Miss Art of Teaching

For today's blog entry, I decided to share a newsletter article that I compiled with teacher and students' feedback on Vivo (virtual points reward system) prizes. The school's 'Vivo' reward system works by having accounts set up for both the teacher and student. The cost of running the 'Vivo Miles' program depends on the number of students at your school. Teachers can reward students based on how well they are meeting the school's values of being a respectful, engaged and an active learner. Students can look up their virtual points and the messages that go along with it on their computer/mobile app and trade their points in for prizes of their own choice i.e. tangible prize or a teacher service prize.  To get a bit of a background about Vivo, please read the following post on: Ways to get donations/prizes Love my classes Newsletter article: A BIG thank you to all the teachers and staff who have donated their time providing these amazing Vivo T...

I am a huge believer on rewarding students and I try my best to get donations rolling into our school system. Over the past two years, I have been speaking to local businesses in person, sending out emails, letters and even asking for donations from the school community (via school Facebook and email). Sometimes we get monetary donations, other times we get tangible prizes. I try to be creative as well and ask if teachers are willing to provide services such as baking a cake, wearing a onesie, being a note taker.... If you want to know more about the different prizes, please remember to check out my links at the bottom of this blog post. This is the letter that I have been sending out to local companies: Dear I’d like to introduce myself, and outline the purpose of this letter. My name is Miss Kwan, and I am a High School Teacher at X High School. We are seeking funds to keep our school online rewards system running. Alternatively, you can provide merchandise to be placed i...

During Tuesday afternoon, Year 6 students from our local primary school come over for some taster subjects in Visual Arts, Languages, Computers and Science. I really enjoy having the students over, as they are very eager to make art. We are starting the 'What Lifts You' mural. The finished mural will be taken back to the primary school as a display. Materials needed: -Photocopied feather template on A4 colour paper. I made 200 copies as I will have three class rotations. -Class set of instructions to make feather designs. I also laminated a copy and left it on the white board. -Class set of pencils. -Class set of posca pens (arcylic paint in a marker). -Class set of scissors. Inspiration from: I also tried something new. Every time a student was good they received a slip to put their name on it. They could have multiple slips. Students would then take their slip and put it into the class jar. At the end of the lesson, I draw our two prizes (one ...

I always procrastinate for a day before I can focus and start work. I probably had too much fun during the Easter long weekend and my mind was crying for another day of rest. I ended up cleaning and started stealing things from home to bring to work. I always do this! It doesn't help that I am an Art teacher and I want to be able to provide students with as many resources as possible. Since I am the rewards advocator at my school, I also try to find prizes around the house to donate to the school. This is on top of asking for monetary or merchandise prizes from the local community. During the holidays, I have been using the 'Remind' mobile app to send inspirational photos to my Year 11 Senior students. Remind is a great app for me to communicate to my students. They are also able to ask questions and get feedback about how they are going with their 'Portraits' unit. I have asked them to have an idea ready by Week 1 of Term 2. We have roughly 15 weeks ...

I've never been a coffee person. I can function without a cup. However, since our school started a cafe where Hospitality teachers work with Senior students to make drinks for teachers, I have been slightly hooked. I go for the social aspect to make more of an effort to bond with different people who I may not necessarily get the chance to engage with. I am a confident person inside the classroom but I am a hermit crab outside of the classroom. Hence, making more of an effort to break out of my shell. Teachers and staff only need to pay $30 for 30 cups of coffee. You don't necessarily have to drink coffee especially if you have a sweet tooth like me. I tend to go for hot chocolate, caramel latte or a mocha.  Our Vivo rewards program allows teachers to reward students with virtual points. Students can use the points to trade it in for a prize or a teacher service of their own choice. Our deputy principal even offers to make hot chocolate for students in exchange fo...

Being a high school teacher, Year 7 Adviser, Facebook admin, rewards program runner keeps me busy. The thing about this job is that our 'work' brain never switches off. We are constantly thinking of our students, our workload and our relationships with people (staff and parents/carers). I regularly maintain my school's Facebook page to promote what we are doing to the wider community. I am one of the five admins. On the Facebook page, you will find important notices for upcoming events, photos of students inside and outside of the classroom (photos taken with permission), prizes that we have up on the school Vivo rewards shop and general information. Parents and carers can like posts, leave comments or give us a private message.  Being an admin has its perks. It works hand in hand with the school Vivo rewards program as I can make announcements of the prizes available and take photos of the prize recipients. Being a Year Adviser, I try to share photos of the Year 7 stud...

During period 3 today, I tried teaching the ALARM Matrix to my Year 11 Visual Arts students. ALARM is A Learning And Responding Matrix developed by Max Woods. It is used to provide a framework for writing, learning, deconstruction of tasks and provide students with feedback. Reflecting on my lesson today, I probably confused my students more. I made students highlight certain passages using colours that correspond to the ALARM Matrix. It was hard for students to differentiate between 'explain/discuss', 'analyse' and 'evaluate'. We ended up using yellow to cover the 'identity/outline/describe' sections and we used purple to cover the 'Interpret' sections. Students found these two areas easier to identify in passages. I decided that there must be an easier way to teach students. I asked students if other classes were using the ALARM Matrix and only one student put her hand up. The rest of the students have been using PEEL strategies. The s...

My 4x Year 7 classes and even the older students love rewards and classroom jobs. I've been taking ideas from primary school teachers on different Facebook groups. Things that work really well: 1. Ihelp chart. Looks like an iPhone with different icons. Each icon has one particular job. Every class, every student has their own numbers. I attach different numbers to the icons daily so students can take responsibility for a job. They love marking rolls, being a messenger, being a timer etc 2. Whole school rewards. I give students virtual points. I start off with five each lesson. Every time they are loud, they lose one point. Soon the entire class will say shhhhh and encourage each other to be quiet. I gently hit a chime each time they lose a point. Instead of saying you have now lost a point, I hit the chime. 3. I have come up with own rewards system in my classroom. It's a class vs class system. Each class starts off with 20 coins. During the fortnight they can lose or gain ...

In the crazy 47 degrees heat today, I decided to go shopping. I counted the number of suburbs that I had visited today and it came to a total of nine. Above: 11 Drawer Stackable Organiser from Super Cheap Auto for $46 Above: The organiser is generous in terms of space and fits all my newly purchased markers. I used my DYMO tags to label the drawers. Above: I visited two Woolworths as the prices were not consistent.  Above: I managed to spend a total of $116.18 on 26 products. Yesterday, I also purchased 6 x $3.75 DYMO tags (Rrp $15). Above: A few close ups of my purchase minus the 6 small whiteboards ($3.50 per one. Rrp $5 each). I have been forgetting to use my own classroom rewards system during the first two weeks of school. In the holidays I purchased 20 x bags of coins from Kmart. Each coin has the description 'you have been caught being good'. I want to create a friendly class vs class competition where they try to have the most...