Hello, and welcome to my student teaching e-portfolio.
|
About Me
My name is Natalie Baumgartner, I've created this website to help learn more about me as a person as well as an educator. I completed my student teaching in Adams 12 Five star schools. It is really great that I got to teach in the same school district that I graduated from, it's made student teaching that much more fun!
I was born and raised in Thornton, Colorado. As an only child it really fostered my creativity as I was always creating new ways of entertaining myself, either through art, building, or pretending to have my own classroom with toys and pets! Teaching for me has been something that I’ve really found a passion in since my later time in high school, from being a teacher's aid, being co-captain on my girls golf team and looking after school aged children. |
Why I teach When I was in 11th grade Is when I started thinking about my future, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to attend college. Ive always enveloped myself in the arts growing up in school, it was always my favorite time to truly express myself. Yet in high school something change, I started looking at art more then just creating good looking art. I started thinking about what I would do if I was the teacher, thinking up projects for student, how my art room would function, and having connections with my own students like my connection with my art teacher. My art teacher was the adult I could go to at school, either about events at school, or things at home. She was my inspiration for what I wanted to do after high school graduation. I never imagined myself going to college, up until high school I didn’t even know what college was, my parents didn’t go to college so it was a foreign concept to me. But being able to connect with my art teacher, I was able to talk with someone about college and ask questions like “How do you become an art teacher?”. And thats ultimately what drove me to become an art teacher, I want to be that teacher a student can look up to, be inspired by and talk to about events outside of school. And be that person that drives students to create meaningful artwork they feel good about and reaches their viewer. And to show that student that was like me, you can do whatever you set your mind to, and don’t be afraid to be a first generation college student!
|
Student Teaching Placements
Century participates in the International Baccalaureate (IB) – Middle Years Programme (MYP), which aims to develop internationally-minded, independent learners. The IB program challenges students to think critically, develop respect for different points of view, and embrace a lifelong journey of learning, hard work and academic excellence.
IB’s rigorous curriculum involves reflective thinking, both critical and creative, about ideas and behaviors. It includes problem solving and analysis, clarification and discussion of personal beliefs and standards, on which decisions are made and lead to critical thinking and action. Students get the chance to explore eight different subjects each year with an international perspective that applies learning to both the classroom and the real world. |
The Studio School offers an arts-integrated approach to standards- based learning. Core subject areas are infused with the arts while maintaining high expectations. Students' learning is expanded and enriched through drama, visual arts, music, and dance. The learning environment reflects the latest research linking academic success with the integration of arts concepts and experiences. Prospective students must apply for available spaces.
|
Artist Statement
My collection of work started early on with the idea of family, and the process that we as humans move through from one relative to another. So my AP studio thesis in high school focused around that idea, how we as family members age and change over time. It was a way to show the effects of time on different key members of my immediate family. But as I finished up with AP studio art and moved from high school to college I realized a world of art that I had never been exposed to growing up in art classes during my 1st-12th grade experience of artmaking. The new mediums and process of creating other forms of artwork inspired and fascinated me, to the point where I became an artist that focused more on the ideas and process of using the new art materials or type of art then really worrying about the final creation looking amazing or flawless. I learned that not all art that I make is going to be flawless or something that I might be proud of now, but If I learned a lot about the material or just used that project to explore what I can do with the material that was my main outlook on some of later college works of art. This also has helped inspire me when creating lessons for students and to not stress to them that it needs to look really good or be the best work of art they have ever done, I want to know if they had fun using the materials, they enjoyed the process of creating the project, and overall did they learn even one thing new and practiced problem solving through the creation of their art piece. As of right now I have focused most of my time into Fiber's works, weaving and sitting at the loom. I enjoy the process of creating any form of fiber art the most, but I have also enjoyed a number of other forms of art making such as: Painting, Drawing, Woodworking, Screen/Printmaking, Pottery, and Metals/Jewelry making.
My collection of work started early on with the idea of family, and the process that we as humans move through from one relative to another. So my AP studio thesis in high school focused around that idea, how we as family members age and change over time. It was a way to show the effects of time on different key members of my immediate family. But as I finished up with AP studio art and moved from high school to college I realized a world of art that I had never been exposed to growing up in art classes during my 1st-12th grade experience of artmaking. The new mediums and process of creating other forms of artwork inspired and fascinated me, to the point where I became an artist that focused more on the ideas and process of using the new art materials or type of art then really worrying about the final creation looking amazing or flawless. I learned that not all art that I make is going to be flawless or something that I might be proud of now, but If I learned a lot about the material or just used that project to explore what I can do with the material that was my main outlook on some of later college works of art. This also has helped inspire me when creating lessons for students and to not stress to them that it needs to look really good or be the best work of art they have ever done, I want to know if they had fun using the materials, they enjoyed the process of creating the project, and overall did they learn even one thing new and practiced problem solving through the creation of their art piece. As of right now I have focused most of my time into Fiber's works, weaving and sitting at the loom. I enjoy the process of creating any form of fiber art the most, but I have also enjoyed a number of other forms of art making such as: Painting, Drawing, Woodworking, Screen/Printmaking, Pottery, and Metals/Jewelry making.