Week One of Student Teaching
A learning environment for me, is something that needs to be curated by the teachers and students to promote collaborative or individual learning experiences. This can be as simple as hanging examples of other artists' work, either famous artists or students' work, for inspiration! I also believe in having interactive spaces around the classroom that are engaging and insightful. An example of this could be a wall covered in chalkboard paint, where students can free draw on when they are finished with their work, and even work on a collaborative picture with another student. If there is not enough wall space for this, have a roll of butcher paper that is laid out on a table for free drawing, and once it starts to be filled up you can roll more paper out and continue the drawing throughout the year until the roll is out.
Week one of student teaching I made my own example of an interactive space in the classroom when my mentor teacher gave me a bulletin board to re-decorate right as you enter the room. I found the idea of making a matching game of different artist styles, using the artists Rene Magritte, Keith Haring, Pablo Picasso, and Piet Mondrian. I used their recognizable artistic styles on the snowman for students to make connections and ask questions. The Magritte one has brought up the most questions. I can’t even count how many times I have heard, “Why does that snowman not have a face?” Even though it is silly and some of the kids think it is funny, these are the types of questions that strike up conversation about art and push you to analyze a picture. When these questions have been brought up, if we have time at the end of class, I will let the students gather around the bulletin board and I ask one person at a time if they can guess the artist! I even put the names of the artists, with a painting similar to the snowman depicted, around the edge of the board so they can have hints to what kind of style each artist displays! If this is too easy for them, which grades 3-5 usually guess right away, I ask them to describe the style and what sets it apart from other artists. I love how something so simple can spark ideas and questions for the students! I am thinking about putting a box with a slit in the top for students to number and match each snowman on a slip of paper to enter in a drawing to win a prize if they guess all of the artists correctly. I will probably take down the example paintings but leave the names of the artists on the side when I do this, to see if it stuck with any of them and to make it more challenging! I think this incentive will encourage students who were not interested to participate! When I have my own classroom, I will have a mystery artist game up on the wall somewhere or maybe even in the hallway to change up each week. I will do a drawing and a prize with that as well! This is just one example of an engaging learning environment, but there are many more out there!
