IV. Reflection of lesson
IV. Reflection
Teaching this lesson taught me that there is no such thing as being over
prepared for a lesson. The better prepared I am to teach the more I can focus on
student learning as opposed to how I am teaching. I think that this is a big
reason why teachers with more experience in the classroom tend to be more
effective educators. They are able to focus less on what they are doing and pay more
attention to how their actions influence student learning. I have only been in
complete control of planning and delivering a lesson a few times, so I still focus a
lot on what I myself am doing in front of the class. While teaching this lesson, I found that the need to
make sure I was following the appropriate order of events and getting all the
components of the lesson covered in the right amount of time distracted me from
the actual content of the lesson. After I have spent more time in control of a class I
expect things will begin to feel more natural. Hopefully, some of the things that
distracted me while I was teaching this lesson will become second nature. Ideally, I would like to
learn how to most effectively deliver content in a way that best fits whatever student
demographic I am working with.
My natural classroom style of teaching tends to be casual but confident. It is
important to me that students understand that I am there for them. My goal is to help
each individual student grow to their full potential, no matter what direction that
process might take. It needs to be clear to them that I am there as a resource to
coach and help not to judge , or to change them. In an art classroom it is of the
utmost importance that students are comfortable expressing themselves and
dealing with problems. First and foremost students need to be aware that this is an
environment where they are being genuinely accepted, not judged. From my experience in art
classes, I have found that how the teacher interacts with students plays a huge role
in setting the tone for an open-minded and respectful learning experience. Because
of this I do my best to teach in a way that includes all students. So far I have found it
helpful to try and make my delivery of content feel more like a discussion and less
like a lecture. I think this helps to give the students a larger voice and presence in
the classroom. Projects in art classes tend to be activities that each student engages
in alone. If a teacher is not careful it is easy end up with an environment where each
student learns in isolation from one another. While that may not necessarily
stop the learning process, it is not nearly as effective as creating a supportive studio
community where students can create better work by interacting comfortably with
one another.
By doing my best to to teach in a style that is confident but approachable, I hope
to foster an open-minded, and exciting tone for the classes I lead or assist in. I hope
that with more experience teaching I will be able to further develop a style that
promotes active student learning in large part through decreasing the fear of the
small failures that inevitably come with true creative risk taking and personal
growth.
My teaching methodology for this lesson was intended to help students
detach from the actual creation of an art object and allow them to focus on
measuring with proportion, a foundational skill that is universally relevant to all visual art forms.
The point of this lesson was to figure out how proportion works by learning the
standard alignment and proportions that all adult faces have in common. This lesson
began with direct instruction. The reason: I wanted to both get their attention and
relate today’s learning to a non-art related context The discussion of scientific
research regarding how the brain perceives and recognizes human faces was
intended to prime the students to think about why this information is important
for an artist to know. After discussing how and why faces are important for an artist
to understand, we transitioned back to visual art by looking at examples of how
historically relevant artists spent time studying the dynamics of facial feature
alignment.
Next, students engaged in a bit of inquiry based learning by mapping out the
alignment of faces for themselves. I gave them enlarged pictures of different faces
and had them, on tracing paper, draw lines on the face by following the instructions
I had on written on the board. After they drew the lines they were each to write
down a minimum of three observations they made about the alignment of facial features.
Learning through inquiry, independent discovery, and problem solving is central to the
creative process. It is important to have students practice making and
articulating independent observations about an image. As students practice
articulating their observations they improve their ability to speak about visual art in
general. This, in turn, helps them improve their ability to analyze their own art work as well as giving them the
ability to effectively share their own thoughts about the work of others in a broader context. Developing the
ability to speak about visual art on a formal level is one of the skills students are expected by the state of
Colorado to master before graduating high school.
After, they had made their own independent observations I had them engage
in a peer teaching activity. I had them them partner up with another student and
compare their observations. This allowed them to see what other students observed
as well as to discover what the two completely different faces had in common.
Lastly, the student pairs joined up to make groups of 4 and collaboratively list as
many of the shared qualities that all faces have in common. Each group worked
together in an attempt to list the most facial commonalities. After that they
demonstrated their knowledge of scale and proportion. By using their collaborative
list of facial proportion standards each group created a portrait on a much larger
scale. By keeping them in groups to create large-scale portraits, the learning of the
lesson was transferred and reconfirmed with each group member This way,
students who made more complex observations were able to teach their peers while
those who were less able to make complex connections could learn from their peers.
With this group work activity, students had to work together to make sure their
whole team understood the content of the day’s lesson. This activity also reinforced
the positive potential of teamwork and how it can help to solve any kind of problem.
prepared for a lesson. The better prepared I am to teach the more I can focus on
student learning as opposed to how I am teaching. I think that this is a big
reason why teachers with more experience in the classroom tend to be more
effective educators. They are able to focus less on what they are doing and pay more
attention to how their actions influence student learning. I have only been in
complete control of planning and delivering a lesson a few times, so I still focus a
lot on what I myself am doing in front of the class. While teaching this lesson, I found that the need to
make sure I was following the appropriate order of events and getting all the
components of the lesson covered in the right amount of time distracted me from
the actual content of the lesson. After I have spent more time in control of a class I
expect things will begin to feel more natural. Hopefully, some of the things that
distracted me while I was teaching this lesson will become second nature. Ideally, I would like to
learn how to most effectively deliver content in a way that best fits whatever student
demographic I am working with.
My natural classroom style of teaching tends to be casual but confident. It is
important to me that students understand that I am there for them. My goal is to help
each individual student grow to their full potential, no matter what direction that
process might take. It needs to be clear to them that I am there as a resource to
coach and help not to judge , or to change them. In an art classroom it is of the
utmost importance that students are comfortable expressing themselves and
dealing with problems. First and foremost students need to be aware that this is an
environment where they are being genuinely accepted, not judged. From my experience in art
classes, I have found that how the teacher interacts with students plays a huge role
in setting the tone for an open-minded and respectful learning experience. Because
of this I do my best to teach in a way that includes all students. So far I have found it
helpful to try and make my delivery of content feel more like a discussion and less
like a lecture. I think this helps to give the students a larger voice and presence in
the classroom. Projects in art classes tend to be activities that each student engages
in alone. If a teacher is not careful it is easy end up with an environment where each
student learns in isolation from one another. While that may not necessarily
stop the learning process, it is not nearly as effective as creating a supportive studio
community where students can create better work by interacting comfortably with
one another.
By doing my best to to teach in a style that is confident but approachable, I hope
to foster an open-minded, and exciting tone for the classes I lead or assist in. I hope
that with more experience teaching I will be able to further develop a style that
promotes active student learning in large part through decreasing the fear of the
small failures that inevitably come with true creative risk taking and personal
growth.
My teaching methodology for this lesson was intended to help students
detach from the actual creation of an art object and allow them to focus on
measuring with proportion, a foundational skill that is universally relevant to all visual art forms.
The point of this lesson was to figure out how proportion works by learning the
standard alignment and proportions that all adult faces have in common. This lesson
began with direct instruction. The reason: I wanted to both get their attention and
relate today’s learning to a non-art related context The discussion of scientific
research regarding how the brain perceives and recognizes human faces was
intended to prime the students to think about why this information is important
for an artist to know. After discussing how and why faces are important for an artist
to understand, we transitioned back to visual art by looking at examples of how
historically relevant artists spent time studying the dynamics of facial feature
alignment.
Next, students engaged in a bit of inquiry based learning by mapping out the
alignment of faces for themselves. I gave them enlarged pictures of different faces
and had them, on tracing paper, draw lines on the face by following the instructions
I had on written on the board. After they drew the lines they were each to write
down a minimum of three observations they made about the alignment of facial features.
Learning through inquiry, independent discovery, and problem solving is central to the
creative process. It is important to have students practice making and
articulating independent observations about an image. As students practice
articulating their observations they improve their ability to speak about visual art in
general. This, in turn, helps them improve their ability to analyze their own art work as well as giving them the
ability to effectively share their own thoughts about the work of others in a broader context. Developing the
ability to speak about visual art on a formal level is one of the skills students are expected by the state of
Colorado to master before graduating high school.
After, they had made their own independent observations I had them engage
in a peer teaching activity. I had them them partner up with another student and
compare their observations. This allowed them to see what other students observed
as well as to discover what the two completely different faces had in common.
Lastly, the student pairs joined up to make groups of 4 and collaboratively list as
many of the shared qualities that all faces have in common. Each group worked
together in an attempt to list the most facial commonalities. After that they
demonstrated their knowledge of scale and proportion. By using their collaborative
list of facial proportion standards each group created a portrait on a much larger
scale. By keeping them in groups to create large-scale portraits, the learning of the
lesson was transferred and reconfirmed with each group member This way,
students who made more complex observations were able to teach their peers while
those who were less able to make complex connections could learn from their peers.
With this group work activity, students had to work together to make sure their
whole team understood the content of the day’s lesson. This activity also reinforced
the positive potential of teamwork and how it can help to solve any kind of problem.