Professional Development
Alongside my students, I am looking to grow from teaching and learning experiences throughout the year. I am specifically working on two different 'student learning objectives' in order to make advancements in areas I hope to develop. (See below)
In November, 2016, I presented at the Transforming Creativity Conference, put on by the Montgomery County Visual Arts coordinators. I was able to meet new art educators and speak on topics such as classroom management strategies and classroom procedures and organization. It was great fun to share my experiences as well as collaborate with other art educators.
I am a huge fan of conferencing with other teachers to collaborate and problem solve. Our school's ESOL teacher was kind enough to let me observe her teaching to find strategies to better reach my english language learners. We then brainstormed ways of how I might build in additional supports for these students in the art room.
Student Learning Objectives
My SLO (student learning objective) for the first semester was for fouth grade students to be able to use art vocabulary and visual evidence from an image in a written or verbal critique of an artwork. I used a variety of teaching strategies to teach this topic: Think alouds, word banks, sentence starters, and small group help in addition to large group instruction.
Visual Literacy is a hot topic in the art room as kindergarten students learn to 'read' an image and extrapolate meaning from different elements in an artwork. We have been focusing on this during the second semester and the students have made great developments, especially during our cave art unit.
