Professional Development and Integrating the Arts

Over the last month my colleagues and I have been preparing for our upcoming professional development meeting in October. We are a little bit of a unique school because we have so many teachers that we cannot fit in many venues all together for a PD day. Therefore, our October PD meetings will be taking place in a convention style where teachers sign up for workshops they would like to attend from a large pool of choices. The presentations and workshops come from a variety of categories such as instruction, technology, and engagement. Our art department will be offering a workshop on integrating the arts into different subjects, which is specifically geared to our online curriculum. With teachers being asked to differentiate lessons for different learning needs and styles, and the changes coming in the Common Core standards, it seems that integration is more important than ever. For our presentation we are focusing on providing online resources, specific lesson plans that can be integrated into existing content, and SMART notebook activities that can be used in live instruction to make lessons more visual and interactive. I have focused on Language Arts for my portion of the presentation and I have worked with the Language Arts department to craft several examples of integration specific to their curriculum. I look forward to presenting this information to colleagues at PD and learning from others.

Oh, How We've Grown

To wrap up my first semester class, I decided to do something fun and special for my students in my live lesson today. The students will complete a final test so I knew I wanted to review for it and I have always wanted to play a jeopardy game in class so I needed to find a way to play a team game through the technology I have. The SMART Exchange has many jeopardy templates for use in SMART Notebook. I built a game using all the questions from the final and today I got to play the game with my students. Can students really play this kind of team game online? Yes! I am consistently surprised at how skilled my students are when it comes to working together in a virtual classroom. I started the lesson with a discussion of several examples of the final project for my class that students had turned in so far. My students have improved so much when it comes to discussing and critiquing art. I am so proud every time I get to see their learning in action. I continued the lesson with my SMART Notebook jeopardy game where I divided my students into two teams and had them discuss with their teammates through the typed chat box. They were so supportive of each other and even rooted for both teams. I concluded the lesson with an inspirational video about creativity and not being afraid to share their art with the world. I was met with many happy comments and thanks for being their teacher. I have developed a real relationship with all of my students this semester. I know their personalities, their artistic styles, and their interests. I truly will miss these students, but I am excited to do it all over again. So, can an online art teacher really get to know her students and create a positive and supportive learning environment? Definitely!
Here are some of the students' final projects:

 

A Video Overview of my Classroom

I made this video as a preview for my semester 2 students to see as well as for my NAEA presentation in New York this spring. It gives a nice visual overview of what students will experience in my Art 1 class. Isn't technology fun?

Choosing Materials

A screen shot of the supply list page for Art 1

Joy asks, “How do you decide what materials students need to use in your art projects?”

In a brick a mortar classroom, funding and what the teacher decides to order for student projects determine what supplies are used in the art classroom. In an online environment, it’s a bit trickier. Students are attending school from home, and there is no cabinet of art supplies for most of them. They are required to purchase their own supplies in most cases as well, so making decisions about what we can use for projects must be decided with cost in mind. Cost is the main decider of supplies for my Art 1 class, as well as availability. I have students all over the state of Ohio in big cities as well as tiny towns, and all students need to have access to the supplies I assign them to buy. Because of this, the supplies I am able to use for art projects are a bit limited. Most of what I teach in Art 1 is drawing, some painting, and collage/mixed media. Though the supplies are limited, students are able to excel at the basics and as the semester goes on, I am seeing students develop their own artistic vision and style. Though I teach in an online environment, all projects are completed in a traditional form on paper rather than using Photoshop or other computer programs. Students have the opportunity after taking Art 1 to enroll in Art 2-5, Art Appreciation, or Digital Photography. Though individual art projects are created outside of the digital realm in my class, this week I created an interactive collaborative art activity in my live lesson about mixed media. Students took turns choosing materials and combining them in a virtual canvas. I encouraged them to experiment, repeat objects, and have fun! The result was a virtual collaborative art piece that is now displayed in my classroom.

The collaborative artwork students created in a live lesson together

Communicating With Students (pt. 1)

A screenshot of a lesson recording

A common theme in curiosity around distance learning is how teachers communicate with students. Because of the various technologies and formats of online schooling, there are more than a few solutions and not all online schools are the same. In my experience there are five main ways I directly communicate with my students, and they all have their strengths.

Live Instruction: This is probably the way that is most directly connected to what you might see in a traditional brick and mortar school. Twice a week I run a live teaching session in a web conferencing program. Students log in to the program and I open up my virtual classroom. I use various tools to create visual content to show students. My main tool is generally a Powerpoint presentation but I also use SMART Notebook (a virtual SMART board) and I also frequently show videos. I present my visual content while speaking to students over my microphone. Students are able to ask questions via their microphones or by using the chat box and they are able to interact with the lesson content in SMART notebook and Powerpoint by clicking the “raise hand” icon. I make my lessons as interactive as possible and though the lessons are not required for students to attend, many students participate. This method is my favorite way of communicating content to students because I am able to work with a group and I receive a lot of feedback about what is working well with the lesson and what I need to clarify or improve. Another advantage to this method is that every lesson is recorded so students can watch it later. Online schooling offers flexibility for students to do their assignments when they choose, and also to be able to watch lessons when they choose. Imagine this type of technology in a brick and mortar classroom. You have a student who is ill and does not come to school for several days while you are teaching a large amount of new content. All teachers have experienced this, you find yourself working with that student to help him or her catch up on missed lessons. Through the technology I use in my live instruction, recordings of lessons are available for students whenever they need them. The recordings also give me the opportunity to reflect upon past lessons and improve my teaching strategies.

To be continued…