Future Vision

The word that can sum up this semester is adventure. It has been quite the adventure in the assignments that were given to us and also what goes along with that, teaching myself new methodologies in my teaching. The hardest challenge for me this semester was definitely integrating new ways to go about altering my lesson to allow for every student in the class to learn in a different manner and not only that but also being the outsider and observing how to just go about that. So with that being said…we are now in the future.

I look back to the very first assignment, “Exploration 1: Socio-Techno Interfaces” where we had to integrate something “new” for my students. Having a completely visually impaired student in my class, Clara this was an easy decision to have a gentleman named, John come into my classroom and offer her a 3-D interactive painting. This allowed Clara to feel the art vs. seeing the art. As her fingers would move up and down and across the painting it would speak to her about certain parts of the painting in particular. This was the first “new” step in technology and differentiated teaching that I employed in my teaching as an art educator.

Reflecting and looking back at that assignment in particular allowed me to want to move even further in my lesson plans, whether it was technology or mixing up the lecture for the day. I was able to observe more of my students and see what ways they absorb the information, rather than lecturing everyday in the same format. Art history can be boring to some and drag on, so this observation that I decided to do more of, really opened the doors to new ways of students to explore the history of that time period and also in general the artists. The last assignment that I did before my reflection on the new methods of teaching was in class mobiles. The end result of the lesson was amazing; one student did the Ishtar Gate, which was the entry gate to the city of Babylon. She made it dimensional and took her time, it came out amazing.

I feel that a lot of art educators don’t take the time to think about and try new approaches to their current teaching styles. We focus on differentiated teaching, however a lot of times stepping back and looking at the approach and the way you do it is what we need to do. This class has made me do that, not just with art history but also in my photography classes and the approach of reviewing and gathering portfolios together. Something that seems so simple becomes a hard task, because you get stuck in the same routine. For example in photography I usually have the students meet with me one on one and de determine together what is the strength and the weakness of the portfolio to have it become complete. However, this year I allowed students to meet together and with discussion with one another they come to a primarily portfolio, which then at that point they meet with me and we discuss final product. This is something completely different and it turned out to really work.

Another interesting assignment that I have integrated into my teaching is WebQuests, I have had my students do this in a lesson with other students from a high school in the same state, however much a distance away and it came out great! It will be interesting to see how in the future this keeps changing, I feel as though a lot of the WebQuests are dictated in the high school atmosphere by society and what is popular at that time. Soon enough, I will hopefully be teaching on a college level and I will revisit this assignment with that age group. It will be interesting to see how their WebQuests look compared to the high school level.

I look in the future and reflect on the assignments and how I would go about changing my curriculum and honestly I think working together along side other classmates by doing assignments together and apart really made me revaluate my lessons. It has been very beneficial in every way and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be apart of other art educators like myself that have had their eyes opened up and new ideas and the start of new beginnings.