Week 2

MONDAY, AUGUST 13TH

Today I had students put their spheres on their desks and then walk around the room to see each other's work. Then I had them write what they struggled with and what they feel was successful, then had a snowball fight. I enjoyed this strategy in college so I thought it would be a great way for students to share responses without feeling inhibited since they still don't know each other well, but they did not really enjoy the activity as much as I thought. Half way through the school day I switched it up and just had student offer to share their struggles and accomplishments when building their spheres and they were much more responsive to an open conversation than I had assumed. I'm glad I'm not afraid to try something new halfway through the school day. Being flexible and reflective is KEY.

Next, I demoed how to photograph work in a professional manner using the light boxes. I'm realizing that while I may have the materials and presentations all in line well in advanced, I don't plan out what I want to say or communicate to the class. So I definitely am less eloquent in the morning until I've had the chance to practice and flesh out everything I want to share with my kids. I definitely do a lot better in the afternoon. I also added an additional strategy where I airplay to the project from my phone and showed them exactly what I was seeing as I was photographing and example for them. This definitely improved their photos in the later half the school day.

The rest of class I allowed them to photograph their work and work on finishing the student info quiz and identity page. I forgot that students like to do the absolute bare minimum, so it's important that I create clear guidelines for all of my activities and assignments. Like, even for the snowball fight one girl wrote "shape" as her biggest challenge and I had to ask her to elaborate what she meant by that.

Here are some of the spheres!

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 14TH

To start off class, I demonstrated a few of the common mistakes students made when photographing their spheres. I airplayed my phone screen and demonstrated how to tap on the brightest part of your photo before you take the picture so the brightness can calibrate and not wash out their object. Other common mistakes included the subject being too far away and showing too much background space. And then camera quality. I gave students to the end of the week to redo their photos.

Afterwards, Ms. O took them down to the library to buy sketchbooks for class. And then after that we went over vocal for the elements of art. Ms. O modeled during 1st period so I got to take notes and observe how she went about introducing the elements of art. Then the rest of the day I got to present. The first time I did, it sucked, but I was locked down by the second time. For the most part students seemed pretty engaged, probably because the lecture was only about 20-30 minutes and then the rest of the time they had to work on their vocal packet or retaking photos of their spheres.

I talked to the other art teachers and they agreed that teaching the elements and principles of art is difficult to make fun. One teacher suggested doing a flipped classroom where they take their notes and write their definitions at home so then they can discuss and look at examples in class together. And then to break up the monotony with an activity the day after the first half of the elements and principles.

I am frustrated that IEP's/504's and ENL plans are not available to me yet. It's weird that differentiating instruction and accommodating student needs is so highly encouraged but they can't get the paperwork in before instruction starts. I've had to wing it in many cases. Hopefully no students feel like I am overlooking them or feel like I'm putting them in stressful situations since I don't have their IEP/504 plans.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15TH

Same structure today. Ms. O modeled presenting the principles vocal 1st period and then I taught the rest of the classes. During first period, after noticing how engaged the students were during the presentation, I came up with an activity to help reinforce the idea that elements are used to create principles. In this activity, each table group will have a picture of a famous 3D artwork that they then have to a. categorize as realistic, abstract, or non-objective, b. what elements are present, and c. what principles are created by those elements. After coming up with responses, they share with the whole class what they found. I think this will be a great opportunity to apply the vocal they're learning, as normally this unit is rote memorization so they can apply it in projects later in the semester.

Presenting the vocab for the rest of the day felt great. I had a steady, even tone, used my hands to gesture or point while talking, asked provoking questions throughout the presentation, and maintained positive classroom management. Ms. O said I looked and sounded like an ol' pro. The students were engaged and participated in the presentation and most of them appeared to comprehend the

Ms. O suggested that the students take the test on Friday as opposed to Tuesday next week. This makes me very uncomfortable because I don't believe it's enough time for the information to have really soaked in. But we did take a vote with each class and all of them were on board so we'll see how it goes.

It's been interesting to talk to the other teachers who are also teaching the elements and principles and what their instructional strategies and pacing looks like. It's helpful for the future!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16TH

SUPER GREAT DAY! I planned several activities for my students to review for the quiz tomorrow and they all did good, I think they will do a good job tomorrow. Ms. O did her first structured observation of me in 7th period and I received all 4's! I feel extremely comfortable and confident teaching and I'm glad that all of my preparation and hard work has paid off! Here is a PDF of her observation scores!

During one of my classes, a very shy, anxious, freshmen, girl pulled me aside and asked if she could talk to me. She said she had a situation that her mom hasn't been helpful with and don't have another adult that she feels comfortable talking to. I thought it was going to be very serious but it was just about how she should pursue a crush she has on a boy. It was very sweet that she felt comfortable enough with me to talk about it though!

I had been able to discretely pull aside most of the kids that have IEP's/504's yesterday to talk to them about what supports or accommodations they would need except for one student who has autism but is high functioning and performs at grade level in most areas. I figured he would do fine on the test but today as I was individually assessing students during the first review activity, I noticed he was struggling to remember the words and was writing down definitions instead. Towards the end of class I asked him if he would like a word bank so he could focus on matching the correct words with the correct definitions. He said that would help but then asked why I was offering it to him. I told him I wanted to make sure that all students received the proper support they needed to succeed. Then he asked is all the other students were offered a word bank. I told him that some other students would be using a word bank too as they need it. At this point it was obvious that he did not want to receive any kind of "special" treatment. He said he was going to study really hard tonight and let me know if he needs a word bank tomorrow. It's weird because in all other instances, offering the word bank made the student feel cared for and acknowledged while it made this student feel like I was giving him special treatment. I think in the future I'll just be sure to acknowledge and praise his independence and abilities in class so he knows I don't think he is "less" than the other students.

Tonight was open house for parents to follow their kid's schedule and meet with each teacher. I asked Danielle if I could present and she was totally on board! It was a great experience! The parents were very receptive and kind, I think even a little impressed :) HERE is the presentation I gave. It was great because I had one parent come up to me and express how grateful she was that I had discretely asked her son what accommodations he would need for the test tomorrow. She said he came home so happy that one of his teachers had even bothered to ask him. It made me really happy that I made a child and his family happy and feel looked out and cared for.

Here is a video of me presenting to my students' parents!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17TH

Quiz Day! I had my doubts about having a quiz with that quick of a turn around, but 1st period blew me away! I did have an odd case though. After first period left I noticed that I didn't have the test of one of the students. I looked up his 2nd period and pulled him aside with the teacher's permission. I asked him where his test had gone and he acted surprised and said, "What? I didn't turn it in?"and I said, "No. Could you have misplaced it? Is it in your backpack?" I just tried to make him feel comfortable and not like I was upset with him. As he was scrummaging through his backpack, I remembered that I also hadn't received his vocal packet so I said, "do you have your vocal packet?" and he said, "Oh I left that at home." And right as he said that, I saw the vocal packet in his backpack and said, "Oh this is it right?" And he was like yeah. So I said I would look around the classroom, but since he lied about the vocal packet I know he ditched the test somewhere. I talked with Danielle and the department head, and Osborne said that I should just leave it be over the weekend and approach him on Monday and explain that I understand if he was anxious since we didn't give a lot of notice that the test would be this week and that we can reschedule it for a time when he's available to redo the test. I'm not getting upset about this because it was obvious that this was a case of test anxiety and he needs to feel safe and supported.

The rest of the class periods did a great job! Again, I was very apprehensive about changing the date of the quiz that last minute but they did do a very good job!

Towards the end of the day, Danielle, Jasmine and I bumped into Mr. Urban in the hallway. Danielle said that he needed to come observe me teach sometime and he said that he heard I was doing a great job, a parent had complemented me to him the other night! I think it's the parent who thanked me for accommodating her son and I'm just so happy that my hard work is reaching the ears of administration!

Great first, full week of student teaching!