20 MAR 2015

[visit #10]

Is this already over?

We have been learning so much and having a terrific time. Neither the students nor myself want this experience to end! This blog post, however, marks the last visit that I had with the incredible students of Mrs. Stone's third grade class.

I decided to try explaining contrast again using the strategy that Vicki had talked with me about last week. I had the students sit down at the front of the class and then I picked out concrete objects in the class and had the students tell me if there was contrast between the objects. We did that with color, size, direction, and a few other components of contrast. By the end, the students really were able to explain and determine contrast more effectively!

Their success in learning as their surroundings (their 'world') are integrated makes me believe in the importance of bringing the real world to students. I think that if teaching does not connect outside of the school setting does a disservice to kids. I want them to become participants in their community, not just passive consumers. This experience reinforced my desire to connect real world situations to the classroom, similar to one of BYU's unofficial mottoes which says "The World is Our Campus."

The rest of the class period today was spent working on the presentations and getting them ready to present. Some of the students were quicker than others and finished early while some were unable to finish their work by the end of class.

Even though I had come up with a few ideas of what those faster-working students could do once they were done, I still had to think on my toes of additional things that would be a meaningful use of their time. I had planned on giving them a one-word prompt for them to explore however they wanted, letting them have free time with the Chromebook, or learn to take photographs with their Chromebooks.

This student even included a photograph in her presentation.

One student came back multiple times saying she was done with what I had given her! She was even able to do a test presentation at her desk to see how it would feel to give the presentation. Eventually, her question began to change from "What should I do?" to "Can I do ____?" showing she was building autonomy as a learner. That was fantastic to see (especially because I was running out of ideas for her!). What kinds of systems do you have in place for when students are done early or do not get done at all?

The following is an assortment of the slides that the students have created up to the point. Integrating reading, writing, technology, and art has certainly been a challenge and might have seemed overwhelming at times; but, the final products are looking good and have content that is appropriate for the third-grade level.

Additional characters were added to this slide and problems with contrast were fixed.
Small details were tweaked as the students gained
more technology and artistic skills.

A lot of the students ended up using arrows to direct a viewer's attention
from one part of the slide to another.

Adam combined appropriated images with his own drawings.

Marissa liked drawing digitally. Look at that cute dog!

Although not all of the presentations are done at this moment, Mrs. Stone will continue to work with them as they prepare for giving their presentations. All of them were excited to comment on each others' slides so I am hoping this excitement carries through to standing up and presenting to the class!

Some of my main takeaways (as found in my presentation linked below) are the following:

> Teach the children, not the lesson.

> Students trust you so much. Live up to it.

> Let their strengths & personalities show.

> Preparation & reflection go hand in hand.

> Teaching is little more than telling if you don’t

review in their own words.

I feel more prepared to work with students and other teachers to create meaningful learning environments and experiences after having participated in the Arts Bridge program. In the fall of 2015, I am heading to Houston, TX to do my student teaching in Visual Arts and in Spanish! Working with these kids has taught me to expect the unexpected and to roll with the punches that are thrown my way.

Students hard at work on their digital devices.

\\\Update\\\

Today was the final celebration of the Arts Bridge experience. Connie and I had the distinction of presenting all of our hard work and the learning that occurred when the visual arts were integrated into other subjects. Our presentation can be viewed here (or by clicking on the image below) and includes additional student work not featured on this blog.

It has been an awesome experience for both Connie and myself as we worked to infuse and naturally integrate the visual arts, We learned to work as a team and use our strengths to complement one another to ultimately create a more fulfilling, worthwhile experience for the students.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and been inspired to look for connections between subject matter to engage students and promote deeper learning!

James Voss

Arts Scholar 2014-2015

http://jamesthevoss.wix.com/jamesthevoss

13 MAR 2015

[visit #9]

I increased the amount of comments that I made on the students' work in preparation for this class period. It was interesting working out what kind of feedback to give to the students. With their concrete thinking, I knew they would most likely take any feedback I gave at face value. As I wrote, I found it difficult to walk the balance between saying enough and not saying too much. What kinds of things have helped you to give feedback that promotes and does not hinder learning?

 

                                 

I loved how making comments on each individual's presentation allowed for greater personalization and differentiation in teaching. Not all students are at the same level and I found that if I treated them like they were all at the same point, I would lose large portions of the class. I think that differentiation is an idea that is worth exploring further in terms of my teaching practice, especially in how it is related to integration of subjects. What opportunities or experiences have you had with differentiation in your own classrooms? How has technology or art allowed you to differentiate more effectively?

In addition to the comments, I decided that during this visit I would show the students a few examples of student work that I thought was particularly good and talk about one common element of art that was not present in much of the student work--contrast.

I loved the artistic merit Michael's slide demonstrates.
We also used it to understand contrast better.

Lucy chose her color scheme based on colors
associated with the book/movie.

As I spoke with Vicki Gehring, my mentor teacher, about the outcomes of the lesson, one thing that stood out to me was the level of understanding that I should hold the students accountable for. If they are trying to explain a concept or idea in their own words and I see that they only partially understand, I should stop and go back and explain. I noticed that they were having a hard time explaining, but I honestly did not know how strict to be on them. They started to associate the difference between black and white with contrast, which was good, but the rest was an abstract concept to them. In one of the student examples, I described bad contrast as colors fighting with each other, hoping that would help the students; that was more familiar, but I did not give them any tools (i.e.: color theory) to support them in fixing those 'fighting' colors.

It has been challenging to integrate visual art, technology, and other subjects, but we have not had too many problems. One problem we did have this week was when one young student got a little too 'ctrl+z' happy and ended up erasing all of his slides. :( When he told me, the damage had already been done and would not be undone. He had to start over from scratch which was difficult for him after such a long time working on a piece.

Another success I had today was time management. Usually I get so involved in working with students that I am surprised when class is over! I tried to make an extra effort to pay attention to the time during this visit to the classroom and it was a success!

One final thought: I felt much more at ease when my mentor teacher was here this time as compared to the first week she observed. I feel like more exposure to observation will help me be perform at my normal level instead of worrying about who is observing me.

6 MAR 2015

[visit #8]

Since the last visit, I experienced just how much work goes on outside of the classroom in preparation for what happens inside the classroom. In keeping with my goal of talking less and having the children do more, I decided to review all of the slideshows I had access to (we asked the students to always share what they were working on with me).

Reviewing requires a lot of time! Especially when I factored in making comments to highlight certain aspects of the presentation that seemed to be either a technological, artistic, or linguistic error OR a good use of the medium, subject, etc.

From all of the reviews and comments, I could tell that the students simply needed time to work on their projects. This visit consisted of me pointing out a couple of examples that stood out to me as being developed in multiple ways and having the kids break down the search function into better details.

For the search function, we used the Stone Fox book because it was still giving the student issues. AS a class we brainstormed ideas of main characters like "grandfather," "dogsled," "Samoyed," and "Indian" to help the class understand through experience how to search for details instead of a book cover. As I was walked around the class after that brief demonstration with the kids, many of the students were more capable of finding images to represent the characters, setting, etc. for their book reports. Successful students included the boy who chose "Stone Fox" for his book report.

Having a day to work a lot without presenting anything new was necessary for the kids. If we want them to be done during the next two visits, they have some major work to do!

Jax refined his skills in picking out details while
also improving internet search abilities.

27 FEB 2015

[visit #7]

After the last class, Connie and I were talking in the hall--a time that I found is fantastic to reflect on the past lesson and brainstorm for the next class period--and we decided to begin the transition to creating their own presentations both as an artistic practice and as a reading/writing learning practice.

Normally, when I arrive Mrs. Stone asks the students to sit in their "learning positions" on the floor at the front of the room. While this has certain advantages in that it gives the kids opportunities to get out of their seats and experience some variety (I mean, who really wants to sit still in the same spot all day? Not me!), as you can see in the picture below, I would sometimes have my back turned toward the class. I felt a disconnect between me paying attention to the students' responses.

I decided to try something different today: have the students stay at their desks and break things into even smaller chunks. This was mostly in an effort to reduce the amount that I spent speaking and increase the time the students were interacting with the technology and processes. I recognize that this was not the most artistic of class periods, but it allowed the students to connect all of the reading and writing into a cohesive final project.

Here are some of the tips that Connie recommended that I try in this new situation:

You  need to have ALL their attention when you are talking. When the computer is in front of them, it is a big temptation.  They will touch it and do things that they don't suppose to.  You will need to say, "I am waiting for Hayden's eyes, I need Aspen's eyes on me, I am still waiting..."  Until all eyes are on you, then you give the instructions.

Do the model "I DO, you watch; you DO, I help; You Do, I watch."

These helped me and the students have a working relationship where the questions helped advance the learning, not just backtrack what I thought I had 'taught' already. There were still plenty of good questions but they were not the same question repeated over and over! To me, this meant that the teaching was more effective.

One thing that I have realized since doing this presentation is that I was unclear on what the presentation should cover. I had originally thought only of using the presentations as mainly a way to exhibit the art that the students made. But as Connie and I spoke, she helped me realize that many of the students needed more direction and even smaller portions to be able to successfully meet and/or surpass the core standards. Connie suggested having the presentations cover subheadings such as "Characters," "Problem," "Solution," and "Setting." These support guidelines will direct the content of the presentations and allow for artistic solutions to visual problems.

Keith really seemed to enjoy illustrating this slide in his slideshow presentation.