Week 1

Grade Level Taught NAME

Art 309 Reflections and Thoughts about Teaching Saturday #1 Artmakers are Enhancers and
Decorators

Overall reflections about the first Saturday class experience:
In the space below, briefly address two or three of the following:
Select a key point on which you wish to reflect. (e. g., student behaviors, awareness of school, a
successful lesson)
What Ive learned about myself..
What Ive learned about the students
What Ive learned about teaching.
I feel good about.
I am frustrated by
I am going to work on..

REFLECTIONS




Im definitely going to work on classroom management for smaller kids. When a few of the
students got out of hand they seemed to all follow behind them. Our classrooms noise
levels were very high and it was difficult to get the kids to follow instructions from time to
time. Ive also noticed that all of the children were excited about what we were going to do,
but when one of the kids verbally expressed that he was not happy about what was about
to happen, many of them become less excited also. This is something I didnt really expect
until later in 3rd grade and beyond.

Ive learned that teaching Kindergarten requires a lot of thinking on your feet. No matter
how much planning you do, there is always a large amount of improvising. I found many
times when I realized I was using words that they might not have understood, and we were
constantly ahead or behind schedule.

The kids handled the prints very well and didnt have any issues drawing on the foam,
however they didnt quite understand the connection to music. We tried to chose songs
that would be easy to draw to or think of a story for but they didnt seem to understand
what we were trying to do. I think if we would have picked either expressive lines or a
narrative instead of both, it would have been more successful.





1. Describe the central focus and purpose for the content you taught in the learning
segment (Lesson).
We attempted to teach the kids the relationship between art and music, and also storytelling
and music. We wanted to teach the kids that art isnt just about pretty pictures and
colors and that they could use line and feelings to make art. We connected music to
different moods and helped them think of expressive lines that might help portray a
certain mood. Our goal was using moods to help the students also create a print that
tells a story. Their final product would be two prints, one that told a story and one that
used expressive line to show a mood of a song they were listening to.

In learning this connection to art and music we hoped that they would take away a new way
to make art and to also understand that art has no right or wrong answer. We also
hoped they would understand that you can connect popular culture and art in an
everyday setting.

2. Explain how you elicited student responses to promote thinking and develop knowledge
and skills related to form and structure, a medium of production, art context, and/or
personal perspective to create and/or respond to visual art.
In order to elicit student responses to promote thinking we played the students a series of
clips of songs and had them guess what emotions could be connected to the songs. We
had them look at examples of prints and asked them to tell us what kind of story the print
might be trying to tell. We wanted to help them understand that there is no correct
answer and when they each came up with different stories we were sure to make sure
they understood that all of them were correct.

The students were asked to use shapes and line in a way that helped describe to us a mood
or beat. Using line and shapes to describe something allowed us to explore how we
perceive certain moods. By explaining how we usually connect jagged edges to angry
feelings they were able to connect art and emotion.

3. Identify one of the language functions essential for students to learn the visual arts within
your central focus and describe how you incorporated it into your lesson. You may
choose one of these or another more appropriate for your learning segment.
Analyze Compare/contras
t
Critique Describe Interpret Question


We asked the students to interpret the information given by the music, and ask questions to
try to decide what story the music is trying to tell, and what emotions the song might
include. We also used different songs to compare and contrast with one another.


After they had drawn their expressive lines we asked them to talk about what mood they
were thinking of when they were listening to the song. We also asked them to describe
what certain parts of their drawings represented.
4. How did you demonstrate mutual respect for, rapport with, and responsiveness to
students with varied needs and backgrounds, and challenge students to engage in
learning?

When we spoke to the children we always tried to be on the same level to them. When I did
the demo I made sure to let them handle the materials in the same way I did so that they
would better understand how to make the prints.
Different students needed different amounts of attention. Many students understood right
away but lost interest. We had a handful of students who need extra attention. Some
that craved attention and others that were having a lot of issues coming up with ideas
about how to draw music. We made sure to give everyone help that needed it and we
made sure everyone had enough time to complete sketches and the print.


5. What changes would you make to your instruction to better support student learning of
the central focus (e.g., missed opportunities)?
If I were to make any changes I would restrict our lesson a bit. I would drop the narrative
portion of the assignment and just have them focus on expression and music. I think
that would have made things smoother and less confusing for us and the students.
Instead of having the narrative print in addition to the expressive print, we would focus on
the expressive art and show them some examples of that with more activities to loosen
them up.

6. Why do you think these changes would improve student learning? Support your
explanation with evidence of student learning and principles from theory and/or research.
(e.g., Deweys view of the learner, Blooms Taxonomy, Gardners theory of Multiple
Intelligences, Diamonds Brain research See Children and Their Art, pp.6-11.).

If we eliminated the narrative portion we have more time to explore expressive art and it
would ultimately eliminate any confusion that came with trying to introduce the two
elements into two different prints. I found that the students just did whichever print they
liked the best, especially since there was a fine line between expressive prints and
narrative when it came to music.

7. Explain how feedback provided to students addresses their individual strengths and
needs relative to the standards/objectives measured. (Give one or two examples).



When we walked around asked each student to talk about their own artwork and gave
them suggestions, they were able to make the next print more dynamic. Many students
enjoyed the storytelling portion very much but were having issues translating this story
onto a print. A few of them wanted to write on the print and when we explained that
writing would show up backwards and why, it helped them to understand what would
happen next time with the ink.