Aubrey Wray

Day 6 Teaching Reflection

1. What are your overall takeaways or surprises from the 6 teaching days? In what
ways do you feel you are a successful teacher? What are some areas in which you
feel you still need improvement?
Overall, after teaching these students, I think I was most surprised by the students' abilities.
Despite not having previous experience in an art class, every one of my students ended up
producing phenomenal work that showed lots of skill. At the beginning, I wasn’t really expecting
too much from them, but all the students seemed to have a good understanding of proportions
and how to successfully render an image that is somewhat accurate to real life. Some even had a
good understanding of perspective. The students were also really responsive to feedback which I
wasn’t expecting due to the typical nature of middle school students. This allowed students to
improve their artwork and take it to another level conceptually and technically. I believe this to
be a result of the relationship that we had built over the course of the semester as well as their
excitement in the project. I think what I did the best was giving feedback to students as they
work to help them improve. One area I believe I could work on some more would be how to
close out the class. I never really felt super prepared for the end of the class which resulted in
some awkward moments. I usually made sure to ask some closing questions but other than that,
there always seemed to be a weird end to class. This could have been a result of having to teach
in another teacher's room, but I also think I could have been more prepared for this part of class
in general.

2. Looking at your students' finished artwork, what were some specific successes and
what would you improve upon if you taught this lesson again? What were your
overall successes and challenges with your focus student(s)? What would you change
about your instruction or classroom management if you worked with this student
again?
As I mentioned already, students did a great job producing finished artworks that communicate
the message they had intended. Each student produced work that was both conceptually and
technically strong, especially considering the circumstances. In the future, I’d do a better job of
covering the information that students need in order to begin the project before they start
sketching. I believe this oversight was a result of my vast experience with art and my students'
lack thereof. Things that were obvious to me were things that these students had no knowledge
of. My focus student, Elle, showed a lot of progress over the course of the lesson. At the
beginning, she seemed to be extremely self-conscious in her ability and therefore liked to speak
out a lot. By the third day, I had already seen a huge change in her as she was much quieter and
focused on her work. After working with her one on one a few times, she seemed to have gained
some confidence and excitement in her project. In order to avoid the problems we faced in the
beginning, I think it could have been useful to show more examples that use a large variety of
different styles, so she wasn’t so focused on what she believed to be “good art”.