What class rules are essential to a positive teaching/learning experience? How do plan to create a positive learning environment when you have your own classroom?

There two rules that I have noticed are becoming more important to me as my time progresses as a student teacher. The first rule that I will enforce without any mercy or hesitation deals with keeping people from touching each others work. Some students have this sense of entitlement or an unusual amount of curiosity and think that they can or should put their hands all over projects that aren't their own! There are several reasons why I become severely irritated and angry when I see this happen.

Reason #1:
This could obviously lead to damage, destruction, or an unwanted alteration to the project.

Reason #2:
Most of the students I see only receive 40 minutes of art per week, which translates to about 30 minutes of actual work time when you include cleanup, transition times, and demonstrations. We don't have time to make projects over again if someone ruins or breaks another persons work.

Reason #3:
I don't want to have to break the bad news to a student that their time was wasted and their project was destroyed.

Reason #4:
I don't want to have to reprimand a student and have them miss out on an opportunity to learn because my rules concerning handling other students' work wasn't clear enough.

Reason #5:
Students should feel that their work environment is safe for not only them, but also their work. How much motivation would anyone have if they felt like their hard work could be destroyed as soon as they left the room?

The second rule concerns students' comments on each others work. Students' will not demean the work of their peers. While I realize that some level of criticism is necessary to grow as an artist, there is a time and place for it in critiques. If students don't believe that someone's work is good, they need to learn to offer advice rather than to make hurtful comments. I have witnessed students of all ages shut down and become unproductive because of negative feedback that was given the wrong way. This rule also deals with creating a safe environment for students to work in. If students can't express themselves without fear of ridicule, they will play it safe in the art room and never take risks that payoff with big rewards.

While I have read through the rules in the student handbook and believe that they are all valuable, these two rules are particularly important for me.

How do you approach planning and teaching to diverse learners? What accommodations have you made for diverse learners?

My approach to teaching to diverse learners is to first and foremost, create a classroom that is safe for everyone to express their views and take risks. I believe that creating this type of environment allows students from different backgrounds to flourish by making them feel like they can ask questions to reach full understanding or experience new activities that they could benefit from. Students will be encouraged in my classroom to openly discuss each others work with care and we will take time to get to know one another.

Part of creating this community and bond, will come from getting to know the hopes, concerns, strengths, and needs of these diverse learners. Digging a little bit to get familiar with a student's culture so that I can develop my understanding of their classroom behavior will be part of this effort. As teachers we should also do everything in our power to get parents and guardians to participate inside and outside of the school.

I will be sure to emphasize that every student has the same high expectations. Along with these expectations, I will be there to provide the support the students need to reach those expectations. If a student comes in behind the rest in a certain area or lacks a specific skill set, they should not receive a watered down lesson that ultimately lowers their standards and self esteem. I want students to know that they can achieve on the same level regardless of their background.

My instruction will acknowledge diversity and use it to form different points of view through which students can learn once the classroom community is strong enough. Effective instruction takes diversity and turns it into an opportunity to build new knowledge and perspective, further developing a diverse learner's connection to the classroom community while building on their abilities.

Think back to influential classes you have taken. How were expectations set to promote student success? Introduce your student teaching setting. How do you view the expectations and classroom community established in your current placement?

In the most influential classes I have taken, expectations were always posted where everyone could see them. Expectations for assignments, entering the room, cleaning up, and school conduct were posted in these classes. They were usually big, bold, and colorful so that they would catch your eye.

For more advanced classes, syllabi were given in hand and online, then discussed to make sure that there was no confusion. Even then, some expectations were posted as reminders!

My current placement has me working in two separate rooms at an elementary school and in a shared high school art classroom. Both rooms are nice and big, with plenty of space to post or project expectations. However, expectations are not posted in any way in either art room.

I think that this has caused some confusion and a little extra work for my instructor during some classes at the elementary school. There are times when students could refer to the expectations associated with the assignment on their own so that they wouldn't have to ask so many questions. It chews up so much time answering the same questions over and over again! There seems to be some management problems in the classroom at the elementary school, particularly with running in the classroom. I believe that clearly posting rules about running would help with this issue. It would be easy to go over the expectations a few times periodically, plus keeping them posted would serve as a permanent reminder that running around the classroom at full speed is unacceptable.

The high school class is really small, only 8 students, and there really hasn't been any issues with behavior. Expectations on what is expected to be done during the course of the class would be beneficial though. The students aren't very productive and they need set goals for each 90 minute block to keep them on task. I don't believe that things should be rushed, but they don't have any posted due dates and they take full advantage of the fact and constantly work on everything but art!

Student Teaching: The First Reflection

The most daunting thing about finishing student teaching is the stress associated with finding a job where I want to live. I really am looking forward to getting a job as a teacher and moving forward with my life, but I am not confident that I will be able to find what I want in the area that my family and I want to live in. However, if I had to sub for a while, I think I could live with that.

When I was in school, throughout high school and college, I had several different art teachers. I can't remember the last semester that I didn't have an art class of some sort. Some of those teachers have been very good, while others were less effective or just plain lazy. The teachers that were good made me excited to be in school and learn. They were inspirational, enthusiastic, and unfortunately, they were outnumbered. They were outnumbered by teachers that gave us due dates and cookie cutter projects. I want to teach so I can help out with the imbalance that I experienced as a student and to create passion for the arts in my students.

Luckily, the student teaching experience hasn't caused a great wardrobe change. I owned most of the clothes that I will need in order to dress to impress and look professional. The big change that really occurred, was a shift in what I wore on a daily basis. Before student teaching I was spending most of my days sculpting in a ceramics studio. It was a dusty, messy business, working with power tools and glorified mud. I went from looking similar to a construction worker some days to looking professional and it's been a very nice change of pace!

UAY Reflection

My UAY experience was actually pretty good in hindsight. I really value the opportunity that was given to us and I think that if I do continue on the to be a teacher I will be much better prepared because of it.

The most important teaching aspect I believe that I learned was to be flexible and learn to adapt. Without these skills a teacher can really get themselves into some trouble. Our group was a perfect example of this on several occasions. For example, Amanda and I thought for certain that we would have everybody finished with their masks early. Well...we were wrong. Very wrong, and all it took was for lovely little Claire to miss the Jam session. That made our group go from ahead of task to all over the flippin' place. The boys were finishing their mosaics and working on new projects. In the instance of Daniel, several new projects. God he kept us on our toes with new things to do! Meanwhile, Claire was really close to not finishing her project on the last workday available. She barely had her mosaic painted before our cleanup had started. This one variable kinda threw us off schedule, as we had planned to start a journal for everyone. I had the impression that it would be more of a group demo than the individual assignment that it had turned into.

Another way that flexibility mattered with our group was with the wording of our assignment. The word "mask" seemed to be far more loaded than I had anticipated with Sam. Man, he just didn't understand that we weren't making masks to wear. I really bummed him out one day when it finally hit him. I could tell he still had dreams of wearing his warpaint waiter mask, he would hold it up to his face all the time like it was a wearable accessory.

Daniel gave us the need to adapt because he was a productive machine. He didn't want to make a mask, so we changed the lesson a bit to fit his desires, but he was still able to learn the intended assignment. After that he was constantly pushing us to find new things for him to do. If we didn't he would start walking around talking about all sorts of crazy stuff. He was a real pleasure to work with, god, I still laugh thinking about some of the stuff we did. We had fears because he was autistic, but he really did end up becoming the highlight of UAY to me.

My Newest Work and Classroom Management

Well, here is my final piece for ceramics three, it is the front and back of a woman that is a sort of personification of music. Tried doing this using flowing lines to symbolize rhythm and flow. I incorporated the colors in an attempt to make the piece harmonious. Let me know what you think, constructive criticism is very welcome.

OK, now on to classroom management. The problems that I have encountered with classroom management stems from a total lack of motivation in some students. It's what leads me to question my future as a teacher in fact. During my volunteer hours, I spent two whole weeks in the classroom trying to get the best feel possible for teaching. In this time period, I noticed some students, usually one or two per class of about 20 or more students that just wouldn't do anything unless you asked them constantly everyday. This also happened to be true in our UAY class, which is odd seeing as the students chose to be there.(Why you would go to something that you aren't really motivated to do in the first place when no one is forcing you is beyond me!)

Anywho, it seems that other problems like fighting and general disrespect for the classroom (peers, teachers, facilities, and rules) were not a real problem most of the time.

The only way that ever really worked that I noticed as far as motivating students was to be flexible with the lesson plan and bring forth positive reinforcement to the table. Being flexible allows students that might not be particularly interested in the current project to find another outlet that they find satisfying. It is important that the main goal of the assignment is kept in the forefront of the students mind however. The lesson should still be beneficial in the same manner as everyone else. Positive reinforcement is the next factor that worked. While it didn't work all the time, students really do enjoy a thoughtful compliment about their work. At times I find it difficult to praise some peoples efforts though. Must just be me, but it's really hard for me to compliment someone that doesn't do very much. How can you compliment a student that doesn't do anything in order to get them to get started? That is the real trick. When both of these fail, and some days they did, things fell apart in our little group which caused some verbal backlash and written obscenities. Oh well, time and practice will make things better.

UAY is finished and I have bad News

After several weeks of teaching and learning, our mission to teach the young students at UAY is over. The experience was worthwhile for me. I learned different ways to handle students particular intricacies as well as new projects and plans for lessons.

Unfortunately, the most important lesson I will take from this little adventure leads me to question my dedication to teaching at the high school level. Experiences from this class coupled with information gained in others has me wondering if teaching is the best option for me. I continually read about how teaching in high schools is just plain awful. Teacher attrition rates are scary and the reasons why have made me question my motivation. I really don't want to be a babysitter. The idea of little funding and administrators that don't care for the opinion of teachers is disheartening. Bad facilities with busted air conditioning and inconsistent bathroom break opportunities seems like a ridiculous workplace for someone that has worked their way through a degree program at a nice university. It seems as if teachers deserve better conditions and certainly better pay.

Challenging students like the ones we encountered in UAY brought issues to the table that I honestly would turn my back on in a day to day situation. It's one thing to try to push someone once a week, it's entirely different to push them every day of the week. I have patience for certain things, laziness and complacency is not an area that is good for my patience. In the real world, with classrooms filled with 30 or more students, it is very likely that a teacher would have several challenging students every hour that just want to sit and veg out. I don't want to be the teacher that turns my back and says "forget it", but I know it would drive me nuts day after day to beg people to work like I experienced this semester.

The only real passion I have for teaching is brought upon by the prospect of having summers off. I want summers off so I can focus on my art for a couple months every year. Does that mean that I should just go for it and try to become a full time artist? My family thinks I should be a graphic designer. Teachers from my high school saw my work when I volunteered and said that I was stupid for wasting time trying to teach, saying that I should go all the way. It really is what I want to do, but is it the smart thing to do?

I would much rather stay in school, earn my masters, and then enter shows and applications until I could get a job at the college level where students major in art and don't just take your class because its "easy". That was the original plan before Sophia was born. Do I stick with the original plan and focus my time at IOWA in the Studio or in the classroom for a teaching certificate? I'm so confused, my heart says on thing while my head says another.

I feel like I've grown as an artist during my time here and I wish I could devote my time strictly to studio courses. I'm so close to graduating with a BFA but not that close with the TEP certificate. I wish the answers were easier to come by. I really wonder if I'm wasting my time training to be a teacher.