Student Recognition

The new school year is up and rolling! I always enjoy the energy and inspiration that come at the beginning of the school year. I am feeling well rested and ready to conquer the world! One of my many goals this year is to make my students feel special. In the online classroom, the key to student engagement is to make students feel cared for and noticed. One of the ways I seek to accomplish this is by creating a weekly student art gallery. I use Animoto (which offers free educator accounts with pro features!) to create an exciting gallery video each week.

I have always posted this gallery for students to access, but this year I am also emailing students who earn a spot in the gallery video to let them know how proud they should be. I send along a certificate which they can print and hang up if they desire (seen at the top of this post). I am hoping this little bit of extra effort gets my students feeling excited about creating artwork and feeling valued in their classroom community. 

Success!

I have concluded my semester 1 with my highest ever passing rate as a teacher. 74% of my students passed Art 1! I believe the passing packet and my other efforts to engage students during the last 2 weeks of the semester really made the difference this time.
The method I used:
1. Send out mid-term grades for the 2nd quarter.
2. Send the passing packet to all failing students (see previous entry)
3. 2 weeks from the end of the semester, send each failing student an email with the subject line, "Name, you are X assignments from passing!" outlining some assignment suggestions to get them to a passing grade
4. 2 weeks from the end of the semester, call each failing student to tell them about the email
5. Last week of the semester, call each failing student who has not completed the work assigned in the email and remind them of the amount of time they have left to complete it
6. Provide an extension of the weekend to complete all missing work

With this method I was able to engage my reluctant learners so they could succeed and earn their required fine art credit. I'll continue to use this method next semester and hope for similar results.

Motivation Frustration

It is the last week of school this week and I am finding myself wishing I was a motivation super hero for my students. With a current pass rate for the semester of 58%, I am scrambling to motivate 42% of my learners to pass my class. In online learning, student motivation is the biggest challenge I face. If a student fails my art course, it is solely because they have not completed enough assignments to pass the course. It is easy to get sucked into my own frustration this week rather than continue to do everything I can to let them know it is not too late and I have not given up on them.

Here are the methods I am focusing on this week:

• Passing instructions: I started my mission to save my failing students with an email that listed all the assignments they could choose from and how many they need to do in order to pass my class. Sometimes it is a little disappointing to know students want to do the bare minimum to earn their credit, but as teachers we all know this is true sometimes and it is easier to motivate a student when they feel the goal is within their reach.
• Phone calls: Reaching out to students over the phone is sometimes the make it or break it in their motivation. It's easy to forget they are more than just a overlooked name in my classroom if I do not reach out to them. As I have spoken with my students who are failing this week, many of them have been thankful for my call and already working on the assignments they need to submit. 
• Personal emails: Not all of my students answer me when I call, and sometimes their numbers do not work. At this point I turn to emails, but they still need to be personal. Now, instead of many options for passing I have moved to specific assignments for each student to complete that will push them to a passing grade. I look at the number of assignments they need, pick the ones I want them to do, and send out the message with a read receipt. I have found that for some students, a specific list is more motivational than many options. To remind students that these emails are personal I put in the subject line "Passing instructions for (student name)" or if they are only one assignment away from passing it will say "(student name) you are ONE assignment from passing". 
• Offering extensions when possible: Deadlines are important as they give procrastinating students a reminder that they really need to get it done. However, when possible, offering extra time gives students the extra push they need to know that you care about their success enough to grant extra time. I never offer this extra time until the very end so as to not promote more procrastination.

In addition to these end of school year efforts, I send out midterm and final grades through the mail, contact legal guardians and students regularly, and send out weekly emails of tasks to complete. It often feels like we are fighting an uphill battle as online educators but each time I see a student work hard and earn a passing grade (even at the very end), I am reminded that my efforts have all been worth it. 

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.

Remembering to Make a Difference

I have spent the last two days filling up my brain with new knowledge about teaching. I learned about motivating students, new technology I can use, how to involve parents and guardians, and various other techniques to improve my teaching strategies. I am excited to implement new multimedia into my classroom and to increase attendance of my live lessons. I am excited to try new ways of motivating students to make the right choices in their education despite their many barriers. I am excited to work even more closely with my inclusion teacher in a more effective way that helps us be a team. However, I took home more than just helpful tools this week. I was reminded of a philosophy that sometimes gets pushed to the backs of our minds. As teachers, we are here to change lives, to teach students more than simply our subject matter. Our first keynote speaker, Steve Gilliland told a story about the 5 people in his life who have made the biggest difference, one being his 6^th grade teacher. I remember the teachers who impacted my life and who made me want to do the same. Sometimes as teachers we get sucked in to our daily tasks. For me its grading, making PowerPoints, and trying to reach out to those reluctant students I have in my classroom. And sometimes they get lumped together and its call after call and answering machine after answering machine that I am speaking to. But Steve’s story reminded me that I want to be the teacher that students tell stories about later in life, long after they are no longer students. I want remind students that they CAN do it, and that someone believes in them. Though I have been learning about new tech programs and approaches I can use in my classroom, the fact is that none of this matters without remembering to make a difference. I can craft the most wonderful lessons and creative projects but at the end of the day I must always remember my purpose. I am a teacher and I am here to change lives. Every moment of extra time I take to learn about a student and talk on the phone about things that don’t always have to be about art class, every time I stop to appreciate a student’s work, or commend a student on working through a personal challenge, these are the moments that matter. My goal now as I move into the end of the first quarter of our school year is to marry my new knowledge of practical skills with my enduring passion for teaching to make my students successful not only in my class but in life.