A Final Look at the Semester

It is impossible to believe that the end of the semester is just around the corner. I can’t tell if it feels like these past three months feel like they have gone too fast or too slow, but I do know that they have been a rollercoaster of emotions and work and stress and great times. It is even harder to believe that I have completed my first edTPA… and survived. I cannot put into words how much I have learned over the course of this semester from my practicum experience and from my Art Education class. The joys and struggles of teaching, I now know with certainty, can only be experienced through first-hand participation in a classroom. I have to say, as my first time in the high school art classroom as a teacher, the experience was completely new to me and, admittedly, constantly uncomfortable. I do know, however, that this discomfort allowed me to learn and grow as a teacher in a way that cannot be matched. The entire experience—from planning the lesson to instructing and demonstrating to assisting the students during work time, and finally, to assessing the work—all of it was so incredibly worth the stress and sleepless nights. I have come to realize how truly rewarding teaching is.

One of the biggest pieces of my great experience was working with Ms. G. Even though I only worked with her for a few short months, I am sure that this woman’s passion for teaching will continue to be one of my biggest inspirations for years to come. Ms. G truly understood the importance of art to students, and I could tell that her students understood its importance in their own lives. She constantly pushed and challenged the students, and was patient with them even when they fought back or complained because she understood that they were working through struggles, and she was always there to support them. When they finally did succeed, which each of them eventually did, she gave them the praise that they deserved for their hard work. I’ve noted Ms. G’s approach to teaching and supporting her students and I will be certain to follow her ways when I have my own classroom.

Not only was Ms. G helpful to her students, she was helpful in instructing me as a future teacher as well. She answered all of my questions in great detail, which gave me wonderful information to reference for the future. She also gave me incredibly thorough feedback after my teaching of the lesson, and her notes affected me on each subsequent day of teaching—I could see myself getting better and better over the course of only a few days. Her feedback will also be highly beneficial to reference when I am teaching in the future.

Overall, I would not trade my practicum experience for the world. There are certainly some things that I would do differently—quite a few, in fact—but the mistakes that I made and the struggles I endured were a necessary part of my learning process. It is such a relief to know that I can only improve from here. I will take all of the notes and criticisms that I have received and apply them to future lessons to allow myself to become the best teacher I can be. Now that I have worked through the uneasiness and anxiety of teaching in a real classroom for the first time, I know that I can do it again and again for the rest of my life.

Grading and Assessment

Ms. G was very helpful in explaining to us how she assesses student work. On the first day we went in for observations, she showed us her one of her grading rubrics and talked with us about each of the criteria that she wrote. The project was a wire self-portrait in which the students formed wire over a photograph of themselves-- they had to recreate their photograph using contour lines. The rubric that she showed us not only included a grading section for the teacher to fill out, but it also gave the students the opportunity to fill in their own scores. In addition to this, they also had to answer a couple of reflection questions asking what the most challenging part of the assignment was, how they overcame their challenges, and what they thought was most successful about their piece. I thought this was a great way to assess the students' personal feelings about the project. Giving them the chance to score themselves also helps them to reflect on what they did well and what they needed to improve on. Ms. G let us fill out several of her rubrics throughout our observation times, which was great practice in giving the students useful feedback. We graded the lesson that we taught entirely by ourselves, and she also showed us how her school goes about entering grades in the computer, which will probably be different at every school, but is still useful to learn.

Teaching: DAY 3

I cannot believe how unbelievably fast my teaching experience went. Today was both my last day of teaching the lesson and of observing at the high school. It was such a fantastic, enlightening experience. Ms. G was ever-so helpful in giving us feedback for our last day. She said that we did a great job of running the critique. We were worried that we would not have time to get through all of the students, but yesterday she suggested to us a critiquing method that she calls "1, 2, 4." With this method, the students begin by each reflecting on their own pieces. They consider what they did well and what could be improved, as well as the different ways they successfully incorporated the elements and principles of design, as well as the vocabulary from the lesson (tint, shade, value, and atmospheric perspective.) Then, they partner up with another student and the two discuss these concepts about each others' pieces. Finally, two groups of two come together to create a group of four, and the four students decide amongst themselves who was the most successful in incorporating the ideas from the lesson. The groups then present one at a time at the front, so the rest of the class can see their work from a distance, and they discuss the successes of one or all of the drawings. The class is able to make comments at this time as well. This technique, Ms. G explained, is a good way to move rather quickly through the critique so the students were able to have some work time to finish up and frame their drawings. Also, holding the drawings up for the class to see from a ways away allows them to view the drawing as a complete picture, rather than just focusing on some of the tiny details. The critique did work out rather well. Some of the students needed prodding as we walked around to truly discuss the quality of their artwork. A few spent the time just sitting around unless we asked them specific questions. But as the groups presented up front, they did a good job of pointing out the specific techniques that the artists addressed, such as creating convincing atmospheric perspective by muting the colors in the background, or blending several different colors to create shadows rather than using black. These were concepts that they did not understand at all at the beginning of the project, so it showed a great amount of growth, meaning our lesson was successful. Ms. G commented on how impressed she was with the outcomes for most of the class. I am so happy that we accomplished teaching a lesson that the students both enjoyed and learned from. That is the reason I decided I wanted to become an art teacher-- I wanted to show students that even though art can be challenging and frustrating, they are all capable of growing and learning if they devote themselves to their work. I could see in the faces of the students that many of them were thrilled with their outcomes and impressed with themselves. When they realize what they are capable of, they begin to believe in themselves, and soon they feel as if they are unstoppable.

Art Criticism and Aesthetics in the Classroom

Ms. G told us that these can be tricky subjects to approach in the classroom, but she tries her best to incorporate them as much as possible. She says she does not teach aesthetics explicitly, but sometimes thinks that she should. Rather, she tends to take more of an art criticism approach by teaching the students the Principles of Design and Elements of Art. They are each listed in posters that she has hung along one of the walls of the art room, and she makes sure to incorporate these into each of her lessons. Ms. G explained that it is important to ask the students, "What to you see?" She wants them to be aware that their opinions and thoughts are valuable too, and that they are capable of speaking about art in an educated way. She also tries to include art history into each of her lessons by teaching the students about the work of a certain artist. An example that she gave was showing the class a picture of Picasso's "Guernica" with a person viewing it to give them a sense of scale. That painting is incredibly emotional, and showing them how large it is heightens that sense of emotion. These are concepts that students might not consider when they think about art, because it is unlikely that they have ever created a painting that big. That's why it's important to show them what's out there, what is possible in art, and what impact certain qualities of art have. She does not teach art history as a separate unit, rather she integrates it into each of her lessons. That way, when the students create their art, they have something to connect it back to. I thought this was an excellent way to teach art criticism. The students are active and involved in learning about art and how effective it can be.

Teaching: DAY 2

The second day of teaching our lesson came and went like a breeze. I honestly cannot believe how fast the class went. Today was my turn lead the review and demonstration, and it went very smoothly. I reviewed the powerpoint that we showed yesterday, and the students were surprisingly willing to answer my questions. I was worried that I would have to wait forever for responses from them, God forbid. But they participated in the review and listened well while I gave a brief demonstration about a few more ways to use the pastels. As Ms. G suggested, we then had the students create a worksheet in which they demonstrated 10 different ways they could use the pastels, and suggested that it would be a good idea to take inspiration from the photos that they were working on. It was clear that this practice helped them to learn how to represent certain areas of their photographs that they were stuck on.

During work time, the students were constantly asking me questions about what they should do next in their drawings. I thought I did a good job of explaining to them the best course of action, and most of them really, truly listened to what I was saying, and it showed in their end results. A lot of the drawings are coming along very nicely, and Ms. G said that she is very impressed by the students. Most of the feedback that I gave to the students was along the lines of using a variety of colors, rather than just one flat color. For example, in the snow on a lot of their drawings, I would tell them to incorporate some blues and purples, rather than just laying down white. After the lesson, we had a great discussion with Ms. G about how learning to see color takes a lot of training. It wasn't until my Drawing 2 class when we practiced broken color that I was truly able to see all of the colors that are present in shadows and highlights, and ever since that class I cannot stop seeing the different colors everywhere I look. When I told Ms. G that, she laughed and said the same thing happens to her.

Our biggest problem today was that the time literally flew by. We had planned to leave about 20 minutes for an in-progress critique at the end, but we wanted to give the students as much work time as possible and before we knew it, there was 15 minutes 'til the end of class and the students still needed to clean up. Instead of holding each drawing up front individually, we had them set their work on the table and walk around the room to take a look at everyone's. Then when they sat back down, we asked them to point out a few particular pieces that showed a good understanding of tint, shade, and atmospheric perspective. Tomorrow, we will have the chance for a more in-depth critique where the students can discuss the work together in groups. After class, we asked Ms. G what we should have done about the shortened time for critique, and she gave us a great suggestion that we never even thought of. She said that what she sometimes does is have the students go up to the front in groups of 4 or 5 to hold up their work, and then the rest of the class could pick out of that small group which ones were the most successful and which needed some improvements. She explained that the benefit to this is that the students can see the drawings from a distance, which gives them a fresh perspective. I will definitely consider this for future lessons.

I'm excited to finish our lesson tomorrow. We are going to give the students as much time as possible to complete their drawings to the best of their abilities, and then we will use the remaining time to frame them and critique them. I can't wait to see them all framed; Ms. G says it completely changes the drawing into something spectacular. I'm so happy that the students are all working hard, and I'm positive that the final results tomorrow will show this.

Creating the Curriculum

When Ms. G described to us how she decides upon the curriculum for her classes, she explained that it is entirely based around the Wisconsin Standards for Art and Design Education. There is an incredibly large amount of standards that she has to meet by the time the students reach 12th grade, so she makes it her goal to incorporate a large variety of lessons in each of her classes. For example, in Art I she would not teach exclusively pastel drawing. Not only would it not cover all of the bases, the students would get incredibly bored with it. Having a variety of lessons with different media or art styles gives the students the opportunity to explore the world of art, allowing them to see what they can do and what others have done. She told us about how she implemented this in her stained glass class. Obviously, the students cannot switch between media as they would have the option for in Art I-- they must all work with stained glass for the entire trimester. However, Ms. G writes lessons for the class that allow the students to practice different types of art. The first project she did focused on geometric art and creating straight lines with the stained glass. Then for the next project, she had the students create nouveau art that was more organic in its structure. This gave the students some diversity in their learning and allowed them to practice different techniques. When the students move on to Stained Glass 2, they are then able to create 3-dimensional pieces. They have the opportunity to learn about stained glass in different ways, and build off of previous learning to advance their ability.

Teaching: DAY 1

I am happy to report that nothing went horribly, terribly wrong during our first day of team-teaching in Ms. G's class today, even though my brain kept me up all night weaving as many worst-case scenarios as it could imagine. In fact, I had a really great time teaching our lesson. There is something amazing about knowing that the students in front of you are listening to you and valuing your knowledge and opinions about their work. I could tell that the students looked up to me, and that is a wonderful feeling as an art teacher.

This was my first time teaching an art class to children above the age of about 11. Teaching high school is a whole different ballpark than grade school, and I truly enjoyed it. For our lesson, we had the students find a picture of a winter landscape, and recreate it with chalk pastels. We demonstrated different ways to use the pastels, such as the side versus the tip, and taught them how to use tint, shade, value, and atmospheric perspective to improve their work. We also made sure to emphasize that they needed to look for all the colors they could find in the photographs-- so instead of laying down one shade of blue, for example, they would need to pick out three or four shades to blend together, possibly even including some greens or purples if necessary. We wanted the students to focus on really looking at their photos and making artistic decisions about what colors to use and where. In addition, the students are also learning how to build up a pastel drawing. Some of them didn't quite understand that pastels could be layered on top of each other. I had to take a moment to explain to the class that they should start out by laying down the background instead of sketching the fine details, because the details could always be drawn over the top.

What I enjoyed best about the lesson was the one-on-one time with the students discussing each of their individual projects. I feel as though that is my strength in teaching-- I am good at explaining to teach student what they need to do specifically for their piece. It was nice to be able to show that while teaching the lesson today and gain more experience with talking to the students. This means, however, that I need to work on my large class instruction a little bit more. Tomorrow, I will lead the review of the project, so I will have the opportunity to practice this.

Ms. G was very helpful after the lesson in explaining to us what we did well and what we needed to improve on. She went into great depth and brought up some points that I had never even considered. For some of the positives, she said we did a nice job with the powerpoint and having the class participate in defining the terms that we were teaching them (tint, shade, value, and atmospheric perspective.) She also said we gave good individual feedback to the students while they were learning. However, her critiques of our teaching were the most informative part of the day, since this is our first time teaching a high school class. First, she mentioned that we should never answer our own questions that we ask the students. Even if they are silent when we ask, we need to wait for a response or prod a response from them. It is important to learn to be comfortable with silence. She also told us to go more in-depth with the pastel practice. We had the students practice a few different mark-making techniques, but she suggested having them create 10 different line designs with the pastels and turn it in for a grade. This would force them to become more familiar with the medium before starting the project. We will do this at the beginning of the class tomorrow to give them some of this practice. Finally, she said to make sure we discuss the criteria with the class before the start of the project. We handed out the rubric, but should have gone over it as a class to ensure everyone read and understood it. Tomorrow morning, we will project it onto the screen and go over it before continuing on the project as well.

I am very thankful to have Ms. G as a guide while we learn about teaching lessons. Her feedback was incredibly helpful and I feel as though I am now a thousand times more prepared to teach another lesson. I can't wait until tomorrow to continue with this lesson and watch as the students develop their drawings. I've already seen some that are turning out great, and I hope to be able to assist the rest of the class in achieving their best work.