Introduction
During this Fall semester, I was enrolled in EDUC466, I went into the class very excited about continuing my service learning in the art room setting. As compared to your 350 and 450 its harder to think about the class in terms of your own content area because its not with the your content professor and if your in a specialties like art, music, or physical education, your typical in the EDUC 350/450 by yourself. So in terms of reflection on a lesson or the overall day you need to do it as a self reflection. So being in a school for EDUC466 with other art education student and being able to do a peer teaching every week it allows for more growth in my own mindset faster then solo. I really enjoyed being in the elementary school and the grade levels that my group and I had, because if I went into student teaching without ever being in a Kindergarten class I think I defiantly would be more nervous then I already am to student teach. So in the Service Learning for EDUC466 I had the opportunity to work in the art classroom setting at Beattie Elementary School under the supervision of Ms. Kimberly Noel. As previously stated I had the opportunity to be in two, Third grade classes, A & B groups alternating weeks and a Kindergarten group with the same alternating schedule. While creating lesson plan for either one lesson taught to both groups or individual lessons for third and kindergarten every week, each turned into canvas and can be found on the links at the bottom of this page, under lessons 1-5. While also having a blog post in ART326 that was due every week, where I reflected on either my time at Beattie Elementary in the classroom or I looked into my past experiences in school and how that shapes the person and teacher that I am today. Those links can be found below where it links to weekly blog posts with a created art artifact that was inspired from my time in EDUC466 or EDUC450 at the high school.
Setting in context
Beattie opened in 1972 and was named after Dan Beattie, long-time community leader, distinguished athlete, and educator. Our motto is "open classrooms, endless possibilities".
Start of Wonder lab
Wonderlab is designed for students to explore and play with different mediums in a group setting. This allows for group and individual creative thinking. We focus with our students on the process rather then the product and the artistic behaviors learned. This allows students to go on to create art without much instruction, learning more towards adult artistic tendencies.
During my time at Beattie I saw that the values the school holds are all evident when I was a teaching practicum student here at the elementary school. From the website, before I started by time at Beattie I read a lot on the website on the learning culture and academics environment that the students are in, and I was definitely able to see this happening in the art room, from the website it states that, "Beattie is an open classroom building which promotes collaborative teaching and learning, and encourages everyone to work together. Teachers throughout the school strive to address student needs, and students build problem-solving and critical thinking skills through the learning activities presented. Our culture includes an emphasis on health and wellness, and related activities occur throughout the year for students, families, and staff.” I saw this happening a lot more frequently in the Kindergarten class as regarding the Kindergarten teachers and other special education teachers helping out with students in Kindergarten art class as we had a number of students that needed more one on one help during the class period. As well, Ms. Noel was always available after class with use to talk about what we could work on improving, things that worked well in lesson and to just talk about the struggles we where having regarding the two Kindergarten classes with the amount of students that did need more behavior corrections during the class period.
Demographics of Beattie Elementary School
All information is current as of 2018 and was found on Schooldigger.com
Total enrolled: 349
Student to teacher ratio 15.7
Racial background:
White:
65.6%
Hispanic:
24.1%
Two or more races:
5.4%
Asian:
2.0%
African American:
1.7%
American Indian:
0.9%
Pacific Islander:
0.3%
Free/discounted lunch recipients: 54.7%
191st of 965 Colorado Elementary Schools
All information is current as of 2018 and was found on Schooldigger.com
Total enrolled: 349
Student to teacher ratio 15.7
Racial background:
White:
65.6%
Hispanic:
24.1%
Two or more races:
5.4%
Asian:
2.0%
African American:
1.7%
American Indian:
0.9%
Pacific Islander:
0.3%
Free/discounted lunch recipients: 54.7%
191st of 965 Colorado Elementary Schools
For all the PSD schools that I have had the great experience in working in, they have the upmost security and take that safety of student very seriously, bellow is a list of all the steps that the PSD takes in all the schools to keep the students feeling and actively being safe around the schools campus.
1. Prevention: School prevention include visitor screening, suicide assessment and intervention, implementing prevention programs, and conducting threat assessments.
2. Protection: Some school protection programs include evacuation, sheltering for hazard, lockdown, lockout and "run-hide-fight" protocols.
3. Mitigation: Examples of mitigation include installation of backup generators for power outages; early warning systems for severe weather events, fencing hazardous areas, safe construction and defensible space for wildland fires, and the presence of School Resource Officers. Any of these measures could mitigate the impact of an event.
4. Response: Taking action to effectively contain and resolve the crisis or emergency, including all aspects associated with notifying and protecting the students, staff, public and property.
5. Recovery: Assisting students and staff in the healing process and restoring educational operations in schools. The two main priorities of this phase are the emotional recovery of the students and staff and the physical recovery of school.
1. Prevention: School prevention include visitor screening, suicide assessment and intervention, implementing prevention programs, and conducting threat assessments.
2. Protection: Some school protection programs include evacuation, sheltering for hazard, lockdown, lockout and "run-hide-fight" protocols.
3. Mitigation: Examples of mitigation include installation of backup generators for power outages; early warning systems for severe weather events, fencing hazardous areas, safe construction and defensible space for wildland fires, and the presence of School Resource Officers. Any of these measures could mitigate the impact of an event.
4. Response: Taking action to effectively contain and resolve the crisis or emergency, including all aspects associated with notifying and protecting the students, staff, public and property.
5. Recovery: Assisting students and staff in the healing process and restoring educational operations in schools. The two main priorities of this phase are the emotional recovery of the students and staff and the physical recovery of school.
Beattie the students with special needs: “Differentiation of instruction has been a goal among the staff for several years and our program has, of course, adopted this philosophy. Our expectations are not only for each child to work to his/her potential academically, but we also highly encourage the development of strengths within each child. The concept driving this emphasis is that students benefit maximally from being aware of and achieving in areas in which they do well whether that is sports, music, art, perhaps peer tutoring or other possibilities. We serve students K-5 with moderate academic needs, as well as students with mild needs. Our roster is often small, approximately 6 students, but may vary from year to year. Starting small gives us the opportunity to provide a smooth transition for our new students, and to set up a program suited for their individual needs. The children come to us for their core academics, and then join their classmates for content. With small group instruction we're able to teach students different strategies and approaches to learning that allow students to feel successful." Below I included a link to the resources that Beattie Elementary provides to students that might be struggling, either academically or in out of school life they provide a number of positive resources that students and parents can utilized during their students time at Beattie to help better they're learning and overall selves.
Art Experiences
Synthesis and Conclusion
Transcript of the presentation
First Slide:
During this Fall semester, I was enrolled in EDUC466, I went into the class very excited about continuing my service learning in the art room setting. As compared to your 350 and 450 its harder to think about the class in terms of your own content area because its not with the your content professor and if your in a specialties like art, music, or physical education, your typical in the EDUC 350/450 by yourself. So in terms of reflection on a lesson or the overall day you need to do it as a self reflection. So being in a school for EDUC466 with other art education student and being able to do a peer teaching every week it allows for more growth in my own mindset faster then solo. I really enjoyed being in the elementary school and the grade levels that my group and I had, because if I went into student teaching without ever being in a Kindergarten class I think I definitely would be more nervous than I already am to student teach. So in the Service Learning for EDUC466 I had the opportunity to work in the art classroom setting at Beattie Elementary School under the supervision of Ms. Kimberly Noel. As previously stated I had the opportunity to be in two, Third grade classes, A & B groups alternating weeks and a Kindergarten group with the same alternating schedule. While creating lesson plan for either one lesson taught to both groups or individual lessons for third and kindergarten every week, each turned into canvas and can be found on the links at the bottom of this page, under lessons 1-5. While also having a blog post in ART326 that was due every week, where I reflected on either my time at Beattie Elementary in the classroom or I looked into my past experiences in school and how that shapes the person and teacher that I am today. Those links can be found below where it links to weekly blog posts with a created art artifact that was inspired from my time in EDUC466 or EDUC450 at the high school.
Next slide:
So during the time that my group and I spent at Beattie it was very reminiscent of my own school, both Beattie and my old Elementary school where both built the same year, has the same doors on the outside and yes even the smell when you walk into the school is the same. During the first week of EDUC 466 we were asked to relate an education experience that we had, now I didn't actually do this correctly in the beginning as I tried to link my high school graduation with an education experience that I had learned from, yet I actually didn't learn much from that. But now upon all the memories and time to reflect I think ive come up with an education experience that ive just learned and realized. Upon re-reading “Being Creative A Mother Speaks” I found a familiar connection that I made with the student being described in the reading, Kate. I was the exact same way as Kate’s mother described her as a child, (except for the high IQ part) I was disruptive in class, my reading and math scores fell fast in the 2nd and 3rd grade and I became behind. Now what does this connection have to the school and to Beattie well i'll explain, quick and shortly from the beginning. Being at Beattie every Friday It was very reminiscent of my time in 1st through 4th grade my elementary school, Woodglen. And when I think about if all this remembering and critical thought is a good or bad thing, honestly I still have yet to decide. Mostly because in the beginning yes elementary school was one of my best experiences from what I previously thought, before all my education class started and teaching at Beattie. But being in a different role of a teacher, reading experiences like what Kate's mother described, it brought back ideas that maybe it wasn't as great as I thought it was. The students that have clipboards during class were me in elementary school, yet the power of my subconscious pushed that memory out of my brain. Maybe because of the fact it was embarrassing for me, or whatever it was it was something I never thought about still being at Beattie. But also seeing the student that remind us of ourselves such as a reading can do or seeing those students in class that echo our younger selves. Now before this gets too deep I'll start to wrap it up here and leave you to think about that for yourself. But overall for me that's one of my many driving factors of continuing to be in education, these students just need someone to be that resource to talk to, being able to come help them and parent understand whats going on with their child in school, giving that support that I witnessed Ms.Noel doing on a daily with all her students particularly in our Kindergarten class that struggle no matter if it's just that one day or every time they see her, she supports them and that's ultimately what I would like to provide for the next generation of tiny humans.
Next BRAINY slide:
So at BRAINY this semester it was really helpful to be in a different environment that was not a classroom setting. This was the biggest thing that I took out of being in ART326, was the museum tour readings. The readings and video, the reading Three Models of Dialogue about Works of Art by Olga Hubard that talks about how to guide students to create their own way of thinking and understanding a subject without giving them the answers, in this model of talking with students there are three different modes of dialogue that you can engage with students. Predetermined dialogue being the teacher has a set of knowledge that they want the class to know so the whole lesson surrounds how to get the student to that understanding. This was one way in the museum tours we could use to help guide students in the direction of what you want them to know. For myself I think that this is a good way to lay the groundwork for students that might not know anything about art, explaining first what the artist wanted to tell first before moving into the second form of dialogue. Now interpretive dialogue has two different parts to it, open and thematic. Now i am only going to talk about open dialogue as that and predetermined was the two I focus on practicing and utilizing in the museum tours during BRAINY. Open dialogue is something that I think students of all ages are able to participate in because it's completely open, there isn't a right or wrong answer for the view that's looking at artwork. This idea ties back into the video that we watch and ive linked below where the educator is asking a group the same three questions, what do you see? how do you know that? And why do they think that? By asking these three questions to all students over and over it gets them thinking deeper. Now I did try this with some students during the BRAINY tour and it worked so well that our group ran out of time when looking at a painting. We finished early with my planned tour and some of my students were really drawn to the figure of the mother and child, as I didn't know what was actually going on myself I decided to just asking the student these three questions, and it lead to a more engaging discussion then I could ever plan for.
Last Slide:
Overall Is I said in my 450 interview to Ryan, I learned a lot in this past semester then I ever have, being in the high school during the 450 time has really shown me not to be scared of the high school students and to not show fear when around the Kindergartners cause sometimes i think they can sense fear. My own ideas on what ive learned I could create a long list of what ive learned, as I will continue to list off.. Creating and perfecting a lesson plan, both the very long lesson plan from ART326 and in EDUC466, creating a unit plan and seeing how it builds upon each other to create an overall class that has a central idea, working with elementary schoolers in 3rd and kindergarten and everything that goes into that, some things I never thought about before this class like just comforting students and improving on how I talk with younger tiny humans as I struggle with talking to tiny humans but I've definitely improved on this from being at Beattie! I would continue but it would make this definitely longer than 10 minutes. So overall thank you to everyone and one thing that Patrick told me a couple of months ago was “if your nervous for student teaching its because you care, and I definitely care a lot because i'm very nervous and excited to be a student teacher!
Bibliography:
Olga, H. (2010). Three Modes of Dialogue about Works of Art . Art Education. 63(3): 40-45
KoKot, S. & Colman, J. (1994). Being Creative A Mother Speaks Roeper Review A Journal on Gifted Education Vol. 17, No.2, 121-123