Dec. 13th

Last Official Observation

Today was my last official day of observation. When Ms.R announced this to the students I felt appreciated when the children groaned in disappointment that my partner and I were leaving. During one class that was working on making paper snowflakes, a student approached me holding a snowflake she made. At first I didn't know what to think so I asked her, "What can I help you with?". She replied by saying, "It is for you!". This was also very pleasing to hear, so I insisted that she write her name on it so I remember who it is from. I feel that today was a great day and in both classes I observed I was interacting with students.

Other Cultures in the Classroom

How Do You Incorporate Other Cultures into the Classroom Through Art Making?

My cooperating teacher does incorporate other cultures into the classroom. Through my observation I have not seen her teach one specifically but she does use multicultural lessons. She does include specific projects that cover art and other cultures for each grade level she teaches. I believe she said that older grade levels (3-5) deal with more multiculturalism that the other grades. Two of the projects that she mentioned were Native American and Egyptian masks, which is usually done by fourth and fifth graders. Ms.R usually works with the social studies department when she integrates a multicultural lesson into her classroom. The way she does this is through communication with the social studies teacher about what material is going to be covered throughout the module. This gives her an understanding of what and how she can turn the material into a new lesson. She also uses the other teacher’s textbook to ensure that she has all the information she needs to create a thorough lesson that covers the other culture in detail. I think that I will incorporate multiculturalism into my classroom as much as possible. I believe that this is a great way to keep the students interested in the subject that the multicultural lesson covers.

How Cooperating Teacher Assess Student Art

How Do You Assess Student Art

My cooperating teacher assesses art through her understanding of each individual student. What I mean by this is that she gets to know her students on a personal level of understanding their tendencies. Some things that she pays close attention to are attitude or work ethic, interest, and skill level. What seems to make this possible is that she is the only art teacher at the elementary school; therefore, the students that go through the elementary school k-5 will have her as an art teacher. When it comes down to actually grading the art and the students work the school uses a website that is for specifically for grading. This website shows a class list where the teacher can comment on each student and their projects individually; the teacher can also click on the students name and an image will appear of the student along with information about them.

I can imagine that assessing student art at the elementary level is very problematic. I would think that this is the case because elementary art may not always appear high quality.  It is important for a teacher to realize how students develop and grow, so they understand that it takes time for their artistic skills to improve.  It is also important to know that some students will be more developed artistically than others at every age.  In the end I think that a teacher must put a greater amount of attention on student effort instead of skills at the elementary level, especially when it comes to grading. Personally this makes me feel the same as Ms.R in that each student should be graded differently based on your observation of them as a teacher.

Dec.6th

HOW DO THE STUDENTS ACT UPON ENTERING THE CLASS? HOW DOES THE TEACHER ACT?

When students enter the classroom they usually walk in and sit at a large circular table, where Ms.R does demonstrations and informs them of upcoming projects. On occasion Ms.R will have the students artwork ready for them to begin working as they walk in the room. Ms.R is always very inviting when the students walk into class, she usually is standing until all the students come in and sit at the circle table.

HOW DOES THE TEACHER GET THEIR ATTENTION TO BEGIN CLASS? IS THERE A PROCEDURE FOR LISTENING?

After the students enter the classroom and take a seat Ms.R usually begins talking about what is on the agenda for the present day and upcoming days. If there are students talking or not listening Ms.R usually stops and asks them politely to pay attention. In the classes that I observe my cooperating teacher doesn't seem to have very much trouble with the students listening.

COMMENT ON THE TEACHER'S INSTRUCTION (HOW HE/ SHE BEGINS CLASS, DEMONSTRATIONS OF TECHNIQUES, INCORPORATION OF TECHNOLOGY, SENSE OF HUMOR).

I think that my cooperating teacher's instruction is done very well. The students are like trained sheep in that they always walk into the classroom immediately and sit at the circular table. I think that she also demonstrates her techniques well because the students projects always come out looking great. For the most part students don't have trouble working on projects. Ms.R does not incorporate technology in her classroom.

HOW DO YOU SEE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT BEING HANDLED? ARE ANY STUDENTS BEING OFF TASK OR DISRESPECTFUL- HOW DOES THE TEACHER HANDLE THIS? IS THERE A SYSTEM OF DISCIPLINE THAT THE SCHOOL USES?

 Ms. R manages the classroom very effectively. When students get off task she will always remind them to get back to work and if nothing changes then she will move the individuals. The school does use what they call major and minor reports if a student is misbehaving.

ARE THERE RULES POSTED? WHAT ARE THEY?

(Image to the right) There are rules posted in Ms.R's classroom. They are as follows:

• I will treat you with respect, so you will know how to treat me
• Feel free to do anything that doesn't cause a problem for anyone else
• If you cause a problem, I will as you to solve it
• If you can't solve the problem, or choose not to, I will do something
• What I do, will depend on the special person, and the special situation

"If you feel something is unfair, whisper to me, I'm not sure that's fair, and we will talk"

Be respectful, Be responsible and Be safe (school rules)

HOW DOES THE TEACHER ADDRESS SAFETY ISSUES?

Ms.R usually deals with safety issues separately for each project. For example, if the students are using scissors and glue, not to mix them together.

HOW DOES THE TEACHER HANDLE: BATHROOM BREAKS/ LOCKER/ DRINKS? RADIO/ IPODS? TELEPHONE? USE OF MATERIALS? BORROWING MATERIALS OVERNIGHT? CLEANING UP?

From my observation Ms.R usually lets students go to the bathroom and get drinks when they ask. I'm not sure if the elementary students have lockers but I know if the students leave their projects or materials in their classroom that they are allowed to get them as long as this isn't recurrent. As for the radio, Ms.R lets the students listen to it on occasion but if what they listen to becomes a problem than it gets removed. I pods and telephones are not allowed in the classroom. Materials are usually given overnight to students who are behind on projects. When it comes to cleaning up the classroom the students usually clean their own place. If a table is still messy Ms.R will ask the students who were sitting at the table to go back and clean their place.

DOES THE TEACHER USE A LESSON PLAN, CURRICULUM MAP, OR A CALENDAR TO PLAN UNITS? DOES HE/ SHE HAVE A WRITTEN CURRICULUM? WHAT DOES THE PLAN INCLUDE?

I know that Ms.R may have used lesson plans in the past but now when she teaches she does from memory. She has also talked about how she will make lesson plans up during a school year and implement them.

Nov. 29th

Tuesday Nov. 29th

Today was a little different for my pre-teaching observation, instead of Ms. R when we walked in the classroom there was a sub, which was a surprise to myself and my partner. It was interesting to see how the sub worked with the kids instead of having Ms. R there. It seemed that the sub was less experienced but she asked the children a lot of question to test their knowledge, which I think is very effective. I noticed that the sub used some of the similar techniques that our cooperating teacher uses which worked for her as well. One of the techniques that the sub used was clapping five times and then the kids would repeat and know that they have to be silent, which is a technique that Ms.R uses. With this last observation my 15 hours are complete but I plan on continuing to go if not the remainder of this semester than next semester and in the future. During this class period the last class was working on farm animal drawings using cray pas.

Tuesday Nov. 22nd

Nov. 22nd

Today, in the first class I observed the fifth graders were again working on barn drawings. This consisted of them drawing a barn in pencil and then shading the barn. They were also required to do another barn drawing that they traced with a projector and then colored in with crayon. As I went from table to table I noticed that most kids did struggle with shading; they would either not have a consistent light source or have no shading at all because they thought it was too difficult. So I spent most of my time explaining to them that there needs to be a consistent light source and asked them where they think the lights and dark surfaces will be in their drawing. The second class was working on drawing peacocks and there was one student who I sat down with for the entire class. The reason I sat down by this student was because he was showing signs of hyper activity (constant talking, no ability to sit still and vulgar noises). When I sat down by him I tired to keep him focused on his work but I was not that successful. It was very difficult trying to get him to focus on his work. At times he would be focused but then I would have to remind him to stay focused on his work.

Tuesday Nov. 15th

Lesson Plan 

Yesterday was the day of my lesson, which is designed for second graders. The lesson is an abstract tree drawing that incorporates warm or cool colors (students choice). My cooperating teacher left me in charge of the class only to help out when needed. When I was doing the demonstration for the lesson I felt that I explained things well, I memorized what I wanted to say so when I fumbled around I had to make up things on the fly. I think this was a good choice because It allowed me to be more prepared for the lesson and over time I think it will teach me to improvise on how I want to say things about lessons. It was very different having the entire classes attention focused on me, it was nice to actually be able to teach a lesson to students instead of my peers as I did in an earlier art education class. My cooperating teacher also had the students come to me and ask if they were finished with the first step of the project and if they needed any help they came to me as well. Now that I have taught a lesson in front of a class I feel that the more I do it the easier it will become. In this post I have included processes of the project from beginning to the final piece. I have also posted a video of my teaching. I apologize for the low quality of it but for some reason it was the only way that I could get the video to upload correctly, enjoy!

Tuesday Nov. 8th

Today at O elementary school I observed three classes, the first class was working on barn perspective drawings. These drawing were done in graphite and earlier in the class they drew their barns; now the students were working on shading their drawings and adding any other details. The second class was working on tree drawings with crayon. The students were given construction paper (color of choice) and sparkling crayons (metallic) and then told to make a scene that showed a tree in the foreground and the background. Of the day this was my favorite project to help the students with because earlier in the day I had a chance to create the project myself so it was easier to help students because I already experienced the process. The last class I spent most of the class helping a girl create cartoon faces. I find myself getting more comfortable with the students as I spend more time in the classroom.

Rules

How Do You Define Rules For Your Classroom?

            My cooperating teacher said that a lot of her rules that she implements in her classroom are used throughout the entire school. These rules consist of three general ideas: be safe, be respectful, and be responsible. For discipline in the school my cooperating teacher did give me a form that the school calls major and minor behavior forms, which are used simply for disciplinary means and a way to get the students to follow the rules. Obviously, a major form is when a student does something more serious and a minor for is when a student does something less serious. The form consists of the students name, where the incident occurred, and what the incident was. On the minor form is a checklist of incidents, which include: profanity, tattling, blurting, teasing, non-compliance, lying/ cheating, disruption, and rough play. These forms are used throughout the entire school and are similar to my elementary and middle school forms, but instead we called it  “being written up.” My cooperating teacher also went on to say that for particular projects there are certain rules; for example, if they are creating certain projects that require glue and scissors, do not mix them together. I think that these rules are effective and work for her and I believe that as a teacher you have to find out what works best for you and your students. I think that I will have set rules in my classroom before I start teaching and I will try to think of everything but I am sure that I will have to adjust some of my rules on the fly and add some as well.

Tuesday Nov.1st

Today at O elementary school, the first class that I observed today the students (5th Grade) were working on perspective drawings of barns. The students seemed to grasp the concept for the most part and their drawings were very impressive. The image to the left is a 5th grade student working on their barn drawing. The second class I observed (3rd Grade) was working on drawing trees. Many students struggled with this and asked for help. As I was interacting with the student and offering them help I found it difficult at first to make the students understand the concept, but after working with a couple of students I found that it was effective for me to draw some of the tree drawing and have the student finish what I started. This seemed to work for most of the students, but I did find that some of the students wanted me to draw their entire drawing but I insisted them that to improve they need to work on their artwork themselves.

Why Art?

Why Choose Teaching Art as a Profession

During my last in- class observation my partner and I asked our cooperating teacher Ms. K, why she chose art teaching as a profession. She said that she had gained a passion for art and could not see herself going to “work” everyday without it relating to art. This was very reassuring to me because I feel the same way about art but at times I wonder if I am going down the right path. I also asked Ms. K why she chose to work with elementary students instead of other higher education and she replied by saying that she loved working with children and seeing how they perceive art at such a young age; also how the students grow artistically over the years in the art classroom is very rewarding for her. I can understand why she would think this, from my observation in the classroom it is very rewarding and I love watching the students work on there projects and asking them why they did a particular adjustment or change to their artwork. Also when a student asks for advice and I provide him or her with feedback it gives me a very positive feeling and makes me want to help every student get to his or her final piece. Like Ms. K, I feel the same way about art; I want it to be in my life everyday. I constantly want to be helping others grow as artist through my lessons, assignment, and other teachings. Of equal importance, I also want to keep growing as an artist and expanding my knowledge about art so that I can be the best teacher for my students. I believe that all teachers need to keep learning  everyday to be able to answer any questions that student may have.

Second Day Oct. 18 th, 2011

Today, was our second day in the classroom with Ms. R. The students seemed to be more calm than the first day of my observation, this may have been because I was unsure how a classroom of kids ages 7-10  would act. I was also happy and impressed with my cooperating teacher on some of her techniques to either make the children pay attention or to do their work and not talk. One of the techniques she used was a serious of claps when the students were being loud, which was followed by the students repeating the claps and then like magic there was silence and all attention was put on Ms. R. The other technique was utilized when they were working on their art and was called the boy- girl game. This game consisted of the boys on one team and the girls on the other; and if any of the boys or girls talked they got a point. This game is similar to golf in that the person or in this case the people with the less points win. I am pleased that I got to see these techniques in action and witness them actually working.

First Day

Today (Oct. 11, 2011)was my first day at O Elementary with my cooperating teacher and student partner L G. I was not sure what to expect for the first day; but once I was able to see how ambitious the students were to do art that all changed. Of the three classes we saw all of the student were very eager to work on their projects, some of the students even completed multiple projects. After observing the students I was amazed on their approach of projects, instead of trying to get every mark perfect and in the right place they went with the flow of things and adjusted to the marks they made. I was nervous for the first day but now that it is over I am excited and eager to go again.

Pre-teaching Observation Dusty Parker

My Name is Dusty Parker, I am pre-teaching at O Elementary in Wisconsin. My cooperating teacher is Ms. R and she teaches K-5. The purpose of my blog is to document the hours I get to spend in the classroom for pre-teaching observation.