Caitlin Hazelton Surprises The biggest surprise for me while clinical teaching middle school at St. Mary’s was the struggle to manage the time. I had certain expectations from the students and the reality was that most of them worked much slower than I anticipated, and the fact that I had about five to ten minutes less time due to morning announcements, as well as having to clean up and get out of the way of the following class, made time management a struggle that I had to overcome in most of the classes. Making sure I had everything set up and ready to go prior to the student’s arrival helped with this, however, this gave me less of an opportunity to offer the students class jobs to both set up and clean up and work more independently. For classes weeks three through six, I provided a timeline on the board for students to follow, which also helped with keeping them on task. I was also surprised by the lack of artistic skills knowledge the seventh graders had, after presumably learning art since they were young children. The skills and techniques I had assumed they had heard of, such as the elements and principles of design, were actually new to them and more difficult to grasp than I expected. Some of them were also unfamiliar with simple art knowledge, such as how to mix colors. They were interested in the symbolism and metaphor aspects of the lesson, and I was surprised to see how much they loved the cyanotype process. Teaching a variety of skills and techniques proved to be very important, as some students were more advanced than others in both vocabulary and art skill. This helped keep the lesson very individualized to the students’ needs. Although they were mostly reticent about sharing their personal stories and identity traits out loud in class, I was surprised to see how thoughtful and eloquent they were when writing during the brainstorming and planning aspects of the lesson. I felt that allowing them a chance to write down their more personal thoughts helped open up to more meaningful and expressive artwork.
Caitlin Hazelton Best Ideas for Improvement Student Responses Although the students were more detailed and personal in their brainstorming, they were a little hesitant to discuss out loud in class, and vocabulary words were hard for them to recall. For the final critique, I had a set of questions ready to help them verbalize more out loud about their artwork, which helped. I also kept things positive, as middle schoolers tend to be their own harshest critics. I reminded them a few times during their artist statement writing time, and during the final reflection and critique that negativity was not welcome. I also was sure to add in my own positive comments, as speaking from a place of “authority” I think it was important for their own sense of self confidence that they heard what they did well. Using guiding questions seemed to help, and in the future, more formative assessments and reviews of vocabulary and skills and techniques as the lesson goes on would help with remembering and applying in their final artwork. Questions/Dialogue Although I began each class with a review of previous lessons and vocabulary, which students were engaged in, I felt that I missed the chance to have closure in most classes due to time management issues. I also feel that written notes and more visual aids may have helped them remember more vocabulary and concepts. During each class, I did try to use the most important vocabulary words, and during final critique they were able to recall the words “embellishment”, “cyanotype” and “emphasis.” One thing I would like to employ in future lessons are things like bell ringers, such as worksheets that surround the previous class lesson, in order for the student to prepare for the day and have the information fresh in their mind. I think using more visual cues or story telling techniques to present vocabulary words would be effective as well, and allow for more confidence during class discussion.
Caitlin Hazelton Problem & Solving When posed with the problem of planning, the students were hesitant to express their ideas in drawn form, but preferred to write, for the most part. One of the most successful problem solving strategies I employed was allowing students choice over which step to start with, and allowed them to choose the one they felt most comfortable with. However, it would be important to stress in future lessons that all steps must be completed, because I think some of the students believed they could skip some of the initial planning, although I wanted those to be part of their planning process to make their work stronger. Introducing the steps verbally prior to offering them the materials to work with and then emphasizing the importance of each, no matter what order they are done, would help with students who felt they didn’t need certain parts of the process work. I also think that giving them the opportunity to use technology could overcome some of the hesitation with the drawing aspects of the planning. Once I introduced the Chromebooks, they were more eager and willing to visualize their written ideas. During the creation of the final artwork, I again allowed the students room to make mistakes or experiment, and reminded them that there were always to solve their problems should they arise. I was pleased with the ways the students worked to solve their final pieces, and I think part of that was due to the fact they had “practiced� during the planning process. Organization I feel that I worked very hard to have all the necessary materials for each lesson ready and organized, especially to save time. In the future, I may use some folders for each student to keep their process work more organized and ready for class set up. The cyanotype process proved difficult with the limited resources I had, and although having two of the students work on theirs at a time was meant to keep things less chaotic, I feel that this left the students in the classroom with too much idle time on that day. Having more stations for the cyanotypes could have helped keep the class together and probably would have given more successful results,
Caitlin Hazelton although most of them turned out fairly well and interesting visually, and may have saved time and allowed for closure that day. For classroom set ups, I made sure that the students who were more social with each other were separated during the final work days. For the most part, they stayed on task with minimal organizational problems. Quality of Student’s Work I was very pleased with the quality of the student’s work. Most of them were able to complete all of the objectives, except for one student who chose not to add a 3 dimensional element for emphasis, but his choice was deliberate. After giving a presentation about symbolic self portraiture, and discussing how elements from student’s environment, visual culture and family heritage influence their identity. Students began the project by brainstorming on worksheets with prompt questions that had them think of each of the aspects. They then were asked to sketch out their silhouette body on paper and place their symbols using the elements and principles of design such as emphasis, balance and unity. Although some of the students were more hesitant to do the drawing portion of the assignment, they did complete all of the process work in order to inform their final artwork. The planning and process work allows the students to have more meaningful results from their final projects. All of the students had different results from their work, which was exciting because they all were given the same process and materials to work with, but were given choices within the guidelines which made the artwork reflect their personalities even more. If I were to change anything to get different results, I would probably have given the students more time to complete their cyanotypes or redo them if desired. Two of the cyanotypes did not produce adequate silhouette images, so I had to redo those myself, even though the students expressed a desire to do so. However, due to time and resource limitations I wasn’t able to offer that option. Better planning of the cyanotype process would have allowed me to give the students that option, and also produced better results from the class as a whole. In
Caitlin Hazelton spite of this, the silhouettes turned out very interesting visually, and I preferred the varied looks to them because of that reflected the varied identities of the students. Differentiated Learning I chose two students as differentiated learners. The first was outspoken and outgoing, and very gifted academically. However, his art skills and confidence in his art ability was very low. Encouragement from me and allowing him choices that suited his personality and ability – such as allowing him to type his artist statement instead of hand write it, or allowing him the opportunity to create his silhouette before his sketch -- made the project successful and enjoyable for him. I was also to incorporate a science aspect to the project as well, which turned out to be his favorite subject. I think an interdisciplinary approach to some lessons is important, because it teaches students that don’t consider themselves creative or artistic that art can have many different facets. It also gives them a safe space to express themselves, as many other subjects do not do. I was able to work one on one with the students throughout the entire teaching process, and this proved valuable as well for my differentiated learners. My second differentiated learner was a very introverted, but artistically minded, individual. She was a very slow worker, which proved to be a challenge with the pacing of the class and getting her project completed. However, I was able to work with her again one on one to offer her choices to complete the project at her own pace. For example, she was very interested in working quietly and fully completing her sketch before moving on to the next step of tracing her silhouette. I knew she would be able to complete the silhouette tracing faster than her drawing, so I allowed for more time for her drawing. I also gave her additional time to finish her painting, and offered her unique strategies to complete her artwork faster but in the way she wanted. I also helped her apply her 3 dimensional element after having her lay it out for me. I did not want to do the work for her, but helping her with the non-creative activities of the project allowed her to have a successful piece. She was also very shy about class discussions, so giving
Caitlin Hazelton written worksheets and peer to peer discussions gave her the chance to express her ideas without being on the spot. Conclusion My group of students were, for the most part, very respectful and engaged with the project. I was pleased with the outcome, even though they were a bit more reluctant to share verbally in class, they were able to articulate their ideas and identity traits through writing. I came to realize through differentiated learning practices that all students can benefit from choice, one on one guidance and positive encouragement. I learned that not all students will have the same experiences, skills and desire to make art, but an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates student interests and decisions can engage students who do not consider themselves “artists.� Through this project, I think that the students realized their unique qualities and although I intended them to also learn about their similarities, I think that they more so gained a respect for each other and how each one of them is special, important and capable of making a beautiful piece of art that connects to the world around them.