Miss Art of Teaching

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 need to do more lessons outside. Give students a break from the four walls. It also gives them a nice dose of Vitamin D. Besides teaching Visual Arts to Year 7-11, I also teach one class of computers. It is part of the Technology Mandatory syllabus. I am a trained Visual Arts, Technology Mandatory and Design and Technology teacher. With the computers subject, we are using the program 'Illustrator' to make a game logo, five game items and three game sceneries. I will include some pictures in this post. My school's network has been down for two days. Although most of the computers are now ready to be used, they need to re-download all the programs. I've already spent some lessons with the students drawing out possible ideas for their game design and completed a few theory lessons. Instead of punishing the students with more work, I decided to take them outside. Friday was pretty sunny so we ended up spending half the lesson outside and half inside. I have been clea...