Student Teaching Observations Feb. 13th - March 17th (Afflerbach Elementary & McCormick Jr. High)

 Monday, February 13th

Now that the 1st grade bubble prints have dried, we could continue on with our second part of the lesson. I showed them another PowerPoint presentation on the microorganisms that live inside biofilm. I was worried about the heavy scientific content, but I broke my explanation down and the kids were able to grasp the general idea of what microorganisms are. We discussed what bio means, and we took out our pretend "microscopes" by using our hands to look at biofilm under a microscope. We talked about plankton, invertebrates, and other little critters that hide inside. 

After the explanation, the students got to work, recreating microorganisms in their bubble prints. They used Sharpies and a cheat sheet to figure out which organisms they wanted to include. I created the original cheat sheet and copied them so each student would have a resource to look from. They were also encouraged to try drawing another microorganism they saw in the PowerPoint or YouTube video I showed. 

 

5th grade continued to work on their taco fish. At this point they have been bisque fired so the students are beginning to glaze them. All of their fish are so creative and a lot of them wanted to create a specific kind of fish or have a theme to their creation. There was a Scooby Doo fish and a pink blob fish that were my favorites, but all of them turned out cute. One student drew a swastika on the side of his fish. I don't think he did that with the intent of truly knowing what it stood for. I asked him to just paint over it and to not draw any more and it was solved quickly.  

 

I also observed Nancy Nail's 2nd grade classroom today. Nancy's class is the most well-behaved in the entire school and her students are always such a pleasure to teach. The specials instructors at Afflerbach raved about her teaching style and philosophy so I was very excited to watch her in action. Nancy could not have been kinder to me. She gave me multiple pamphlets about student-teacher interactions, Kagan philosophy resources, as well as her personal copy of her first year teaching book to help me. I'm so thankful I reached out to her as she has become a large supporter in my own educational journey now.

Thursday, February 16th 

6th grade continued to sculpt their Whingdingdilly sculptures. They are coming out even better than I had anticipated. Their make-believe critters are so animated and full of personality. A few students have already finished their sculptures and they will soon be ready for a bisque firing. I'm so sad I will not be able to see their finished creations as I will be moving to my second placement soon, but my mentor said she would send me some pictures. I even had a few students ask to come in during their recess time so they could continue working on them. I was thrilled that they were so excited and was happy to eat lunch in the classroom while they worked. 

 

Friday, February 17th

My mentor Shannon and I went to a PLC day for elementary art teachers in the Laramie County School District #1 today. Instead of going to teach classes at Afflerbach Elementary today, we both drove to Freedom Elementary School where the meeting was taking place. I was able to meet many of the other teachers in the district and we all travelled to the public library to see the Library art show going on. I took lots of pictures and received advice from many of the other teachers in the district. It was very exciting to see everyone discuss what had been going on in their own classrooms and brainstorm ideas together for future lessons and art shows. I even saw some pieces in the show which were inspired by the Sculpture department's workshop for the High School Art Symposium!

  

Tuesday, February 21st

All of the 5th grade taco fish have been glazed and are awaiting their final firing. We have to wait since we have so many clay projects going on at once. After the 4th grade cups are done being bisque fired we will run the kiln again. 2nd grade has been making a mouse paint project, inspired by the book "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Walsh. In this project, they learn about colors and more specifically, color mixing. At this stage, the kids have read the book and have created a small white mouse to begin creating their color pallets. I love this project and will definitely bring it into my future classroom if I end up teaching at an elementary level. 

Wednesday, February 22nd

I'm quickly realizing that my time at Afflerbach is coming to a close. I spent my planning period looking through Shannon's lesson plans she has stored for all grades today. She has a filing cabinet with each grade's lesson plans all organized. I thought she had a very clever system for keeping herself organized and prepared. This is also another system I'd like to include when I'm in my own classroom. It made it so easy to find lesson plans, project ideas and appropriate content depending on what the focus is. I took lots of pictures of my favorite lessons from her.

Friday, February 23rd

Today was my last day at Afflerbach Elementary. I made a point to give all of my classes a warning of when I would be leaving so it wouldn't be a sudden change for the students. Throughout my time, I always would offer students the option of a "teeny tiny high five" on the way out of the art room. I have a little finger puppet of a hand which can be placed over your finger. This was my favorite tool use as a behavior reward. Students could gently tap the hand with their finger as a way of saying goodbye. 

One of the most important lessons I have learned here is how important small gestures mean to children. Something as small as a high five or an "I'm proud of you" goes a long way. Since today was their last day with me, I expanded the system to reward everyone. I knelt down to the kids level and explained that they could give me one last "teeny tiny high five", a real high-five or a hug. To my surprise, I only got a few high fives. The majority of the kids wanted to hug me goodbye, a few of them even got a little teary at the end. 

I will truly miss teaching at the elementary level and I am so proud of all the students and their ability to create, grow, and shine in their artistic confidence. I have already made plans to come back to visit once I am finished at my next placement. Regardless of where I end up after graduation, I'll bring a little bit of Afflerbach with me and it will always hold a special place in my heart. 

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Monday, February 27th

Today was my first day at my new placement. I spent the main part of the day observing and helping my new mentor, Cindy Bruder in her instruction. She was introducing a new project based on Enrique Gomez De Molina. I already know quite a bit about this artist since one of my previous lessons was based on him, so I was able to teach for a bit and introduce the students to another artist who makes similar works, Arne Olav Gurvin.

Thursday, March 2nd

I have enjoyed how often Cindy and I are able to see our students. She has the same schedule everyday, which means we are able to see our same students in art every single day. This has been really great in order to get to know individual students. There are two classes at the end of the day which have a particularly hard time with some poor behaviors. Cindy has a behavior system set up for these last two classes which involves candy. Every student starts off with three candy pieces in their box. If we need to repeatedly correct behavior, the lose a candy. If a student loses all three candies, they will receive a referral and a phone call home. 

Friday, March 3rd

I have enjoyed Cindy's behavior system, but I personally wanted to try my own reward system to use along side hers. However, instead of limiting it to the two classes who need it the most, I opened up this system to every class she teaches. I have noticed how much middle schoolers enjoy listening to music. In fact, many of the corrections made for behavior are for students listening to their own music when they are not allowed to. So, naturally my reward system is all about music. I asked each student in every period what they would chose as their class mascot. Using their answers, I compiled a playlist for each period, naming it by combining their responses and making a visual image for each. 

1st - The Dragon Cats

3rd - The Wazowski Khalo's 

4th - The Fuzzy Ducklings

5th - The Bob Ross Dodo's

6th - The Savannah Banana Tigers

 

I wrote their table names up on the board, and explained that each table would be able to add one song to their class playlist per day. However I had a few rules to this system. If a table received two strikes for that day, they would not be allowed to add a song. My hope for this system is that the tables will have to cooperate with each other to stay on task and not create disruptive behavior. My second rule for this system was that the songs must be clean and school appropriate. The playlist will play during worktime only, and only after instruction is given. I created visuals for this system by making a poster which is on display and hand drawing the mascots for each class. I had a lot of fun making this system and I can't wait to see it in place. 

Monday, March 6th

I have been working hard on creating a lesson plan for an 8th grade 2D class. McCormick Jr. High is having a school dance called "Pau hana" which translates to "the work is almost done" in Hawaiian. This 2D class will be responsible for creating three Hawaiian themed murals on large sheets and the rest of the class will work on Tiki totem poles which will also be displayed. The entire class will learn about ancient Hawaii and the Polynesian triangle. I'm still doing research and putting my PowerPoint, lesson plan, and demo video together, but I'm very excited!

Tuesday, March 7th

8th grade 2D all created designs for a mural that was Hawaiian themed. In order to inspire them, I showed them a small clip from Lilo and Stitch. I created a call back based on the showed video, but sadly it seemed to be a flop. Cindy explained that it might have worked better for a different class, but for the majority of these moody teens, they just weren't into it. The students design came out wonderful and they all participated in a mini critique to decide the top three designs which they wanted to include in their final murals. 

Friday, March 10th

I observed Ms. Robarge, a behavioral intervention specialist today. I work with a lot of her students in class and I thought she might be an insightful person to gain information from. I was right too! She showed me a few of her students IEP plans and even let me sit in on session with a student. It was incredible to watch her deescalate a hostile student who needed to be removed from a room. He went from punching his ipad and refusing to leave to having a civil discussion and opening up about an issue he was having at home. I'm really glad I was able to observe her and I learned a lot of information on understanding students and showing empathy while remaining firm. 

Monday, March 13th

8th Grade 2D started to create their drawn designs on their cloth backgrounds for the mural. Since the murals take up so much space, we asked which students wanted to work on each design and the leftover students created tiki totems out of construction paper. I asked them to include two complimentary color sets on each tiki head they made so include a bit of color theory as well! They have been working very quickly and are making great progress!

Tuesday March 14th

Cindy was unfortunately out sick today. However, since she was gone, it gave me a chance to substitute teach in her place. It was a little intimidating just jumping right in, but once the day started, I fell into a good groove of teaching. The only class I could not continue the lesson with was the 2D 8th grade class. Since this class is so large and they are working on separate projects, it would have been incredibly difficult to manage alone. Cindy and I agreed to use one of her pre-set sub plans which included "Bob Ross Bingo" instead. It was interesting to see how sub plans can be implemented last minute and the students had a lot of fun playing too. 

Wednesday, March 15th

Cindy was out sick again today, so I carried on with substitute teaching  I came up with a last minute plan for the 8th grade class since I did not want them to repeat the "Bob Ross bingo" activity. I wanted to share something which was still relevant to what they would be doing with their murals. So, I found an article on creating murals for the students to read. We read together as a class and then watched a video on how an artist created a planned mural in a warehouse space. He talked about his process, and how he goes about creating something visually stimulating for a viewer. The students still seemed to be engaged and it helped give them more information on how to go about planning their mural designs.