9/4/12

Today was the first day of my third week of student teaching. I taught every class today (besides AP Studio). First through fourth block was Jewelry/Sculpture. Some of the things Cortney and I talked about me improving on was starting and closing the classes. Therefore, today I opened by saying "Good morning" to everyone and asking them about their weekend. We chatted a bit and then I talked to the students about how I'm going to start fully taking over the classroom this week. I told them that since I am still a student like them, I am still learning about the classroom and teaching. I said this will be my new classroom and I want them to go by the rules that I set. I projected a document on the screen and read through list of rules. I also read them a quote about talent versus hard work. I told them that while talent is great, I wanted my art room to be a place where hard work is rewarded over talent. I gave them a list of different logistic rules for the classroom and ended it with number five: use this class time to be a creative learner. That could have, or might have, been an abstract thing for them to grasp, but I have confidence int he students in their ability to understand what a "creative learner" is. And I hope by the end of my teaching, they will have a better understand of it.

The rest of the day was divided into me "scolding" them on their horrible critiques from Friday. I said, "Remember how I asked you to critique each other's work last Friday using this worksheet?" and they all nodded "Yes", and I said, "Well, you didn't do a very good job!" Cortney gave me the confidence to  tell it like it is to the students and make sure they understand that they're getting participation points for these critiques and what they did not do will hurt them. Then, I went through the instructions of how they needed to look at my comments on their designs when I handed back their work and head to the computers to start working. How I spaced time during this first block not so good. I didn't introduce how to "scale" their design before printing early enough in class, so most students didn't get their designs printed before the bell rang. Cortney and I talked about this and then second through fourth block went great! Cortney said everything went really great and my timing was good.