Miss Art of Teaching

A few years ago, during Valentine's day, I made a 'speed dating' activity for my Year 11 Community and Family Studies class (I was on a contract block). I left a trail of cut out hearts from the classroom door to the long tables in the classroom (I am the corny teacher!). I instructed students to seat on either side. At that time, I was teaching them about wellbeing factors. Each student received a character card and they were required to role play. A list of questions was given and it helped assist students with the conversations.  Students enjoyed the activities and there were A LOT of giggles.   Photo from 2014 'Speed Dating' activity: I decided to revisit the concept of speed dating. The idea of speed dating is to meet as many potential partners in a short frame of time. Using this concept, I built a lesson for my Year 11 Visual Arts class. I will be asking students to critique each other's artwork(s) in 5 minute increments. They must follow ...

I'm always on Facebook and Instagram but for the right reasons. I love looking at what other teachers are doing. They become my source of inspiration. The purpose of my blog is to reflect on my own teaching practice and to share resources. Some ideas of mine are original and others have been borrowed or modified to suit my own classroom. There is so much to learn from one another. I'll use my lesson from today as an example of how I used what I learnt from social media. Year 11 (Senior students) Visual Arts: FIRST INSPIRATION  I joined the 'High School TAB' American Facebook page recently (just yesterday) and even though the system in America is different to Australia, I was still able to get A LOT of ideas! First, I found a blog post about 'Creating a High School Schedule and Culture in My TAB Classroom'. The teacher shared her methods of organising her lesson structures in advance. I was interested in how she experiments with assessment to help push...

I've been thinking of ways to make theory more fun AND to encourage class participation when it comes to discussion time. I don't want the same students to be giving me the answers. I want the whole class to contribute. What works: I downloaded the free PDF file from 'Expressive Monkey' on Teachers Pay Teachers. The resource is called 'Ping Pong Art Critique'. It provides a list of 32 questions to help facilitate class discussions on ANY piece of artwork. For example: -What title would you give this art? -What feeling or emotion did the artist create? -Where did the artist create contrast? -Does this art tell a story? -What would you change about this art? -Would you display this art in your house? Why? Why not? You can either purchase real ping pong balls and write the questions on top or simply print and laminate the resources. I decided to save money and go with the second option. I passed out one ping pong ball per st...

I have been marking like crazy and sometimes wish the papers could grade themselves BUT I am happy about being proactive this holidays instead of lazing around like a sloth. If I don't use my time wisely, I am likely to have a heart attack. Yesterday, I finished marking another set of Year 7 Case Studies (essays). I still have to cross it off my To-Do List. I have one more set of Year 7 Case Studies to mark then a handful of Year 11 piles to KO. While marking their essays, I realise that students still need more practice with 'Art Critique'. I have been teaching students how to 'describe', 'analyse', 'interpret' and make a 'judgement' with unknown artworks using games that I have made up (mentioned in my previous April blog post - 'Make Theory Fun'). The games prepare students for their Case Study. However, I feel like I need a variety of methods to effectively teach them how to critique artworks.  In between marking, ...