Blog 15

What issues arose as you tested your lesson plans? Why did these issues arise? Can you ever fully anticipate every detail of the situation you will be working in? What role does planning play in a responsive teaching approach?





One of the issues that came up in the lesson plans was being able go through with your ideas and knowing later that it wouldn't work because the materials used would be frustrating for the child when they are working with it. When planning your lesson plan you want to incorporate all the things about your child and get them to be engaged in your project. Honestly, the issue arose because of my lack of experience working with the particular media, and finding out that it could not easily incorporate the goals I had in mind. Otherwise, things went smoothly. No, I do not feel any teacher, no matter how experienced, can anticipate every outcome. I think that good planning allows you to be responsive to changes in the situation. If you're trying something new, for example, you'd better have a backup in case something goes wrong! Teachers need to be flexible, and change things up or modify things if something isn't working.

Blog 14

What is your drawing history? Where have your notions of the role of drawing in art come from? How do you manage your "drawing anxiety?" After reading Kalin's chapter, describe how you might mentor an anxious draw-er into the joy of mark-making.





I always enjoyed drawing ever since I was in elementary. My drawings were always mostly representational, and a lot of times they were mimetic. I remember when I was in grade 1 or 2, I would draw animated cartoons likes the Flintstones or Bugs Bunny in my sketchbook and then afterwards colour it in with different colours (but not necessarily the colours that the cartoon actually is!) I was really into colouring books because I liked to explore and play around with the different colours that I could make with pencil crayons, markers, and watercolours. After that, I always enjoyed making art in class. What I found sad is that when you are in elementary school, you were able to explore art on a more regular basis, but once you reach junior high those things are not as important anymore unless you are taking an art option, and that is often only allowed for one semester.

I think that my ideas about the role of drawing in art comes from the fact that I was an independent child who wasn't able to go out as much, like other children might have, so I would sit at home and draw and colour because those were the things that I enjoyed doing. Drawing became the gateway into other forms of art for me, as it seemed the most natural, and in some ways (when I was a child, at least), the least technical.

How do I manage my "drawing anxiety?" This situation never seemed to happen to me that much. I guess I could say that I always convinced myself that I was as good as any other people; therefore, drawing anxiety wass not there much. In highschool, however, I found that my art teacher was not as supportive as she probably should have been. I was doing a really good job on a "pencil crayon on black paper" project of my face, and she told me I was a sibling of one of the other girls in my art class, because that other girl was considered to be the better drawer by my art teacher. It may have been an attempt at praise, but it came off as sounding like "normally, you're not as good as her." That really bummed my self-esteem, but I got over it because I believe that I am good in my own, individual style.



I think that, according to Kalin's chapter, I would mentor an anxious draw-er into the joy of mark-making by allowing them to close their eyes and draw the things that they imagined inside their head. It allows them to not worry whether or not their drawing is perfect or good but just focusing on how they feel and enjoy when they imagine those image in their head. Afterward, you complement about how interesting it is to draw something without seeing it even if it's not realistic. The artist woulf be focusing on feelings instead of mimetic skill, for example, and gain a sense of freedom from that.



The type of questions that I would ask the parent of the child's learning characteristics would be:

What are the things that the child enjoys doing in school? What subjects do they not like? How do they deal with things when they come across a problem? What is the child's art history? Are they confident in making art? What are the materials the child has explored in art? What would you like them to explore? What are the things you want the child to explore and develop more? Does the child have any developmental issues?

Blog 13

What were the benefits of the peer teaching events? How would you incorporate peer teaching in an elementary classroom?





I think that the benefits of the peer teaching events were that we were able to create a lesson plan and test drive it with others in the class. The important part was that we were able to see what aspects didn't work and what components did. Also, the questions that comes up during the peer teaching could help you understand more about developmental growth for a specific age range. Having peer teaching events helped me gain ideas from others that might improve my lessons and future planning. It gave me an opportunity to gain confidence in my teaching in an actual classroom setting. In the future, peer teaching would allowethe students to incorporate group communication and cooperation skills, and learn to express concepts and skills in ways that others can understand - an important communication skill. I would incorporate peer teaching in an elementary classroom by grouping the students and allowing them to teach each other something and having students share their ideas.

Blog 12

Discuss the importance of documentation to teaching and to a child's learning. What are the challenges of documentation to the classroom teacher? What are some strategies that would help address these challenges?


Documentation is important as a teacher because it helps you to understand the child's learning needs and growth. Documenting the child helps you as a teacher to look back and understand what problems arose, or if you weren't able to pick out the problems at the time, you might be able to see the problems more clearly when you look back at the documentation. It gives you the chance as a teacher to reflect on your teachings and to improve a lesson the next time you run it. Also you get to see how a child grows over time.


I think that the most important challenges of documentation to a classroom teacher is that you have to manage a lot of students, and having to document all of them is a hard task. In-class documentation is especially difficult when you are focused on whether some students might need help or if the classroom behaviour level is being maintained.


I definitely think a way to address these challenges is to have parents or community volunteers help out during class. They could help out with the documentation process by taking pictures of individual students or groups while you are teaching, or monitoring the process while you are documenting.

My Monster Sculpture Lesson

For this lesson I created a mystery box with an object inside of it. The students were to touch the object without looking at it and feel the shape, size, and texture. The students then incorporated that object as a part of a monster. I let the students decide how they are going to transfer the shape, size, and texture into the monster that they were making.



My group successfully used the object in their monster sculptures. They got to use a variety of media like play doh, feathers, sea shells, wires, and popsicle sticks. If I were to change one of the medium, I wouldn't use play doh because it is not strong enough to hold the structure, but we did talk about how we could make it stronger. We also discussed additional functional problems, including creating a frame and then adding material to it, or making it balanced and not top heavy so it wouldn't fall over. These would be problems that I would want the students to explore and solve to understand the media that they have in front of them as well as the entire design process.



The age group I chose to create this project for is 8-10. I think this lesson is appropriate for that age group because they have opportunites for creativity and exploration, and are given choice in both materials and form. There's appropriate teacher guidance while at the same time the students have some say in what they create. The level of problem solving is also age-appropriate because it is not so overwhelming they will begin to feel frustration.



If I were to extend this into other subject areas, I would tie this lesson into social studies, where students in this age group learn about aboriginal mythology. I could also tie this in to social topics, like identity of the self and cultural identity.