Standard 3: Teachers plan and deliver effective instruction and create an environment that facilitates learning for their students. 

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ELEMENT A: Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students.

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• Mindfulness is a guiding principle at Columbine Elementary, Mrs. Cohen practiced it frequently, particularly to begin the day and after recess when students were restless and had a hard time settling down and focusing. Once it came my time to start teaching, I also started implementing mindfulness to help get students settled and ready to make art. It's incredible how just a few minutes of breathing and being aware of oneself can make such a huge difference. I plan on continuing to implement mindfulness in my teaching and think it's a great example of how to set the stage for learning to take place, including intellectual, physical, social and emotional development because it reduces stress, anxiety, and negative behaviors through relaxation and self awareness. Below is a video I showed in class to help students get ready to make art. 

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ELEMENT B: Teachers use formal and informal methods to assess student learning, provide feedback, and use results to inform planning and instruction.

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• One of my favorite parts of student teaching was getting to know students, establishing rapport and good relationships. Particularly at Silver Creek where I got to teach in person, I liked to walk around the room and chat with students about random things to get to know them. This was also a great opportunity to gauge how lessons had gone, how students processed the information learned. This was my informal approach to asses students' learning and also to provide feedback, always trying to be positive and encouraging. I documented some of my conversations with students and have attached my notes below. Google form attendance questions were a part of our daily routine in the classroom, but every once in a while, instead of an attendance question, I did an exit ticket as a formal method of assessing learning. Below is a link to the downloaded responses of one of those exit tickets as well as my documentation of informal conversations with students after lessons. 

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ELEMENT C: Teachers integrate and utilize appropriate available technology to engage students in authentic learning experiences.

 

• ​One of the many challenges of teaching art while maintaining social distance, is how to do demos of techniques for students. Covid has pushed most teachers to stretch and explore the possibilities of the virtual world, some as simple as video editing so that a drawing demo is a 10 minute video instead of a 30 minute video. Below is a link to a demo video I created in which I utilize appropriate available technology to engage students in authentic learning experience.   

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ELEMENT D: Teachers establish and communicate high expectations and use processes to support the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.

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• Part of the name sculpture assignment for 4th graders included assembling the letters of their name on a base in non-sequential order. A specific guideline for their project was that their name should not be legible by looking at the sculpture, letters should be stacked and attached any which way they liked, this also meant that that I did not give specific instruction of how to attach the letters  but provided guidance on where to put tabs, slot in slot attachments, etc. Students had to problem solve and figure out their sculptures, it was a great exercise to develop critical thinking skills. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ELEMENT E: Teachers provide students with opportunities to work in teams and develop leadership.

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• Working in teams is not necessarily the most accessible activity during Covid, but during the Name Sculpture activity listed above, I provided ample opportunity for students to participate and take leadership roles in helping deliver the lesson. I also encouraged working in pairs if they were stuck coming up with concepts pertaining to their personalities to develop acrostic name poems as a friend is more likely to identify character traits one might not see in one's self. 

 

 

 

 

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ELEMENT F: Teachers model and promote effective communication.

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• Effective communication with students is essential not only in helping them be successful but also in developing good relationships which can grow and reflect in the level of engagement and effort students put into their work. Timely and constructive feedback other than just in class is also important in keeping students motivated. Grades  can often get in the way of allowing students to enjoy the artmaking process, they are so concerned with getting a good grade, they often leave little room for creativity. Communicating effectively around this issue is very important not only to students, but to parents. During student teaching I tried my best to communicate effectively with students about grades and their progress to help keep them motivated. I also tried to provide feedback on their electronic documents to model effective communication, and although they rarely replied to my comments, I knew they read them as they would often comment on my feedback to them. Below is a link to some screenshots of emails to students and parents as well as comments on work that model and promote effective communication. 

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