(8 hours)

January Tuesday 14th 

Classes are a mix of grade 9-12

1st hour 

Graphic Design with the photography teacher.

This class they were continuing the three images they were working on previously and I started to get an understanding of the project more. The students must make three images: a landscape, an animal or creature, and an abstract image. To make these images they have only nine shapes they can use, but they can resize in proportion, change the color, change the orientation, and layer. The class started to regard me as someone who can teach. It made me feel as if i was starting to see what a K-12 teacher sees and started to be regarded as someone going through all the training to be one. I also learned about where the teacher finds her lesson plans.

2nd hour

Pottery 1 with the pottery head teacher

This class was a cleaning day, so I helped organize the students into groups to clean certain things in the pottery class. In this class all they had to do was clean the wood slabs to sculpt on and the large wheeled racks that bisque wear is placed. After the cleaning was done, the students were given free time while the teacher and I started prep for next quarter classes. We took buckets from the sink that were filled with water and dropped them into a clay machine. These buckets full of water for the kids to drop extra clay from the pottery wheel into. The clay would get super soggy and gross then put into the clay machine and it would start working to get excessive moisture out. The clay machine will make the clay workable again. This process did not take long, we would just dump the buckets into a large funnel into the machine. After we had to call out names to each student for them to get extra pots that they made but forgot. It was a good lesson in how to organize your students and have them help keep the art room clean for the next class.

3rd hour

Foods Class with a para

This class was put in because the AP class was cancelled for the day. I shadowed my mother and learned about what paras do and how they help students. This foods class was a slower class because no food was being made that day. I was able to watch how the para calmed a hyperactive student and got him to do some of his work. I learned that the students paras help get either a pass or fail grade, no in between. I was not allowed to try to help any students this hour as I am not licensed for this work so I observed. It was very interesting to see how the teacher acted with the students in this class, the interactions were much more happy and over the top then what i saw in all the other classes. It helped me to see how the teachers and paras try different methods to assist the kids to do their work and learn. The para in the class had a gentle approach, she would talk softly to the student and tell them how these tasks were very small and then after they could play on the iPad for five minutes or have a reward. After each task one student who loved playing on his iPad for five minutes had so much fun he continued do the work. I found this class very helpful in the way that I was able to add some different approaches to my arsenal of communication if I ever need it in the future.

4th hour

Intro to Art with the photography teacher

In this class i was able to start helping students with certain paints for Impressionist paintings. I was able to use the brushes properly to convey the style that they needed to use. I was able to walk around the room and help many students do this style. In this class the students all wanted my thoughts on the art pieces so i thought it would be fun to do mini critiques between four people. I went through the tables as the teacher talked to other students about their missing assignments. As I moved through the tables I would take two people across from two sitting next to each other and ask them to say one nice thing about each other’s work and then one thing they thought that might improve the others painting.

5th hour

CAD with the architecture teacher

The drawing class was canceled so i went and observed a CAD class because the other art teachers did not have classes at this time. This class was my favorite, when I saw the students working I understood the program they were working on. This class was a 3D modeling class for architecture, I was able to converse with the teacher about the class planning for lessons and how the class was set up. It was very interesting to hear that most of the students that took the class took it to have a fun creative break from regular high school classes. I was glad that when the students had questions I could talk to them about the problem in a language they could understand. This class was building lego models on their programs and every one had such different and wonderful ideas, they had a second project as well that I was able to help them on. The second project was to take something that had four parts and build it in the computer and put it together in the computer. I was able to give recommendations on how the models should start and how they could be improved so they would look and feel more like the real life model.  This class went by so fast and I wish I could have had more time with them.

6th hour

Graphic Design with a substitute teacher

This class was interesting because there was not a single problem in that class. The students were working in silence and got their work done. Because everyone was getting their work done i had time to ask the substitute about how substitute teaching works. I found out how the substitutes are hired and how they can apply the day before or get a call at almost four in the morning then have to go to school. She showed my the website that they hire off of and then told my that my degree qualifies for substitute teaching! I checked with the hiring department later that day and they confirmed it.

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