Art+Danimal

Art is neato

** Textbook Survey—Art ** Thanks for the survey, Dan.

As you peruse your content area textbook, please complete the following activities and/or questions. You may place your responses on this page.


 * 1) Write a bibliographical entry for the book using APA format. ** Bates, J. (2000). //Becoming an art teacher//. Stamford: Wadsworth. **

2. What is the author’s background in education? **Roughly 20 years teaching art at the secondary level in several U.S. schools as well as 2 years at a school run by the department of defense in Germany. She then earned her doctorate and began teaching at the college level in Baltimore**

3. Read through the “Preface—Recognizing Bats and Ways to Avoid Them.” What are 2 things that you learned about the book or author from reading this preface?


 * She does not support using art class as a way decorate students homes for holidays. **


 * Her theory is: art class should provide a strong educational learning basis not just be mindless activity. **

4. How is this text organized--What are the four main parts to this text?

1.**Preparing for teaching**

2.**Moving into the classroom**

3.**Expanding into the outside**

4.**Seeing the big picture**

5. From looking at the Table of Contents consider the following:


 * 1) Which chapter(s) should you definitely read before you begin the unit project

**Chapter 4:** **Progressing through planning toward teaching: Preparing to Write a Lesson Plan**

**Chapter 14:** **Addressing Standards, Assessment, and Accountability** **Visual Arts Standards, Relating to the Book, Accountability, Portfolios, Outcomes, Grading System**
 * 1) **Which chapter(s) will be particularly helpful with planning assessments?**


 * 1) Which chapters provide helpful background information for preparing your research essay?

**Chapter 10: Making Interdisciplinary Connections** **Chapter 15: Demonstrating Teacher Competencies**

6.Of all the chapters in the book, which one interests you the most? Why?


 * Chapter 3: Planning Verbally and Visually **

**I’m interested in this chapter because sometimes I have difficulty finding the words to describe the specifics steps of a project in words as opposed to demonstration.**


 * Chapter 7: Promoting Creativity **

**It is always difficult to keep students engaged and active in their work and any advice I can get is certainly welcome**

7. Of all the chapters in the book, which one will you probably not read during this course? Why? **Looking over the headings I feel like all of these chapters look relevant and helpful.** I also think this book is quite helpful

8. What is one section in particular that you would like to discuss further with your content advisor?

**I would like to learn more about assessment and the balance between natural talent and those who try really hard but still produce poor projects. I also look forward to discussing unit plans more with her.** ﻿Kelly will spend time discussing this with you in future sessions.

__Meeting with our Content Advisor__

During our meeting we began by going around the table and discussing our initial ideas for our research project. Kelly tied together many of our ideas with the umbrella of 21st Century learning and advised us to start with this as a main focus. Several of our other ideas could branch out from this as a launching platform. Kelly then outlined many aspects of best practice and current teaching trends which she and her teaching colleges use. For example, students will keep a digital portfolio from the time they enter high school until they graduate. They also are required to write reflections and document all of their work in and digital format. This promotes organizational skills and writing skills, while also documenting the growth of students throughout their schooling. Kelly then continued describing the use of best practice at her school. The mission is for students to focus on communication, creativity, writing across the curriculum, collaboration, as well as a big push to promote social responsibility. Throughout the meeting each of us asked several questions and told Kelly how lucky we felt to finally have a chance to talk with someone related to our field. We discussed running a budget, different ways to intertwine content from other curriculum, test writing, student assessment and the role of a modern art teacher. We then were provided with several helpful resources to help us locate information that will help guide our research. Various websites were discussed and outlined based on theindividual needs of Devan, Suzanne, and myself. Kelly then pointed out different chapters in the textbook that might be particularly helpful for each of us as we continue to build our research thesis. The overall textbook was then discussed in general and we shared our initial thoughts about what we found during our textbook survey. After that, Devan and Kelly left and Suzanne talked about being slightly overwhelmed and vowed to go home and do homework until she fell asleep. I told her I was going to get tacos instead.


 * // Writing in the Music Classroom //**

The main point of this article is that writing in a music classroom can be a very strong resource to help students gain a deeper understanding of many facets of music content. Although some parts of music may be learned best through physical practice based on muscle memory, there is also a mental side which can be analyzed and reflected on in a variety of ways.
 * What are the author’s main points? **

This argument is supported well with several supporting ideas that strengthen the author’s stance. For example, the author suggests that students write reflections after a recent performance based on what went well, what needs more work, and the audience reaction. This will help students understand more thoroughly what changes need to be made for improvement in the future. There is also an opportunity for students to become more familiar with musical vocabulary and elements involved with compositions. Aside from reflection, there is also the possibility for creative narrative based writing pairing musical moods with an opportunity for students to write with whatever emotion a musical piece instills in them. The author notes that the powerful segues of Beethoven’s work is often inspiring for older students as a launching pad for their literary endeavors. Other suggestions that are made include the idea of comparing and contrasting similar musical content between two different cultures. This will help students become familiar with how cultural differences may influence the overall product. A final suggestion is the idea of having students break down the individual elements and instruments that make up a larger piece of music. By breaking down a complicated piece to its most rudimentary parts, students will have a better understanding of the overall product.
 * Does he/she support those arguments or points convincingly? Explain. **

Several elements of this article can be helpful in the art room I will one day be in charge of. The idea of reflection upon the completion of a project is an instrumental part of learning which I will certainly require. I also plan to have students consider the reaction of an audience and to question what role this will play in the creation of their art. Thinking about art in a well planned out articulate way in the form of the written word will help students have a better idea of the overall goals and what is needed to achieve these goals. One of the statements the author made which I feel sums up the importance of this cross curriculum learning states; “learning is most successful when it is reinforced through different perspectives and modalities.”
 * How does the information in this reading support what you will do or do in your classroom? Site some specific examples. **

Thesis Statement

The role of an Art educator in the 21st century has shifted to include new responsibilities of digital technology and ever expanding art forms. Three current trends that will help educators address some of these new responsibilities include; providing cross curriculum collaboration, embracing distance learning communications technology with a new global connection, and promoting project based learning.


 * Outline**

1. Introduction 2. Benefits and role of cross curriculum collaborations 3. Outline distance learning and the benefits 4. Outline project based learning and the benefits 5. Connect all three using the Van’s Fashion Show as an example of the model in action 6. Conclusion
 * New role of Art in modern education to promote 21st Century skills
 * Thesis statement
 * More transparency with the public about the goals of art education
 * Looking at art education from a different perspective
 * Include the community in the process
 * Decentralized role of the teacher to promote open communication
 * Online critiques require each person to respond and critically think about their work as well as others
 * Ability to interact with other cultures via the online classroom
 * Importance of higher level problem solving
 * Introduce projects in the form of a problem that needs a solution
 * Describe the project and the many student roles and responsibilities across many skill sets
 * Discuss community involvement and the international aspects of the project
 * Restate Thesis
 * Summarize

On my second meeting with my content advisor we discussed different forms of assessment in an art room. Kelly described many different ways to assess students in both formative ways as well as summative ways. Two main points I walked away from the meeting with were: 1. The need to include several different means of assessment in a single test including matching, slide identification, true false, short answer, and multiple choice to name a few. 2. As part of assessment at the end projects, have students fill out a rubric as well a short reflection essay describing their work and why they feel they have earned the grade they list on the rubric.

Late Work Policy My late work policy will vary from grade to grade. The idea is to have students work toward more of a hard deadline as they get older and have more expectations in terms of responsibility. I will be less flexible with students who are wasting time during class. This will be something I will keep track of with daily progress grades at the end of each class period. I will also take into account how ambitious a students project might be. For example, if one student has an idea to create some giant time consuming project that would require four times more work than some other students projects I will be a bit more flexible. I plan to be very vocal with students about project checkpoints to be sure they are on track to reach deadlines and to discuss projects that I feel are too ambitious to be completed. I have considered letting students have one or two projects a semester that can be late and the rest will be graded at the deadline. Students will have the opportunity to decide which project they would like to have an extension on but once they have used the free pass they can't use it again. I will open up the room for lunches and after school to students who are behind and I will urge these students to take advantage of these open room times if they are behind. I would like to give students one week to complete a project outside of class losing one letter grade. I will not let these students work on these in class. I will require them to work on the new project the rest of the group has started. The end of a term or marking period will have to be more of a hard deadline obviously.

For my Unit plan I will be introducing students to a basic photography class. This will take place at the very beginning of the semester and will blend safety policies into the instruction. The objectives will be to provide students with the history of photography, introduce students to the dark room procedures and instructions, and to help students learn to implement the principles of design in photographic works.

One of the more challenging situations for me would be that dummy who broke his wrist. What's he thinking trying to do parkour off the fence in the atrium? Anyway trying to keep this dude on pace to finish his photography portfolio is gonna be tough. I would have to use teach him how to use an audio recording device on the computer for assessment instead of writing or typing. Instead of expecting him to be efficient in the darkroom I would have to lower the number of required prints in his portfolio. I could also steer him toward a portfolio more based on work from a tripod and provide him with a remote shutter trigger which would make it easier for him to take pictures. For some of the more technical aspects about the way a camera works I could verbally quiz him by providing made up scenarios instead of him taking as many real shots. One other option would be to pair the kid with the broken left wrist with the kid who has a broken right wrist and together the will make one fully capable student. Kinda like the way the lions in Voltron work together to become one huge awesome cat. One of the easier ones for me would be the student without much access to technology. I could plan around this by providing some research articles for any of the topics I might normally ask students to look up online. Another option would be to provide some open lab time to this student in my room, potentially with my computer if no others are available. All expectations could be met as long as the student is willing to have some flexibility with his/ her schedule.