a preparatory assignment (the vision board) for students to explore more in depth what it means to create an aesthetically pleasing composition using a 3D medium thus helping student develop an understanding of a tier one objective: developing understanding of composition.
I believe it is important for all teachers in a department to have an agreed upon, set of goals and objectives for their students to help make sure that knowledge and skill builds on one another and doesn't jump all over in a non-sequential mess. It is important to refer back to these during unit development, as it is taught, and assessment.
Art Curriculum Resources
A lot of the resources I draw from are from professional learning communities online. The internet is an amazing resource that keeps educators in the field up to date on all the latest practices and materials in art education.
I've created and been using a Pinterest account for gathering art education ideas and resources. On Pinterest, teachers can share different methods or tips they have for students to learn the materials more successfully. There is also a plethora of art project ideas that can be incorporated into my future curriculum.
Twitter is great for educators to discuss what's working in their own classrooms and allows a space to collaborate efficiently. It's comparable to having a professional development seminar available 24/7 on a wide variety of topics.
I created an art teacher Instagram account to showcase my students' artwork and to learn from other professionals in the field. I recently had a really affirming moment where I posted my students' work from our first project( (Spirit Pod Sculptures) and two teachers from across the US asked for more information on my project. I was able to get their emails and share the resources I collected and developed for this project. They both plan to use my project with their students next semester! I think this exciting not only because I am getting recognition for my hard work, but also because these teachers will inevitably take what I have given them and modify and adapt it to their own teaching styles, goals, and students and I look forward to seeing what they would do differently.
I also follow several groups on Facebook that post resources and lesson plans that innovative teachers in the profession are trying and developing.
Journal Excerpts
I believe the following journal excerpts are possibly the most important pieces of evidence because it takes a reflective teacher to be successful in curriculum development. If I am not willing to reflect on how my units or lessons are succeeding or falling short, I will not be able to adapt my materials and strategies to strengthen my curriculum.
The ceramics project is underway! They learned the techniques from Ms. O yesterday, so they started working today. I love the morning Intro to 3D classes because they really vibe well with me and ask a lot of questions. It was a little difficult because Ms. O suggested construction methods for some people's pieces that I personally wouldn't have chosen, so when a student asked for my opinion I simply told them how I would approach it and then let them decide which they felt more comfortable with. A few mistakes I noticed off the bat that I will make sure Ms. O addresses next week includes: 1. Using WAY too much slip to connect coils. 2. The coils are way too small and dainty. 3. Solid to hollow method is best for smaller chunks of clay no bigger than your fist. 4. The vessels are too small and they will be done in like three days. Other than that, they are so enthusiastic about it. I also got to see how their vision boards turned out from last week. I asked them for feedback on whether or not I should do the vision boards if I do this project again in the future and they said it helped them envision their zoomorphic vessel better. I'm very happy with their work and enthusiasm!
Intro to 3D started their ceramics unit today so I was able to introduce the zoomorphic vessel project and lead those three class periods. I am not even exaggerating when I say that all my students are SO excited for this project. It really boosted my self-confidence which made it easier to lead the class. The first art of the lesson was reviewing vocab. Ms. O had given them a vocab sheet to go through the powerpoint ahead of time and write down definitions. While I like that she gave students the opportunity to look at the vocabulary ahead of time so they know what questions to ask ahead of time and be able to go through it at their own pace, I wish when we went over the vocab in class we could've been working with clay so that they were connecting the words with experience the second time through. It was also difficult for me to sort through what information they needed to know before they started working with clay and what information they could learn during the process. I feel as though I may have overloading them with information that was not relevant yet because they literally had not even touched clay yet. Anyway, right now they are working on creating their vision boards where they select an animal and print off three images of the animal from different views and then at least two reference images of a ceramic vessel, and then annotating and sketching before creating a merged zoomorphic vessel. We created a canvas assignment where they could submit a document with their images for us to print, and that got super confusing because on canvas all three class periods are together so you can't see the students organized by the appropriate class period, so Ms. O and I had to search through 100 names to find the students in the class period who were waiting for their images to be printed before they could start working. I think next time, I will introduce the vision board at the end of a class period and then their homework would be to submit images to be printed to work on the next day, so that we can just batch print all three class period's images and they can find their own in a pile. Looking forward to seeing them completed next week!
Compared to all the other courses, Jewelry seems the most engaged and persistent in their work. I think this is because it is a choice-based curriculum in which she introduces a set of techniques and then they can create whatever they want as long as it incorporates the set of techniques she demonstrated. For example, the first project they must use two different metals, incorporate negative space into the design, then rivet the two pieces of metal together, and then use a patina on some part of the piece. They take those guidelines and then create keychains, magnets, jewelry, objects, etc. Whatever they decide to pursue. I believe that because it is so open ended, they are more engaged and invested in their projects. I want to take that same idea and apply it to her Intro to 3D classes, because they are not engaged in this project. There are a few who are, but it was hard to control the amount of phones and laptops that were out during these classes.
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An idea I have for Intro to 3D next semester is to make it a choice-based curriculum like Jewelry 1. Basically the course introduces students to techniques and processes in several different 3D materials (wire, clay, plaster, paper). So what I would like to do is have students select a theme for their semester in Intro to 3D. It could be identity, relationships, love, war, etc. whatever they want. Then, each material I introduce, students have to create a 3 dimensional work of art using the medium and techniques I demonstrate that responds to their selected theme. Then, by the end of the semester, they have a body of work that explores a theme through different mediums and processes. I think it would be a huge success and I can't wait to propose it to Ms. O.
For the Intro to 3D classes, Ms. O decided to change the wire activity into a wire bust/self portrait instead of a wire shoe sculpture. So while the students worked on their principles and elements packet, I helped Ms. O figure out how best to introduce the project and how to create a base for them to create their sculptures. It was really difficult. We had to test three different methods of starting wire bust. Then, while she wrote up a lesson plan, I created an activity for them to do before starting their wire self portraits so they can better understand facial proportions. The idea is, they take 2 minutes to draw a generic human face and their individual understanding of proportions and relationships between parts of the face. When they have finished, I will then walk them through facial proportions and have them superimpose correct facial proportions with a different colored pencil so they can see and understand the difference between their believed understanding of the human face and real life.
Intro to 3D was still in the middle of their art history unit. Students were assigned a work of art from an art period or movement and asked to present 5-10 facts about the artwork to the rest of the class. I appreciated that Ms. O asks them not to include dates because she wants them to focus on main ideas and concepts expressed in the periods and movements, not dates. Other things I would add to the guidelines would be that the facts cannot include the name of the artist or something generic and obvious like "It was made of marble." The medium could count as half a fact. I just noticed that some students didn't go in depth into the research to find the really interesting, weird, not widely known facts, even though it wasn't a super intensive research project. I also think I would spread art history throughout the semester instead of at the very end. Like maybe a lecture every other Friday, because a week straight of lecture is a little hard, especially the week before finals.
Intro to 3D classes were a bit out of control today. Everyone is at various stages; some are completely finished with their paper project, others are far behind, for those who are completely finished they are supposed to work on the art history project and complete a reflection on the paper project, so some are working on that and some are just completely done with all the additional work all together. I think pacing is incredibly difficult for art classes. It’s hard to set a due date because everyone works at such different speeds. Some take a long time to create fantastic works, others just get it and don’t require a lot of time to create an outstanding piece, others rush through to get it over with, and some are so slow they don’t even finish projects. I think I'm going to look for more resources on pacing, specifically for art education, so I can try to avoid that awkward period of time when some kids are frantically working to finish and other students are sitting around or doing homework for other classes.
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She also gave a presentation to Intro to 3D on an artist they needed to know for the test. I personally wouldn't have waited until the end of the project to introduce the artist it was inspired by because they aren't able to make connections or incorporate ideas or strategies from the artist when the project is over.
Ms. O said that she set examples out and a step by step how to tutorial for students who had already finished their tiles and finished glazing their older pieces. We then talked about how having a resource file full of short tutorials on making odd, ceramic objects was a great strategy for those who finish projects early or work faster than the rest of class. These tutorials are great because it offers students the opportunity to apply skills they learned from a project in class to an independent project that develops their problem solving skills and deepening and broadening their scope of possibilities that come with each learned technique in class (ex: using the pinch hand building technique isn't just for building simple pots, it can be applied to make a complex object like an Ocarina). I will definitely apply this strategy in my own teaching as these individual projects expand on techniques taught in class, allow for student choice, and puts students in a position where they can't depend on the teacher to solve a problem but have to rely on the text and own research and problem solving abilities, while simultaneously functioning as a classroom management strategy by effectively keeping students who have finished early from distracting or disrupting other students' work.
I am finishing up the lesson plan for AP Drawing and 2D. I talked to them today and asked them for their thoughts on the ideas I had for the final so far. They were super helpful and gave me a lot of ideas for the project. I think conferring with them on what they wanted to do for their final project gets them more engaged and invested in it and I think that will show in the final product.
I got hold of the Ceramics 1 curriculum map so I can begin writing up with project ideas and planning a unit on wheel throwing for Ms. O. I'm excited for that! I can't remember if I mentioned this in my last journal, but Ms. O, Ms. Osborne, and I are meeting up sometime this summer to learn glazing techniques from Ms. Osborne and test run some of the projects she usually does with Ceramics 1. Ms. Osborne is amazing. She comes with the most incredible projects for her ceramics classes. I'm looking forward to talking to her more and collaborating on project ideas.
In her Jewelry classes, the one that was moving at a crazy fast pace she decided to restructure. Instead of trying to restrain them to working on each assigned project and not allowing them to move on if they were working at a faster clip, she decided to make basically an open studio where she assigned a number of completed projects they need by the end of the semester and left it up to them how to fulfill all the techniques she wants them to be able to demonstrate by the end of the semester and at what rate they make them. I think it's great she recognized that this class was much more advanced than her other Jewelry class and restructured the curriculum to meet them where they were instead of holding them back or trying to make the slower/lower skill level class work faster or demonstrate more difficult techniques.
Ms. O and I spent prep collaborating on sketchbook ideas for drawing 4. I'm really going to take hold of this opportunity because she's developing the curriculum from scratch since they've never had a drawing for, and there's only 3 students so I'm able to collaborate on the curriculum in a relatively low risk setting. I think this will also be a good opportunity because she teaches AP art during the same class period as Drawing 4, so I can work with the drawing students so she can focus her energy on the AP students who have a portfolio due soon. She sent me examples of curriculum maps for her other classes so I can work on one for Drawing 4.