Running Head: TEACHING REFLECTION Samantha Schmid

ARTE 344

Teaching Reflection

1. Surprises

In the introduction students responded well to my PowerPoint presentation about the big

idea of the project, in which they learned that aspects of their identity can be expressed through

art by creating a portrait of a partner. Learning that the portrait would include an animal that they

find common characteristics with enabled students to relate their characteristics in a positive

way to that animal. They were especially responsive when I asked about the associations to the

project with various contemporary artists and their works that I chose. I was surprised to hear

that all of my students knew most of the vocabulary terms I covered and how fast they

understood the big idea of the project. I feel they understood how they could relate their own

personality traits to an animal because of the mind map we did on the first day. My students

were able to realize how the personality traits they chose for the animals also matched up with

their personality traits, showing them how they could relate their identities to these animals. It

surprised me how quick my students were able to connect their own identity with the identity of

an animal.

2. Best in Each of the Following Sections

1. Student responses

With my group of students, the discussion always flowed naturally, and they always had

answers to my questions that would help continue the lesson in a positive direction. My students

were able to answer questions of vocabulary, discuss with me the big idea of the project, and

discuss with each other information about themselves and their chosen animal. My students
always had detailed responses and were always eager to answer. I made sure to engage my

students with thought provoking questions to hear my students’ different points of view on the

subject of their identity. I believe the setup of the classroom each day allowed for my students to

feel open to conversation and allowed them to bond with me over the course of the lesson.

2. Questions/Dialogue

Through the students’ explanations and realizations, they were able to create self-

esteem partner animal portraits that helped them learn about their own identity and their

partner’s identity. The students were asked questions, especially on their artist statements, that

specifically evoked their thinking on the big idea of the project. These questions helped them

realize how hard they worked, and how hard their partners worked on creating these portraits

that represented each other. Their responses to these questions showed me that each student

approached their portraits differently from the techniques they used with the acrylic and puffy

paint, to how they felt about their own identity and the way that their partner made them feel.

Each student was given a chance to express how they felt about the project, why it was

important to look at their partner and animal’s photos from reference and certain things they

found interesting about each other’s portraits, while referencing the vocabulary terms used

during the course of the lesson. Each student’s response showed me that they understood that

we made these portraits to boost each other’s self-esteem, and not one student left the class

feeling unhappy with the work that they created.

3. Problem & Solving

For the first few days, figuring out time management was difficult, as we only had forty

minutes for the students to learn about the lesson, see demonstrations, and begin working on
the project. I believe that because of my time management, my students were able to stay on

task for the day and complete the goals for the day. Each day came with complications that I

was able to solve by coming up with solutions on the spot or thinking ahead of time. It is

important that as an educator I am always thinking on my feet because anything can happen in

the classroom.

4. Organization

The setup for the classroom was successful on the days that my students were painting

because of how well they worked by the students I sat them with. Also, my overall organization

of the classroom each day was successful with the setup of materials and assigning my

students to retrieve those materials. The paint was always easily accessible in the back of the

classroom with the water buckets, cups, and paintbrushes. I would setup each day by putting

my students name tags and portraits on their desks. This allowed my students to enter the room

and able to find their seats without questions. I made sure to seat my students next to a peer

that I knew would benefit them, allowing them to bounce ideas for their projects off of each

other, knowing they would not get distracted. I also made sure to sit my students far away from

each other, but still close enough so that they understood they had their own space to work as

an artist but could also use those around them for help.

5. Quality of Student Work

The work was that my students produced met the objectives for the lesson and some

beyond. How hard my students worked, and how well their portraits turned out has to do with

my classroom management. Once I figured out what students worked well together, and which

students needed extra direction, the flow of the classroom and the student artwork improved.
My students did a great job of recognizing textures, colors, and unique qualities that their

partner and their animal had and represented them to the best of their ability in these portraits.

For example, Jose did a great job of seeing the color in Kaylyn’s glasses, making sure that he

represented her uniqueness with that color. Noah saw all of the different spots that his snow

leopard had and used puffy paint to make the spots different shapes and sizes. Kaylyn looked at

the photo of the lizard to find the different shades within the lizard’s scales and used acrylic

paint to create those different colors. Discuss specific examples of student work in this section.

3. Ideas for improvement in each of the following sections

1. Student Responses

Sometimes when the students were working, they would get distracted by those that

they were sitting by and would stay chatting when I was talking. Those who were sat together

had difficulty with listening and their volume would get out of control. I could tell which students

were not paying attention when I would speak, so I would have to stop talking and make sure all

eyes were on me. In the future, I am confident in my ability to move students around and to

create an environment that promotes learning and respect.

2. Questions/Dialogue

For the limited amount of time my students had to work, after the first few days of

teaching my closures were not as thorough as I would have liked them to be. I began to focus

more on the demonstrations, and the time for working. I would still include closures, but they

would be short with just a review of what they did and what was to be expected next class. I will

take this into consideration for my future teaching and remember that closures are as important

as the introductions. This is why I made sure on my final day of teaching that the artist
statements I created for my students helped them see the main idea of the project, and to

share with each other all of their thoughts. I also made sure that on the last day they got to all

see each other’s projects and had a chance to share their thoughts that they had been wanting

to.

3. Problem and solving:

Despite my best efforts to manage time throughout this lesson, my students were not

able to complete their projects in the six days alone of teaching. From this, we worked extra

days to complete the project outside of the normal teaching hours. With the extra time that I was

provided, my students were able to complete each task on teaching days, which lead to better

time management. On the last day, we did not complete the artist statements during class time

as the closure, but rather had an extra day to complete the closure of the lesson. This was a

blessing in disguise, as it gave more time to improve the students’ work on the last day of

teaching, instead of rushing in the artist statements at the end. Having the extra day allowed

more time to be dedicated to completing their artist statements and having a successful

reflection of the project as a whole. It is important as an educator that I realize my students

needs and give them the appropriate amount of time needed to complete certain aspects of the

lesson.

4. Organization

In this environment, I found it quite difficult for organization of my materials for my

students. I found myself having to set up around other teachers or before my lesson would

begin and then move them in the correct area once my class arrived. Making sure that the

seating worked for all classes, instead of just my own was not something that I was used to.
This issue got solved as time went on, as I worked with my colleagues to discuss where

materials could go that would not get in their way when they taught before or after I did. Making

sure that everything was set up correctly before my students arrived was stress inducing, but it

gave me perspective for my future setup of my classroom. Teachers often draw support from

each another and can delegate tasks that allow each teacher to feel effective. Collaboration

between teachers contributes to school improvement and student success.

5. Quality of Student Work

Only a few students seemed to not understand the scale aspect, making their portraits

smaller than others, but it gave the overall collection more variety. It would have been better of

me to do a separate demonstration on just scale and drawing onto the portrait, but I did include

it into the day as I saw some of my students were struggling. Also, some of my students still

struggled to get the accuracy of representing their parents and their animals realistically, but

that also showed their artistic style. This could have been solved by more demonstrations or

teacher examples. I noticed along the way those students who were struggling with certain

aspects of the project, and I worked with them individually.

4. Differentiated Teaching

My student Kaylyn was the only student who I would identify as “gifted”, as her

personality traits and responses to my questions were similar to an eight grader. Differentiated

instruction is the practice of developing an understanding of how each student learns best, and

then tailoring instruction to meet students' individual needs. For Kaylyn, if I were to adapt the

lesson further than the six weeks we taught, I could have her do further research on the animal

she chose to represent her, which was a fox. From her discussions in class and her writing on

her artist statement, she gave me more information about her animal than any other student.
She had more to say than any student about her perspective on the project. During class, she

was always ahead of the class and was prepared to take her portrait further with small details.

She was always the first to put her hand up for any question, every question, and knew every

answer. I made sure to include every student, and to not always choose her, but made sure to

make sure she knew she was appreciated in participating.

Conclusion

Assessment from a teacher’s perspective is important when it comes to knowing their

students and how they are learning from the teaching they provide. I wanted to provide my

students with the best knowledge on how to get to know their own identity, and their peer’s

identity. I did this by providing them with information on contemporary artists who share

common themes through their work. Through this, my students could see artists who today

represent the concept of identity and how important it is to know your own identity. I also

showed them how their personality traits can match up with an animal, there are many

similarities between humans and other animals that I wanted my students to notice. Humans

and animals both eat, sleep, think, and communicate. The main similarity I wanted my students

to understand were personality traits, and how we can represent ourselves through these

animals. Using these positive characteristics that we share with animals to boost their own self-

esteem and our partner’s self-esteem. I planned a lesson that had my students working in pairs

because using student collaboration promotes higher level thinking skills and helps boost their

self-confidence. I also encouraged my students to take risks in their artwork and put meaning

into the work that they create. It is important that my students were pushed beyond their comfort

zone and each of my students showed me how they went above my objectives for the project.

For example, Ryan showed me that he cared about representing his partner’s identity because

he wanted to know how to create the different tones for her hair, because he realized her hair
was not just one color. I wanted my students to get to know their own identity from this lesson,

learn their partner’s identity, and show them how important it is for them to respect their peers

by showing each other that they care about learning each other’s personality traits. I believe that

from this project each of my students learned more about themselves, and their partners than

they did before. My students learned how to draw someone from observation, how to draw from

looking at a reference photo, how to create skin tones, from mixing acrylic paint primary colors,

that matched their partner, how to use puffy paint to create actual textures, and how to use

acrylic paint to create simulated textures.