Students and Classroom

Who are the specific students you will be directly teaching? What are their developmental
levels, their interests, their abilities, their unique needs? What is the class culture? The physical
environment? The context of the learning environment (content, teacher and student mixture)?
What are the demographics in this classroom? (Draw a picture/diagram of the classroom) (10)
This semester I worked with two different teachers which means two different groups of
students. From January to mid-March I was in an intro to Jewelry art classroom taught by Laura
Cronen. Students in this class ranged from 9th graders to 12th graders many of whom needed an
art class to meet their credit requirements, while others were very interested in the process of
learning how to make art and continue down the path to be in an advanced art classroom. There
were 12 females and only one male, which makes it a very small classroom.
Ms. Cronens group of students were fantastic, every time I walked into the classroom
they were prepared to get to work. As I walked around and tried to get to know the students
better I was learning along side them. I would ask them what they were doing that day, what
processes they had to learn in order to complete what they were required to do. They might not
have realized, but they were teaching me what they were learning. I was not able to get more
insight on their developmental levels and what kind of history they had but every one was treated
with the same level of respect and expectations.
Upon entering the classroom, the first thing you will notice is music. Art is kind of
special that way, you are able to listen to music while you work. Not saying that is how every
student is able to work but generally you focus more in your art making that you tend to block
out everyone and anything that is happening around you. You will also notice that students will
have their cellphones, computers and headphones out. Rules are that as long as you are working
during class, you are free to have electronics out, if they become too much of a distraction they
will be asked to put them away.
The way the classroom is set up, certain teachers will have to share. There is a darkroom
that is attached for Photography students, a communal sink for all students, and a lower level
where a small kiln, and more desk space is used. There are drills that Jewelry students were able
to use during class and a lot of storage space all around the classroom. Teachers offices are within the classroom which makes it easier for students to meet with. Overall, the classroom set-up is
easy to navigate and materials are readily available for students at any given moment.

After spring break, I was able to observe and work with Jay Dukart who is teaching 2Dimensional Fundamentals to 9th-12th grade students. It has been a great experience to be able to
observe and learn two different teaching styles. He does have a few students who are doing
independent study under his supervision during the same class period, which they work in the
lower level of the classroom and work on their assignments. This new batch of students are quite
different than Mrs. Cronens Jewelry students. First of all, her classroom size was a lot smaller,
Mr. Dukarts class is double the size. In Mrs. Cronens she only had one male student while in
Mr. Dukart there is a great variety of female and male students who are interested in 2-D art. In
total there were 26 students, 17 females and 9 males, two of those students I had in Mrs.
Cronens class. As stated before, a lot of these students are trying to get required credits or truly
do have a passion for the visual arts.
Mr. Dukarts class is in the same classroom as Mrs. Cronens, only they dont use as
many tools as Jewelry students did. But the same rules apply regarding electronics, they can play
their own music as long as they are working in class and staying on task. As far as I have seen,
they get about two weeks to work on projects, with some instructional teaching in between
depending where the teacher wants to take them throughout the unit. From what I have noticed
there might be some students with certain needs, but none are extreme. At this point, I do not
know what measures the teacher takes regarding students who might work at a lower pace or
who may miss class. Students had testing for a week and a half during this half of the semester, it
was very interesting to see how the teacher handled that when I returned to his classroom, which
is something to think about in structuring class and being able to accommodate for testing dates
in the spring semester.
Classroom diagram:

Topic and Rationale

What has already happened in this classroom surrounding the subject you will be teaching?
What do students already know? Why are you going to teach this topic now? What
instructional strategy will you be using? Why did you choose this specific instructional
strategy? (10)
For Mrs. Cronens Jewelry class I had the option of creating an activity to critique her
students finished art pieces. They were already more than half into the quarter and this was close
to their last project, which means they have had enough practice with the materials used and
knew the expectations and completed a lot of the research and planning process. This group of
students were mainly freshmen with some sophomores, juniors and seniors who this was their
first high school art class. In art is it important to have critiques, it allows you to grow as an
individual and as an artist to hear others opinions and to be able to take a step back and look at
the work you have made. I would say half the class already knew what critiques were and what
they were for, the other half might have had a vague idea from word of mouth or maybe have
experienced it in their previous assignments for the class. It is difficult to come into an art class
in which the teacher has already established a connection with the students and has a set
curriculum. The best and easiest option to include me in it was to come up with a short activity
the students can do and still be able to complete the work they had to finish. It being my first
time to be in front of high school students, I did not do too bad but it wasnt the greatest lesson. I
need to take a step back and focus the lesson around the students more than thinking about it as
an assignment for myself, I have that misconnection still. I got great feedback from Mrs. Cronen
and tried to focus and improve in my second lesson.
For the second quarter, after Spring Break, I was in a new class. 2- Dimensions with Mr.
Dukart. It was harder to connect with him and our communication was not the best this semester.
But Ive used this as a learning and growth process because not everyone we will meet we will
see eye to eye, I just know that from this experience the same thing will not happen again. For
this class the students were the same grades as Mrs. Cronens. A lot of freshmen who have not
taken an art class and are with interested in learning about it or maybe they were just fulfilling
their credit hours but still appreciate the subject. This class is a lot bigger and more diverse, there
were some students with different learning levels that I was able to see the longer I observed and

had contact with them. Unfortunately, due to me, the lesson I prepared was not taught at a
relevant time in Mr. Dukes curriculum. But like I mentioned before, it was a learning lesson and
I still was able to get student interaction and feedback, because I was forming a good relationship
with them. Which is an important part in being in a classroom, you cant just go in there without
knowing the students a little bit and expect them to cooperate, to some extent. The lesson I
planned was another critique, different of course from Mrs. Cronens class. I had a powerpoint
that highlighted important aspects of the critique process and did a spin off of a teaching strategy
called Zoom In where I had an image of a piece of art from an artist named Paola Bazz and as a
class we critiqued it and dug deeper into why this artist made it the way she did and the students
were able to apply what they had just learned in my powerpoint. Although the timing of the
lesson was not ideal, many of the students showed growth in what they already knew about
critiques and what they discovered while participating during my lesson.