Student teaching during this COVID-19 pandemic has been filled with a number of challenges. More so as it happened right after the second placement switch for k-12 teachers, this created a more difficult time being a new school, with new students then a week and a half later you're doing online learning with k-5 graders. Ultimately it all went well, the students were awesome in responding to my teaching lesson, the school staff was very supportive helping make that transition online for all the teachers easier with working out the kinks that came with doing online learning the first week. For me responding to the change was easy, and I gladly accepted the challenges that started to arise during the shift to online learning. I was able to evaluate what students could and couldn't do at home, creating projects using simple materials but allowing for students to control more of their own materials and decorative ideas for projects. Yet on the same hand, during all this teaching online 12 hours a day, 8 days a week you need to remember that you are still a human and living at home with family constantly. You have to remember to take equal care for yourself as you do for your student teaching, this meaning to maintain work time and free time. Thankfully as an art teacher spending time with personal growth that benefits my teaching practice is working on art projects for my own personal use and exploring different art projects for students online and future use! Being able to experience this during my student teaching has its benefits and downsides, personally for the future it's a benefit being able to teach and transition to online learning saying that this might have to happen again in the future. The downside to this is the interaction with students, not being able to work with kids at my placement elementary in person, in that k-5 classroom environment.
Introduction to student teaching |
It's the little conversations that build the relationships and make an impact on each student." |
My student teaching in January started out very nerve racking as I feel most peoples student teachings start off as, but once the first day was over everything from there went amazing! My time at the middle school was great, I got to experience a full day of class periods seeing 6-8th grade during the day, viewing what other classes in the school run like, and being able to be a part of a whole school on a daily basis. The transition from middle school to elementary school was fun, and definitely less nerve racking then the first placement. Even though the elementary placement was cut very short in the classroom, the time at the placement was amazing. Starting out with the specific school, at the studio school it was an arts integrated school, so every aspect of the students' education surrounded the arts, visual, theater, and music. My teaching story started when I was in 11th grade. I started thinking about my future, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to attend college. I've 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 changed, I started looking at art more than just creating good looking art. I started thinking about what I would do if I was the teacher, thinking up projects for students, 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 that's 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 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!
Quality Standard 1
Teachers demonstrate mastery of and pedagogical expertise in the content they teach.
The elementary teacher is an expert in literacy and mathematics and is knowledgeable in all other content that he or she teaches (e.g., science, social studies, arts, physical education, or world languages). The secondary teacher has knowledge of literacy and mathematics and is an expert in his or her content endorsement area(s).
The elementary teacher is an expert in literacy and mathematics and is knowledgeable in all other content that he or she teaches (e.g., science, social studies, arts, physical education, or world languages). The secondary teacher has knowledge of literacy and mathematics and is an expert in his or her content endorsement area(s).
ELEMENT A: Teachers provide instruction that is aligned with the Colorado Academic Standards and their district's organized plan of instruction.
Lesson plan from middle school placement with the pottery project.
This lesson shows the examples of utilizing the Colorado Academic Standards of looking at works of art from different parts of the globe. Allowing students to get a global view of pottery being used in practically and decoratively. Learning targets and assesmnet for learning are also included and displayed for students as-per the district organized plan for instruction. For the future regarding this project, I would like to dive deeper into talking about three specific regions around the world that pottery is very important to the culture. Spending a full day talking and exploring these types of regional pottery. |
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ELEMENT B: Teachers develop and implement lessons that connect to a variety of content areas/disciplines and emphasize literacy and mathematics.
I choose this screenshot of my conversation with a collegue that I have from the Education program. She is currently in the ECE student teaching program with a 3rd grade class, but has previously worked in a K-3 classroom in Fort Collins. As I am unfarmiliar with the varient literacy and mathmatics skills that elementary schoolers are in, I thought she would be a great resource to utalize when thinking about these areas of creating lessons for literacy and math.
I also included a resource that I was sent to help evaluate what the students in 2nd grade learn. I included that screenshot of the document that I also utalized when talking with my friend, and creating a lesson for both 2nd grade and 3rd grade. This helps me when creating a lesson to try and connect with students active learning as well.
I also included a resource that I was sent to help evaluate what the students in 2nd grade learn. I included that screenshot of the document that I also utalized when talking with my friend, and creating a lesson for both 2nd grade and 3rd grade. This helps me when creating a lesson to try and connect with students active learning as well.
ELEMENT C: Teachers demonstrate knowledge of the content, central concepts, inquiry, appropriate evidence-based instructional practices, and specialized characteristics of the disciplines being taught.
I chose to utilize an example of my own pottery project that I did while my students created their own mini pottery works. It not only demonstrated to my student my own ability to create something using clay, but it was really useful in showing them how to create, what size it should be, and any issues they might have I can help them first hand. This demonstrates my knowledge on the subject of using pottery, but also being able to show special characteristics related to the project the students might have trouble or excel in.
Reflection for Standard 1
I would say that I am at an proficcient level for my own pedagogical expertise in an art teachers position, accompany teacher lesson plans, student projects that equal to the students grade level expectations (GLE) and the accompany qualification for being an art teacher knowing how to successfully teach students about a given medium or subject matter. This growth that I feel has been accomplished by the given statements above, linking to each artifact for the experience of each relating to students success and growing skills in an art classroom. I said that I was at a proficient level due to the fact that I feel I always need more growth in an elementary school's teachings in the classroom relating to younger students' skill levels academically and in the art classroom. But this would be related to my own teaching growth, on being able to evaluate your students' skill levels and academic levels by spending more time in an elementary school classroom, and visual arts room.
Quality standards 2
Teachers establish a safe, inclusive and respectful learning environment for a diverse population of students.
ELEMENT A: Teachers foster a predictable learning environment characterized by acceptable student behavior and efficient use of time in which each student has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults and peers.
My artifact for element A showing the students interactions during my time at the middle school placement. These images show my interactions with students in class during work time, while also being able to effectively help students during the creation process of their projects. Students are able to expect class to start off with a very short slideshow regarding what is going to happen that day in class. Students are then given the remainder of class to work on the project at hand, or finish up past of future projects. This can be seen in the pictures to the right, as the students are also given access to seeing a visual of the days agenda on the class board (right of the smartbored) and the slide of the days project.
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ELEMENT B: Teachers demonstrate an awareness of, a commitment to, and respect for multiple aspects of diversity, while working toward common goals as a community of learners.
Below is an artifact relating too element B that relates to the awareness of multiple diversities that are in the school, community and in any state around the US. This slide was shown to students before starting an in class “travel” activity, in this activity we looked at multiple cultures around the world looking at the pottery commonly found in that region. When I created this project I kept in mind the demographics of students that where in my class, what cultures they would be excited to learn about, and even looking at the types of history the students where talking and learning about in their social studies class.
ELEMENT C: Teachers engage students as individuals, including those with diverse needs and interests, across a range of ability levels by adapting their teaching for the benefit of all students.
For element C, I have included an example of my differentiated for learning during one of my project at the 7th grade. This is showing the example of adapting not only for different ability levels, but literacy and skill levels for this project. I addressed the topic of ELL and LEP students allowing access to language objective, having sentence starters related to questions and project topic ideas, as well providing different techniques for students having a harder time with the skills related to clay.
ELEMENT D: Teachers work collaboratively with the families and/or significant adults for the benefit of students.
For element D, I don’t have a physical artifact for how I was able to interact with the families and significant adults in students lives, but I was able to make two phone calls home. Both going to two, seventh grade students, both of these calls where somewhat related but happening on two separate days. These two students tended to talk and goof off during class, we as a team with my cooperating teacher tried moving the two students far away from each other in class, this was unsuccessful. Multiple other avenues where taken in order to get the students engaged with projects, one would be engaged and the other wouldn’t, leading to a distraction. The first phone call made went very well, I wrote a script on a scrap paper listing out the two talking pointes related to the student. But I also added glows that the student was having in class, that when they are focused on work they create great work, get really excited in the projects but due to the distraction from their friend they get off track of the project. My hope was that this students parent/guardian was able to have a conversation about not letting friends distract them to the point where they fall behind in class, as thats not what we all want to happen. This call I made was meet with great feedback and assurance with the parent/guardian, and the students ability to stay focuses in class from distracting friends improved greatly, allowing them to create, explore art mediums and finish a project!
The second phone call was related to the student above friend that was causing the distraction. Things with the student started to deteriorate relating to behavior turning from not working, to arguing about working and eventually leaving class during conversations. Multiple avenues where taken, similarly to the student above, moving seats, distancing the student to a more seat away from any distractions, emails home, hallway conversations, even allowing the student to create what they wanted to during class, yet nothing seemed to work. This was eventually the last thing we could do, so a phone call home to parents/guardian relating to these noticed behaviors. The phone call went to answering machine and it was similar to the last phone call but less glows and more grows being suggested for the students to try and whomever answered the call to address.
The second phone call was related to the student above friend that was causing the distraction. Things with the student started to deteriorate relating to behavior turning from not working, to arguing about working and eventually leaving class during conversations. Multiple avenues where taken, similarly to the student above, moving seats, distancing the student to a more seat away from any distractions, emails home, hallway conversations, even allowing the student to create what they wanted to during class, yet nothing seemed to work. This was eventually the last thing we could do, so a phone call home to parents/guardian relating to these noticed behaviors. The phone call went to answering machine and it was similar to the last phone call but less glows and more grows being suggested for the students to try and whomever answered the call to address.
Reflection for Standard 2
I would say that for creating a safe, inclusive and respectful environment for my students I would be at the accomplished level. As during my time at the middle school and elementary school I worked with a number of students, relating to their own personal levels of academics, sexuallity, behaviours and just overall student demeanor. The inclusivity that art rooms provided for all is very important to me as, when I was in middle and high school the art room was a location where I always felt safe and lived with any other student regardless of my own academic challenges and personal behaviors. And for me being able to work with a range of students like I have at both placements makes me feel that ultimately with my own personal connections with this topic and being able to work with a wide range of students I can successfully provide that learning environment for my own students. Ways moving forward for my goal relating to this standard would be to incorporate strategies that I would like to communicate with students and families at home on what cultural lesson they can suggest participating in the art classroom, as I think it's very important for young kids to experience cultures at a young age. And if these can come from first person sources I think that would be awesome for students to see, as I know growing up I learned a lot by spending time with my friends that were also culturally diverse from my own.
Quality Standard 3
Teachers plan and deliver effective instruction and create an environment that facilitates learning for their students.
ELEMENT A: Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students.
For this artifact relating to teachers demonstrating knowledge relating to my 2nd grade project about animal environments. The students were learning in their homeroom class online about animals and the different types of locations they live in, as well as the climates that the animals are living in. So I created a project that integrated this level of education they had in class, related to the social emotional ideas that the students have at the 2nd grade level. They are very creative and exploitive grade levels, they aren’t afraid to think outside of the box but bring in the knowledge that they are learning about in class, so I thought the idea of doing adventure birds where they are creating birds in different environments and asking them to think about what they might need to live in these environments. On the 9th page, you can see my questions that I posed to the students as well. I had a video recording though SeeSaw talking to students about this topic of where birds could live, and what they might need to live there.
ELEMENT B: Teachers use formal and informal methods to assess student learning, provide feedback, and use results to inform planning and instruction.
Below I screen record a student's response to a project that I did with the 2nd and 3rd graders, this is both the students response and my own teacher feedback though voice recording. My own role was giving the student feedback though voice recording as it makes it more personal and connects with students better when they hear your voice, also it allows students that might struggle with reading to hear it. This is connected to the element standard as it shows giving students informal feedback at the end of a project though voice recording on the SeeSaw program.
Student Teacher feedback
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Student response to the project
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ELEMENT C: Teachers integrate and utilize appropriate available technology to engage students in authentic learning experiences.
My artifact for this element regarding utilizing technology in the classroom, I chose to use the screenshots that I made for my students slideshow that we had for them to follow along on chromebooks. Students were using the chromebooks and picture editing website that I had discovered doing my own research for student students projects. So I would say that these screenshots show the integration of the technology and using programs to edit photos to help students with a painting project.
ELEMENT D: Teachers establish and communicate high expectations and use processes to support the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
For me this is how I have shown a high effective way of having expectations in place for my students during the time of introducing the projects. By showing the studnets at the beginning of each class, the standards for learning, the language objective that helps students verbalize what exactly we want to be talking about in class, and the assessment of learning showing what the projects for the day will be. And addressing the development of critical thinking and problem solving, these three standard ideas of Learning objective, language objective, and assessment of learning can address or help get students thinking about the aspects of critical thinking and problem solving. I also included at the bottom a rubric for the assessment of learning that is posted in the room so students are able to see what they need to get the grade they want, then problem solving on their own, or ask the teacher how they can reach that grade they want to achieve on the rubric.
ELEMENT E: Teachers provide students with opportunities to work in teams and develop leadership.
This is an example of a fun group project that I started for the last two days at the middle school with the 6th graders I had been solely teaching for the whole 8 weeks, it was meant as a fun group pixel art project that included a small amount of math to get the angles right. This project helped foster leadership among some students that enjoy group projects, and then for some students working in a group helps bring them out of that solo comfort zone and work collaboratively as a team.
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ELEMENT F: Teachers model and promote effective communication.
I chose to use an image for my artifact showing myself in the active teaching stage of demonstrating 6 different techniques that students can do utilizing oil pastels. It is an example of effective communication with students, as the process of doing the techniques along with the students is the best way that I found students to be able to learn and grow their own technical skills relating to a medium and the effect of showing the students the own teachers ideas and thought process of doing techniques helps show them critical thinking skills, exploration of materials, and ultimately getting them thinking about how they could use different materials later on in the students art making education.
reflection for standard 3
I would say that regarding technology use and ability to integrate ict into lessons with students across K-12 would be at the accomplishing level throughout my student teaching. This can be seen throughout the online learning process that has been going on throughout the second part of my student teaching at the primary level. Yet before that I was integrating technology into every lesson that I did with students at the middle school levels as well. We used software on the chromebooks to edit images, used the computers as research tools when looking at historical pottery, and allowed students to look for reference images throughout all their projects along with talking to them about copyrights regarding artwork, what is drawing inspiration from or copying someone's own artwork. Using technology has been a big important factor as we moved learning into the technology world while being able to maintain that standard of delivering effective instruction to students virtually. Using the online teaching program SeeSaw has really helped meet this standard for the younger kids, as it allows you as the teacher to be able to create that environment for the students learning all through the computer. My own future goal relating to this standard would be to just explore more options to bring to students relating to using technology in the art making process, similar to using digital art and a tablet to create artwork. I have on my own in my own artwork have explored the digital art making process, but I would like to explore how to teach digital art to students in the middle and even elementary aged students.
Quality standards 4
ELEMENT A: Teachers demonstrate high standards for professional conduct.
The image to the right is showing how I have demonstrated high professional conduct with introducing myself as the new student teaching to my new cooperating teachers at The Studio School. And how I was carrying myself as a professional new student teaching moving from the middle school to the elementary school, it's very important to start out with a good impression with your new cooperating teachers. And for the future to always write emails that showed you professionalism, from introducing yourself to daily emails to colleagues. |
ELEMENT B: Teachers link professional growth to their professional goals.
My artifact for this element relating professional growth to professional goals is how I can manage recording the amount of work and keeping organized after moving from in person teaching to online. My goal was to be more organized and record everything, it was a goal of mine when I started student teaching. I wanted to be able to be more organized with my professional work from school. Before, during middle school placement it was for maintaining time working on lessons, grading projects and managing still doing homework for my student teaching. This resulted in using handwritten notes in a bullet journal, but moving online I know that to make it easier for me to remember it needed to be digital as I was spending most of my time on the computer anyways. So below I included my spreadsheet for how I have managed my students' work time, being able to record all interactions with my cooperating teachers, the staff at the school, and working professionally relating to teaching and my own professional growth. This artifact shows the growth that I have made in terms of adapting to managing my time, using the spreadsheet to keep me organized, then reflection on the professional goal I had started out during the beginning of student teaching with.
ELEMENT C: Teachers are able to respond to a complex, dynamic environment.
For the first day of doing online classes with the 4th and 5th graders I create multiple ways for the studnets to view the lesson, follow along with the steps for the project, and included three different videos, with a presentation, and in SeeSaw the slides had voice over recordings for the students to follow along with hearing my voice for the first lesson. This shows the adapting I had to deal with due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was accuring during the second/third week of elementary school placement, its a great example of adapting to a complex new environment of teaching elementary school art class.
ELEMENT D: Teachers demonstrate leadership in the school, the community, and the teaching profession.
Being a part of the school community, helping teachers that might have trouble with using technology and helping my cooperating teachers and any teachers in the building that need help. This is a picture of the first staff meeting that we had as the studio school teachers/staff online. I offered to the teaching staff that I was available anytime for them if they needed any help regarding programs you can utilize to teach and record lessons online. I would say that the presences of being in staff meetings with the teachers at the cooperating school is a form of leadership, showing the staff that you are a part of the schools community, being a part of the teaching profession at the elementary school level, and overall leadership for the art department with the transition from in person teaching to online teaching.
REFLECTION FOR STANDARD 4
Lastly regarding standards four, I believe that I am at the proficient to accomplish range regarding teachers demonstrating the professionalism in ethical conduct, reflection and leadership. I said that I was at the in-between because I feel for me being a leader sometimes doesn't come naturally with people my own age, and older as social interactions being a leader for me with that age range still feels a bit awkward for me. I would imagine with my goal of being to force myself to step outside of that comfort zone in my later working years this will improve and I won't be as hesitant to be a leader among older and same aged colleagues. Yet everything else relating to this standard being ethical conduct and reflection I would say that I am at the accomplished level, as I feel that I have been ethical and respectful in my interactions with colleagues and mentors during my student teaching, as well reflection on my own learning, teachings and classwork with students. Reflection is one of my bigger ideas in my own personal self and in my own artwork, being able to reflect on one's life and face in family was (and lately still is) one of my art ideas that has driven my own art making throughout my college and student teaching years. Being able to reflect visually, emotionally and through time is a big idea that will forever be one of my main goals that I have for myself moving forward in my teaching and own personal life.
Dispositions Reflection
I feel that for me the two dispositions that I find very confident in are Standards 2 and Standards 3, addressing establishing a safe environment for students in the classroom, and teachers planning effective learning and projects that utilize new techniques or technologies. I feel the most comfortable with these because of my own personal experience with K-12 students talking with them for the last 3 years in my own teaching classes and first hand experience growing up in a very diverse school district, while also having a number of diverse friends belonging to multiple different cultures then my own and sexual orientation. And for related to standard 3, creating and doing projects with students is one of my favorite parts of teaching at a grade level. Being able to create projects either about artists, art movements or styles, or even creating projects that help students with different techniques or motor skills. These creations of projects are one of the many things that I find comforting and in control of with students during my time as an art teacher. For me one standard that I feel a little less confident in with evaluating and creating projects soloy for the younger grades of K-3. Standard 1 addresses the mastery of and pedagogical expertise in the content they teach, and for me solely due to the time cut short in the elementary school it feels that I don't fully know the capabilities you can hold the younger grades at when doing art projects. Because I don't feel that relating to experience creating a lesson for the elementary schoolers I don't have physical experience in a classroom due to the shift to online learning, making it difficult to know what each grade level can and cannot do relating to motor skills and literacy skills in the art classroom. Yet the idea evaluating students I know is very much needed at every school you are at with the younger kids, some skills on doing that for upper grades such as 4th and 5th grade can get a little confusing due to limited time and the relationship between the 5th and 6th graders. Specifically I think that standard 3 relates more to my professional goal as a teacher in the school. Yet the other goals from standards 1,2 and 4 are also related to my own professional goals as well. Just related to standard 3 it was one that I felt confident about previously but relating to my own professional goal on building my own knowledge of materials and mediums and learning how to incorporate those into lesson fits in well with standards 1 and 3 but for me, I think it fits with standard 3 due to the wording; Teachers plan and deliver effective instruction and create an environment that facilitates learning for their students. This speaks to me regarding that force for me learning and developing my own skill to be able to facilitate the best learning and create the best, most fun projects with new different materials then students have explored with.