Reflecting on the 2013-2014 School Year

Wow! What a year it has been. It is hard for me to believe that it is once again June and that this weekend, 2,560 students from my school have graduated. I couldn't be more proud. I feel so lucky to be a part of their lives and help them be successful. Every year at graduation I get to personally congratulate many of my own students face-to-face for the first time and this year was no different. I received hugs and smiles and I cheered each of them on as they proceed to their next stage of life.
Much like our students, the school year is full of learning for teacher as well! This year, my third year of teaching, I have learned so much and experienced many new challenges and celebrations.

I began the year armed with a new tech tool: Google Glass! I used it to make demonstration videos for my students and also to make videos explaining art concepts like linear perspective and getting inspiration from the world around you. The students responded positively to my videos with a higher engagement rate than I've ever had before and better quality work. These videos have become a permanent fixture in my art classroom and I continue to use Glass to make new resources for students. Hopefully next year I will be able to try out a virtual field trip! Also tech related, many of my students received tablets to access and complete their school work. Though I didn't have much time to implement tablet lessons this year, next year students will have the option to complete some of their art projects on their school tablets in order to give them more exposure to digital art and solve supply and scanner issues. Students will also be able to use them to photograph their work so 3-dimensional media is finally possible in my classroom!

This year, I experienced a training about Formalized Instructional Practices where I was reminded of the value of measuring student learning through all parts of the instructional period and also how to help students set their own learning goals. I have now implemented FIP into several of my lessons and the majority of my synchronized instruction. I am excited to further implement these strategies next school year.
I also learned how to best prepare my students for Student Learning Assessments so they meet learning targets. This new practice of evaluating student learning in the art classroom was very challenging for me as my students barely met the minimum growth the first time I gave the test. For the second time around I used study guides, review games, and increased the number of motivated students taking the test. Because I teach online, students are able to choose to take my SLA rather than being required to. This was a tricky issue to combat but a much higher percentage of my students hit their growth targets the second time around.

I implemented a discussion board in my classroom for the very first time this semester and even though it was extra credit, I received extremely high engagement. I asked students to reflect on contemporary and relevant questions about art. I used Scholastic Art magazine to start the discussions. I learned that some of my questions were more text-dependent than others and not all of the questions inspired high quality responses. I also only tried a handful of assignments where students needed to respond to each other. Next year I would like to implement more responses that encourage student-to-student interaction and improve the questions to be more text-dependent.
It has been a fantastic school year and as always, I am excited to take what I have learned and make next year even better. To close this entry I wanted to share an email I received from one of my graduating seniors this year. I feel incredibly lucky to do what I love every day and to make a positive difference in my students' lives. This is why I do what I do!

Making Students Proud

When I speak to many of my students for the first time, they are nervous about taking an art class. They feel they're bad at drawing and that I am going to judge their work on standards set by other students who are "much better" than they are. One of my missions as an art teacher is to help my students become more confident in their work. When they feel confident, they work harder on their drawings which sometimes even translates to work in their other classes. As a student who struggled in the beginning of high school, I didn't really believe I could achieve good grades until one of my teachers showed me I could by helping me earn my first A. After that, I worked very hard to keep an average of A's and B's for the rest of high school and got into my first choice of colleges.
I see many of my students feeling as though they can't succeed and I am striving to find ways to help them feel confident in what they do so they can use this confidence in all aspects of their learning. A couple ways I have done this in my classroom are giving detailed feedback and posting their work for others to see.
When I give students feedback, I make sure it is detailed and includes both positive comments and ways for them to improve (growth-producing feedback!). Because I don't always have the opportunity to talk to every student about each project, my written feedback is where they get this information. 
Some examples of feedback: 
"-------, this is a great start. It looks like you used linear perspective correctly here to create a complex 3-dimensional house. However, your drawing is very sketch-like and looks unfinished. Please spend some more time on this drawing to complete it for an A. (Think about what you can add to the setting, darken up lines, straighten up lines)."
"------, your use of detail is fantastic in this drawing and your house looks 3-dimensional. However, it does not look like you used a vanishing point as your guide. Remember, the vanishing point is always on the horizon line. Please review my corrections and submit a quick sketch showing me you understand how to use a vanishing point in your drawing for an A." For this feedback I also gave the student visual feedback as well to help him improve (see below)

As an online teacher I don't have a bulletin board to display student work so instead I use digital tools. In the past I have used simple HTML pages to display images of student work but I have found a new, exciting tool this year. I use a website called Animoto to create videos of student artwork. As a teacher you can get a free education account if you are a teacher which gives you more video themes to pick from and does not limit the number of videos you can create. This tool makes viewing their artwork and classmates' work fun and engaging and I have had wonderful feedback so far from students and administrators.

The Perks of Data

Pre-test grades earned by students

I am beginning the second week of my semester this week and learning a lot about my students. As I have talked about in previous entries, I have students fill out an “interest inventory” or get to know you assignment at the beginning of my class. This semester, I am also piloting a pre-test that measures what students already know about art. At the end of the class they will take this test again (with some different questions on the same information) to display the growth they have made in my course. My interest inventory has always told me much about what my students wanted to learn and what they already knew, but the pre-test has taken it to a new level. I am now able to gage the level of understanding for specific concepts. I put a question in the pre-test asking students if they had ever taken an art class before, it turns out that 55% have prior art experience while 45% do not. Almost half of my students are completely new to this subject so depending on their interests, they may have never drawn realistically before. I analyzed the data from the test to see what concepts students were widely familiar with and which they were often incorrect about. Students understood foreground, pattern, texture, portraits, primary colors, mixed media, and abstract art, or they were at least able to guess the correct answers for them. I was surprised to see how much they already feel comfortable with coming in. This tells me that when I get to these concepts in the curriculum, students won't need as much time in the lesson to focus on the terms, but perhaps we can spend more time going over examples and brainstorming for their projects. On the other hand, students were often incorrect on the questions about linear perspective, value, art criticism, and cubism. This data seems to match up with what are usually some of the most difficult lessons to teach. Having this information early will help me focus in on these lessons and provide multiple ways of learning. I added a question to my interest inventory that I found to be very helpful in understanding what methods I should use to teach these lessons. When asked which method students preferred for learning a new technique, they preferred demonstrations most often (see below).

Now I know what my students feel more comfortable with, what they will most likely struggle with, and how they learn best. With a class of 260 students, trends in data are very important to pay attention to! I will use this data to guide my instruction and look forward to seeing student growth at the end of my semester.