Viewing
and responding to art
After being exposed to
VTS briefly before this course, it was greatly beneficial to experience it
first hand and on multiple occasions throughout the semester. I think what really drove the idea of using
VTS for viewing and responding art home for me was having a docent led tour and
discussion of art right before the VTS session.
The difference between the two is remarkable and really goes well into
the idea of making meaning in our own work as we create and find meaning in
other artists’ work. Instead of someone
standing there and giving a spiel about a piece that they are an expert on,
using guiding questions to push the conversation in the direction that will
support their ideas, the actual viewers get to respond and have an educated
discussion about what they see and believe to be true about a work of art, sans
a biased opinion so there are not rights or wrongs. Using this with future students will foster
in them the idea of creating meaning and exploring art in an uninhibited way
that provides a means for students to take a greater role in their own learning
about art work as opposed to being spoon fed it. It was also valuable to see a slightly less
structured version of visual thinking strategies, a VTesque idea, both in this
class and my reading in content area class as a means of reading “text” defined
as a piece of art. I think this is important
as sometimes, especially with younger children who maybe don’t have as much
background knowledge as high school students to pull information from, to be
able to give them some historical references of the time the work was created
or life experiences of the artist that will help them be able to better
understand the work in their own way.
Changing up VTS in small ways but keeping most of the original format is
a great way to achieve differentiation for our students and I look forward to
using this strategy in many forms in my future classroom.
Developing art curriculum
This course has taught me that
developing original curriculum is a lot harder than it sounds. Growing up, the lessons teachers taught
always seemed so fluid, and well planned/worked out. It has only occurred to me recently that
these lessons had most likely been tried out on plenty of guinea pigs prior to me,
and that they were worked on diligently to begin with as well. While working on my unit, I had to stop many
times and think if it was good or clear enough, if students would truly be
engaged and love it as much as I did, and how everything would work together
into a cohesive plan for a class. Also,
in doing this, I realized how little time my high school art teachers (at least
some of them) had actually worked on their plans. There was little to no content within my art
classes and most teachers were using projects they did in high school or
college over and over again because they “worked”. And so in the back of my mind while
developing my curriculum I just kept thinking that although my unit may not be
perfect, I am still working hard to make the best, most meaningful unit for my
students at this particular moment, and that is worth something. Many years down the road when I am up late
working hard on lessons and units for my class, at least I will know that my
students are getting more out of their art class than I ever did just because
of that little extra work I put in for them.
Teaching art
In
this course, I have realized the importance of treating each student as an
individual artist as much as is humanly possible and being able to adapt to
their needs. I have learned what it
takes to teach in a 21st century world where students are constantly
being bombarded with a myriad of visual stimulatory devices while at the same
time they are social networking, communicating with people across continents,
and somehow fitting in school work. Our
students live such as fast paced life filled with technology that advances
every other day. While I think
technology is essential and should be used to enhance our students’ visual
literacy so they can become proficient in decoding and interacting with the
world around them, I believe that the art classroom can also be a place for
slowing our students down a bit to contemplate their world as opposed to just
taking it in at face value. Teaching art
and process in a way that allows for deep, critical thinking about essential,
underlying ideas is important to me and I think should be incorporated as much
as is possible for students to truly grow into artists. For me, art can be such a tactile, very real
thing that I know does not just exist in a digital world of ones and zeroes
(even though much art can, and does exist in this way, which is also significant). I think that a balance between the two is
important as is understanding the various forms art can take. We cannot simply assume that every student we
have, although they may be a technologically savvy iKid, wants to have their
work exist only in one form, however accessible it may be, and I think this
goes back to the idea of really knowing the needs of your students and allowing
them to work out how to best represent themselves through their art. I think it will be interesting to see how
technology keeps changing in the coming years and how this further affects the
art world and teaching.
Peer Units Review & Revised
Teaching Portfolio
In viewing everyone’s unit plans and
seeing their thoughts on a particular big idea, I was exposed to so many
perspectives and great future lessons.
The time spent both presenting and reflecting on others’ presentations
was very helpful to me as I was able to better understand what kind of lessons
I would want to teach in the future, as well as how to make mine and others the
best they could be through the PQPs.
When we enter a new school district that first year of teaching and
subsequent years, there may be some lessons that are always done, for example
in intro art classes, and those are the lessons they do every year. Although you can’t come in and just change
everything, being able to evaluate a lesson or unit and offer constructive
criticism and ways to improve them will be essential as will cooperating with
the current teacher(s) to best come up solutions and new lessons. On the flip side, many times you will create
your own curriculum sans help from others and must be able to edit and evaluate
your own work to best benefit students.
For these reasons I was grateful for the chance to hear everyone’s presentations
and reflect on theirs’ and mine as well.
Revising my teaching portfolio has helped me to see where I have come
from in my views on art education as well as set my sights on where I will be
going. We often don’t take time to
reflect on what we have learned and apply it to future endeavors and so I feel
as though it has allowed me to really take everything in and continue working
to improve the various aspects of myself as an artist teacher.
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