Day 14

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This week I am really feeling the crunch. April has begun and there’s so much I need to do before May! My thesis is due, Student Teaching ends shortly afterwards, I graduate from college…I’m really stressed out about everything! On top of that, Student Teaching will gradually become more challenging as time progresses as I’ll be taking on more and more responsibilities. I really see why they suggest not participating in anything else during Student Teaching; it’s a full-time job!

The first week at Goodwin-Frazier Elementary School, I did not teach any classes. My second week, I taught one grade level. My third week, I taught two grade levels. Now that it’s my fourth week, I am teaching three of the six grade levels, so I am completely in charge of half of the classes. I’m not sure if I prefer this gradual schedule more than the schedule I had at Canyon High School where I was completely in charge of absolutely everything for two weeks, and not in charge of anything the remaining five weeks. I think I may have preferred the other schedule more as I was thrown into the job rather than given a tiny piece at a time.

Today was Monday, so again, I enjoyed observing the new lessons my teacher had planned for the classes. It was a bit difficult to teach, though, as I wasn’t completely sure of what all the lessons entailed. I hadn’t seen them performed, hadn’t read the lesson plans until I received a hard copy this morning, and I didn’t know if my teacher had examples, Powerpoints, etc. I tried my best and went with what I had to prepare the lessons. I think that it went pretty well, but I do have some suggestions to improve later on.

One thing that was a bit confusing was when I asked my teacher if she had her handouts with pictures of dinosaurs on them to give to the students to aid with their dinosaur drawings. She responded that she did and pulled out a poster with a picture of fighting dinosaurs on it. I thought that she had mentioned she had worksheets with tiny pictures of dinosaurs on them, so if we didn’t have those, I decided to improvise. My teacher has a how-to draw dinosaurs book, that I decided to use. Since there’s only one book and students wouldn’t be able to all use the book at the same time, I decided to draw the illustrations from the book on the white board, large enough so that the class would be able to see them. I drew five pictures, some full-body images and some headshots, and included a variety of dinosaurs. I was quite pleased with my drawings and thought that they would help the students in drawing their own dinosaurs. After I had completed my drawings, my teacher found the dinosaur handouts she had been talking about.

Woops! Well, at least we had even more references now.

I did allow the class to take turns using the drawing book if they wanted any of the images that I didn’t put on the board, but that turned out to be a mistake. So many students wanted the book and because only one student could have the book at a time, it caused problems. Tomorrow, I’m not going to allow anyone to use the book and will simply tell them that a majority of the drawings from the book are on the wall.

I was also quite nervous today as my university supervisor was coming to observe me. Again, today was a Monday, the “testing” day, in which I hadn’t done the lesson yet and wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I was a bit nervous about that fact, as well as the fact that I feel I simply am not as successful as I am with higher grade levels. After my instruction, my supervisor noted that fact, saying that I was still adjusting to this level and she had a list of suggestions for me.

I need to praise the students who behave more and get on to the students who misbehave less in order to promote good behavior. This can be a little challenging without knowing students’ names, but I know that it can be done. I also need to improve my demonstrations and instruction by showing bad examples of what student’s shouldn’t do with their artworks, and by visualizing the planning process better, such as drawing a shape on my paper with my finger before drawing it in pencil. I also need to pay attention to anything that may be distracting a student and remove it from the area. I should pay attention to the room, in general, more than I have been, by checking the room when I make rounds, looking up more from talking with students, and listening to the overall noise level to make sure that students aren’t getting too loud. I know that I have strong focus and can sometimes go a little tunnel vision, tuning out noises and my surroundings easily. I can also help my students work more efficiently if I set a daily objective and tell the students how much time they have remaining. My supervisor agreed that managing student behavior is my largest weakness and the spot I need to most improve on. It was a little disheartening to go from observations at the high school level with barely any suggestions of things to do differently, to having a full list of things I need to change today. I’m hoping that I can focus on these aspects and improve upon them over the next few weeks.

There’s so much for me to focus on; I’m so nervous!

<< Thursday, April 2, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Tuesday, April 7, 2015 >>

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Day 13

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Today was the last day of this odd week with crazy schedule changes. Today was pretty nice, yet confusing, because my cooperating teacher had several free periods due to schedule changes. The 2nd Grade students had a field trip today, so they did not go to art class during our first period of the day. My cooperating teacher then told me that the 3rd Grade students were practice S.T.A.A.R. testing and she heard that they may or may not be coming to art today. She also heard that they may be switching with 4th Grade, our last class of the day. The passing period before the 3rd Grade class, my cooperating teacher and I had no idea what to expect. 5 minutes after class started, however, no students had arrived and we concluded that the 3rd Grade students just weren’t coming. This gave us another free period.

Another confusing schedule change possibility resulted when my cooperating teacher received a text from the Music and Gym teachers asking if we should have the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Graders partake in Fitness Friday. Because Thursdays are a rotational day for these grades where they attend a Specials class for the second time that week, the Gym teacher thought that they should participate in Fitness Friday. My cooperating teacher does not like Fitness Friday, though, and already planned her day. Because the suggestion was so last minute and there were already so many schedule changes happening, my cooperating teacher convinced the other Specials teachers not to go with this plan.

On top of everything else, my cooperating teacher hasn’t had any lunch duty all week due to the S.T.A.A.R. testing, so we had another extended lunch period. All of this free time gave my cooperating teacher and I time to lesson plan, create examples, change the bulletin boards, prepare for the day’s classes, and prepare for the upcoming Art Show. It was incredibly helpful and it made me wish my teacher normally had a Conference period during the day.

I used some of this free time to continue working on my teacher-made example for the next 1st Grade lesson. Because the students will be outlining their works, I outlined my sketch in ink. The students will also be depicting their dinosaur in an environment, so I challenged myself to add a background, something I don’t do often. I am incredibly thrilled with how my example came out. I love my linework and the detail of my background. I really feel that it adds to my original sketch. Now, I’ll be coloring my picture with crayons, focusing on using multiple colors and blending them together. Hopefully the finished piece turns out successful.

Unfortunately, the principal decided to hold an assembly today because tomorrow is Good Friday and we don’t have school. I enjoy the assemblies, but my cooperating teacher does not as they cause the school day to start 15 minutes earlier, cutting into her before-school Conference period. The assemblies are usually pretty long, too, and since 2nd Grade is our first class, we didn’t get much extra time due to the 2nd Graders being gone on a field trip. We really only gained about 15 minutes of extra time.

The assembly also threw off many of the students. Because assemblies are done on Fridays, several of the students were thinking we were on a Fitness Friday schedule and that they were supposed to report to the gym instead of art class. Because P.R.I.D.E. leader students are allowed to go to class early without walking in line with the teacher, they weren’t led by their teachers to art class. We had to send students to the gym to collect the P.R.I.D.E. leaders, causing our art classes to start late.

Today was just wack-a-doodle!

We didn’t actually get to teach many classes today, just 5th Grade, 1st Grade, Kindergarten, and 4th Grade. It still seems like the students are lacking the benefits of demonstration. The 5th Grade students have been illustrating still lives in the style of Pablo Picasso and have been struggling with replicating his abstracted style. They’ve also been confused on how to add “random lines breaking up the picture.” The Kindergarten students again struggled with tracing their suns for their sunsets in a good spot, coloring the sunset, filling the whole page with the sunset, adding the ground, and adding the silhouettes. It seems like the Kindergarten students have really been struggling with the whole assignment and only find success when my cooperating teacher or myself walk them through each step one-on-one. The 4th Grade students are also struggling to complete their pointillism pictures with so many dots to create. I don’t think the students quite understand the dot concept though as they’re either drawing incredibly large circles, simply outlining everything in dots, or creating spaced-out dot patterns to color things in. I’ve been trying to explain to students that the dots are meant to be squished together and done in random colors with mostly the color you want the space to look, and after hearing that the students seem to be more successful. Many students, though, just want to be finished with the pointillism pictures and aren’t caring enough to work hard on them. They do look pretty tedious and time-consuming.

Sara Bareilles – Brave

Here’s one of the songs that’s played at the beginning of the Friday assemblies.

<< Wednesday, April 1, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Monday, April 6, 2015 >>

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Day 12

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Objectives Wall

Objectives Wall

Today was another good day. For some reason this week seems to be going better than last week. I don’t feel nearly as tired or stressed. I feel like I’m in a better mood overall. I hope that this continues because, in reality, I am really freaking out about finishing my thesis in time and I don’t want my Student Teaching experience to be negative because of it. I’m just glad that I’m enjoying my time more. Hopefully this keeps up.

Today was another positive day because my cooperating teacher didn’t have lunch duty, giving us an extended lunch period. She doesn’t have lunch duty all week, which is really nice because it gives us a Conference period during the day, something my cooperating teacher doesn’t normally get. During today’s extended lunch period, my cooperating teacher and I were able to lesson plan for next week. I enjoy lesson planning with my cooperating teacher because she’s so organized and on top of things. She has a year-long curriculum already laid out so we can follow along and make changes as necessary. This feels like a much better way to lesson plan than creating lessons on the fly, as I’ve seen in previous placements. My cooperating teacher also already has her objectives and TEKS already printed and ready to be hung on the “Objectives” wall.

I absolutely love her “Objectives” wall and would like to use it in my own classroom because it’s so organized and easy to use. On the wall, my cooperating teacher has placed colored pieces of paper labeled by grades with the title, “Objectives” above them. On the colored pieces of paper, she’s attached plastic sheet protectors so that she can print out her lesson’s objectives and TEKS and slide the paper into the sheet protector. The end result looks clean, polished, and professional and creates an easy-to-read resource for the students. I’ve been struggling to think of a way to effectively relay my objectives and TEKS to my students and keep them posted in the room like it is recommended, and this is an awesome solution!

I’m really glad that my cooperating teacher shares my level of organization. Her room is spotless and completely organized with everything color-coded and labeled, and she knows where everything is. Today, I decided to sort the crayon buckets to make sure all of the buckets had the same crayons (2 reds, 3 yellows, in every bucket, etc.) something I’ve seen my teacher do when she has the time. When she noticed what I was doing she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, organization! Thank you!”

It really shows that you can have an organized art room.

After lesson planning with my cooperating teacher, I decided to use the rest of the extended lunch period to begin a teacher-made example for the next 1st Grade lesson. We decided to do Dinosaur Drawings, a lesson in which the students will draw a dinosaur from reference and color it with crayons, focusing on color blending and using multiple colors. The students will also place the dinosaur in an environment. I began by drawing my favorite dinosaur, the parasaurolophus. I was only able to complete the sketch for today, but I love the way it turned out so far. I’ll have to add the environment tomorrow, something I’m nervous about because I rarely draw scenery.

Today, I taught the 1st and 3rd Grade classes and I feel that I was competent, again. For the 3rd Grade class, I decided to give the students a quick, 2-minute demonstration on how to properly use watercolors. My cooperating teacher and I have been having issues with students trying to dig out the watercolor paint from the tiny trays or using way too much paint with barely any water. Their watercolor paintings have been coming out really dark and over-saturated as a result. I took a moment to explain that watercolor should use a lot of water and barely any paint. I then showed how the students could blend colors when the paper was wet and keep colors separate when the paper was dry. The students seemed impressed and amazed. When I felt like they understood how to use the paints, I set them off to work.

I was incredibly pleased to find that this group of 3rd Graders were doing much better than the previous groups. This time, I didn’t see any students trying to dig the paint out of the trays. There were few students using way too much paint and not enough water and I saw several students experimenting and mixing colors! Many students were adding several colors to their flowers and wetting the paper to allow the colors to bleed and blend. My cooperating teacher and I were so excited by this success.

This goes to show that demonstrations can do wonders for the students, even if it’s just 2 minutes!

I’m excited to see what else the students can accomplish with the help of demonstrations.

<< Tuesday, March 31, 2015 | Student Teaching Reflections | Thursday, April 2, 2015 >>

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