Miss Art of Teaching

Today a Year 7 student purchaesd the right to teach my lesson using 100 virtual rewards points. Mr Pulvirenti saved up his virtual rewards points to teach the class how to create a cartoon self portrait. The class worked beautifully. Students were on their best behaviour and some wanted to continue the activity at home.

Time is flying... I will be saying goodbye to my first Senior Year 12 class in a few months timeframe. I am now on a count down with my Year 12 students. They have 4 days until their 30% Body of Work and Visual Arts Process Diary is due for marking. This is an in school progress mark which is combined with their earlier 20% practical progress mark. The final 50% of their mark will come NESA (NSW Education Standards). It has definitely been a journey of mixed feeling. We are all exhausted both emotionally and physically. It has been difficult to get them to stay motivated. I will need to work on developing a stricter timeframe, provide more examples of Band 6 artworks and learn how to provide criticisim that does not deflate their self-esteem. Teaching my first senior class has definitely been an eye opener. Students are used to be given direction at every step from Year 7-10, with the freedom to choose their own concept and materials it can be quite stressing. Some may not be ...

I am quite pleased with the purchase of my sparkling brand new whiteboard from Daiso. It is an awesome little monthly schedule calender. They even reposted my picture on Instagram. At 8am today I had my Work Health and Safety workshop on how to use a fire extinguisher. I actually need to buy one for my own house! I had Year 7 classes from Period 1-3 and most of them are finishing off their oil pastel drawings. Some are starting the painting process. Here are a few photos: At recess, I went to visit my Deputy Princpal to talk about cabin organisation for the Year 8 camp. Careful consideration must be given to how groups are form to minimise discipline issues and conflict. My first break from teaching Year 7 (don't get me wrong, I love them!) was during Period 4. I took my Year 9/10 combined class to the darkroom. I have not been in the darkroom for about two years now. Need to brush up my skills and reorganise the room. There n...

What I am doing?.... A few weeks ago we had a guest speaker coming in to the school to talk about our teacher well being. He recommended that we name our to-do list as the ta-da list. This means crossing off the completed job, waving your arms around and do a little happy dance. I have been working my way through my list. Not much of a dancer so you will not see me wiggling around after every task. I have logically categorised my workload: marking, work samples, reports, program submissions, Year 8 camp organisation, Positive Behaviour for Learning team planning.... This year I have all my theory work uploaded onto Google Classroom for grades 7-12. It makes life so much easier for the student and for the teacher. This virtual classroom allows students to ask questions, submit tasks and for teachers to mark and send back the feedback. I no longer have to take piles of papers home to mark and drain the ink from my pen. My Year 7 students are making print making, drawing and paint...

I've been really enjoying my time teaching Year 7 students. They seem to be much settle this year and love my classroom systems. My rules are pretty consistent: 1. Line up in two lines. 2. Place bags at the back of the room. 3. Sit down and look at the classroom jobs chart. 4. Students who are assign to taking out Visual Arts Process Diaries get up to pass out the journals. 5. Classroom helpers take out the laminated photographs, white pencils, posca markers and oil crayons. 6. Start work. 7. Classroom timer (another student job) reminds class to pack up 5 mins before the bell. 8. Resources are returned back to the right location by the helpers. They have only recently earn the priviledge of listening to music during class time. I even brought in my bluetooth speakers to play songs for students who prefer to listen to my songs. Photos from this morning (besides the one with the fly):

I've been away from my blog for about 9 months. A quick overview of the past 9 months: 1. Invitation to be an admin for the Art Teachers Australia Facebook page. 2. Got engaged. 3. Purchased a house and moved out. 4. Appointed as the Positive Behaviour for Learning Coordinator at my school. Why I am back: 1. To be more proactive. 2. Exchange and share ideas about teaching pedagogy. 3. Implement classroom and school-wide systems. 4. Encouragement from people:

Today my Year 11 students submitted their Body of Work for marking. I wanted them to focus on 'presenting' their artworks. I purposely booked the meeting room as my classroom is too busy with a lack of wall space. Students were encouraged to move their artworks into the meeting room at the start of recess. A lot of students spent an entire period setting up their artworks and getting their Visual Arts Process Diary ready for marking. I spent another two periods marking with a co-worker. Discussions were formed and we talked about how I can support my students through to the HSC. Marks still need to be finalised and I plan to spend my weekend writing constructive feedback. Here are a few photos from today:

I love going on Facebook and Instagram for teaching ideas. A recent video that has received a lot of attention (1.5 million views) is Jim Carrey's 6-minute documentary based on his thought processes when painting. Jim Carrey: I Needed Colour The exciting part about this video is the different reactions received. Some have congratulated him on his new direction such as IndieWire's article  Jim Carrey is now an amazing painter and his art documentary is going viral  while others, including The Guardian   Jim Carrey's art is yet more proof that Hollywood stars should avoid the canvas  has criticised him, calling his art "shallow" and "pretentious". I plan to show this video to my Year 11 students on Thursday period 6. Being the last period of the day, a video should help spice things up and keep them awake. The majority of the students will know this Canadian star. He is famous for starring in movies such as Dumb and Dumber, The Mask and has e...

S o yesterday I mentioned that I received my survey responses from my Year 11 Visuals Art class. Classroom survey blog post Now action needs to take place so that I can use this feedback effectively to improve on my teaching practice. I want students to be able to improve risk-taking behaviours in the classroom. Strategies that I will implement to encourage risk-taking behaviours: 1. ACKNOWLEDGE STUDENTS FOR TRYING/REMIND STUDENTS OF THEIR ABILITIES AND INTELLIGENCE: Use more praises in the classroom. Comment on effort made to put students in a growth mindset to increase learning and achievement. This will help make students more comfortable in the classroom. 2. PROVIDE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK: Notice what is successful in students' artworks. This helps build a positive relationship with the student and starts the conversation off on a good note. This will then allow them to be more receptive to constructive criticism. Be specific with the feedback so students...

Surveys are a useful way to gain student feedback. If you want students to be honest with their answers, always make the survey anonymous.  I'm working with a small group of teachers to improve risk taking behaviours in the classroom. The purpose of the survey is to understand the link between students taking learning risks and the development of a safe classroom. The survey allows us to understand whether our existing strategies are helpful to our students. It also provides us with an insight into how students are going at the moment. Last week, I gave my Year 11 students a link to the online survey. I was surprised with the positive feedback from my Yr 11 Visual Arts class.  Surveys are a great way to understand what is working and what needs improvement in the classroom. From reading the responses, I can also identify areas that I need to improve- provide more positive / constructive feedback, understand my students and make the classroom a comfortable place ...