Alanna Gaylord's Art Education Portfolio

Introduction:

                  Art is one of the few educational subjects that has the capacity to engage all students, regardless of their physical, emotional, or developmental abilities. An individual with a disability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. Regardless of a student’s disability or difficulty, whether it be physical, mental, or linguistic, every student deserves the equal opportunity to benefit from a well rounded art program. In this section I will discuss my experiences with identifying and accommodating students with special needs. In particular, I will focus my attention on two students, one who has an IEP and receives services, and another who has neither an IEP nor a 504 but displays characteristics of someone who I believe would benefit from the respective services. I will provide an in depth narrative of my time with these two students in the art classroom, I will analyze my experiences with them, and I will reflect upon how I worked to accommodate these two students in the art classroom. It is important for every educator to demonstrate an understanding of how to identify and accommodate students with special needs in order to create an equitable learning environment, including an understanding of laws, policies, and procedures. As an art educator, my goal is to always create and maintain an equal and fair environment in which every student can learn, be challenged, and find success.

 

Description of Student M:

                  Student M is a 7th grade student who receives special education services as a student with Down Syndrome and a bilateral hearing loss which impacts him across his school day in all settings. He is quiet, friendly, sweet and understanding. He is well liked by his peers, in fact social understanding, empathy, and social interactive skills are strengths for Student M. He has a great sense of humor and loves coming to school. He has a loving, supportive family and he is motivated by photos of family and school activities for writing and conversation. He has a strong will and is quick to let you know whether he is going to do something or not. He relies on trust, comfort with people and familiar situations when determining whether to do something or not. Medically, Student M has many of the common characteristics of Down Syndrome. In addition, Student M has significant and fluctuating hearing loss in both ears and he wears hearing aids and has a personal FM system. His hearing impairments also affect his speech making it difficult to communicate with Student M. Due to the challenges brought on by Down Syndrome, Student M receives many supports from the school. One of his most beneficial supports is a 1:1, or Instructional Assistant (IA). Student M needs 1:1 support throughout the day in academic, unified arts, physical education, homeroom, and lunch to reinforce and build skills in academics, independence, and communication and social skills. Student M’s IA must know sign language and also be someone who is skilled at behavior management and utilizing reward systems. In addition, due to Student M’s hearing impairment, any person presenting verbal instruction in a classroom, whether it is his IA or the instructor of the class, they are required to wear a microphone around his or her neck that connects to Student M’s FM system so he can receive all instructions clearly. In addition to his IA and FM system, Student M also needs direct instruction in math, reading, and writing. He needs accommodated work in all content areas. He needs instruction and direct support in oral language and speech skills.

                  Student M was an absolute pleasure to have in class, however some of his physical impairments made most tasks that were simple for most students often challenging or even impossible. During art class, many accommodations were made for Student M. For instance I taught a lesson about the elements and principles, where the class was to pick an element and a principle out of a hat to then create a clay tile that portrayed the relationship between the element and principle that they chose. For Student M, I allowed him to choose any element and principle that he wanted to work with to make his tile. In the end, although he wasn’t able to communicate to me what element and principle he used to focus on, it was clear that shape, form and unity were prevalent aspects of his work. He even made three tiles where most students only made one or two. He was very successful with this project and it made me happy to see him so involved with his art.

 

Analysis of Student M:

                  Student M’s supports and services are very beneficial in the classroom setting. It seems evident that Student M’s most beneficial support is his access to a 1:1 or IA. Student M’s IA supports him academically and physically to reinforce and build skills in academic, independence and communication and social skills. An IA is an integral part of the education process and not only do individual students such as Student M benefit from the access to one, but everyone benefits from the work and services of IAs. First off, an IA in the classroom reduces the number of students to adults, which makes it easier to move about the room to help students. More importantly though, the services of an IA allow the classroom teacher to offer more differentiated instruction, then students such as Student M benefit from the individualized attention that IAs provide. For instance when I modified the objectives for Student M during our clay tiles project, his IA was able to work with him one on one to meet those objectives specific to him. In addition to his IA, Student M’s FM system, hearing aides, and microphone are all supports that benefit his classroom performance. As long as the instructor is wearing the microphone and student M is wearing his hearing aides, this system allows Student M to receive direct and clear instruction, which allows for a better understanding of the steps, objectives, and expectations of a lesson or project. Other supports that benefit Student M’ performance in the classroom include simple accommodations and modifications to lessons. Creating objections that are specific to Student M’s learning and physical abilities but are still challenging, allow Student M to work hard and be successful in the art classroom.

 

Reflection of Student M:

                  Student M was extremely successful in the art classroom. Not only did the services of his IA and FM system allow for success, but also the specific accommodations and modifications that I made to my lessons helped Student M to be successful. During our clay project, by allowing Student M to choose his own elements and principles instead of them being chosen for him, this allowed him to focus on exactly what he wanted to focus on and create art work that was pure to his own design. The results of this project for Student M were truly stunning and many more elements and principles showed up in his work than just the required two. This experience showed me that by sometimes allowing the project objectives to be a little more open, the results can be extremely dynamic and successful. This experience also taught me that it’s important to know my students and their capabilities so I can plan instruction accordingly and every student has the opportunity to learn, be challenged and find success.

 

Description of Student K:

                  Student K is a 6th grade student who I had the pleasure of working with and teaching in the art classroom during my student teaching. Student K is a wonderfully interesting individual. You know when he has entered the classroom, because he is very loud and likes to let everyone know when he has arrived. He also has the irrepressible ability to share his opinion constantly, sometimes even when it is not relevant and even during class time when the teacher is giving instruction. Student K is also very impulsive, which relates to his unique skill of blurting out, these instances were mostly harmless, however disruptive, challenging, and distracting. He also became distracted very easily and needed a great deal of attention to stay focused during academic instruction. Due to many of these characteristics, along with the fact that he also seems to lack a bit of compassion and understanding, Student K does not get along with his peers very well. In fact, some students actually view him as a bully and are a bit unnerved by him. In fact, he did not help to create a warm and comfortable classroom climate. Student K brought many challenges to the classroom, and I as his teacher wonder if he, and the people around him, would benefit from supports and services from the school.

                  The lesson I taught to this 6th grade art class presented many difficulties for Student K. The project was a unit on Day of the Dead, sugar skulls, symbolism and printmaking. Students were to design their own life-celebrating sugar skull designs and then carve their designs into printing blocks and use them to make prints. I will admit that the unit was very challenging for these 6th graders, however the majority of the class found success and created very interested and beautiful final prints. It was during the middle of this unit that I realized Student K needed some modifications in order for him to find success in this project. Student K found most of his challenges in the actual carving of the linoleum block. He had made a great sugar skull design, but the actual carving of the design was very difficult for him; he simply wanted the task to be fast and easy although it is a process that takes time and patience. So when he found himself completely fed up, we decided that he would work with a smaller piece of linoleum to cut out a “K,” instead of the complicated image of the sugar skull. This seemed to really work for Student K. He completed all of the prior objectives of the unit: creating life celebrating symbols and creating a sugar skull design, and here we simply modified the project to make the carving a little less challenging. He was still able to successfully demonstrate his block-carving abilities, it just wasn’t the original design, and that was completely okay. In the end, Student K felt successful was proud of his work and, to me as the teacher, that was way more important than dwelling to every original objective.

 

Analysis of Student K:

                  Student K evidently benefitted from the small but important modification I made in the objectives of this project. The problem for Student K seems to be that he has all this built up energy and he desires instruction and assignments to be quick and easy. However, when he is faced with assignments and projects that are challenging, all of his built up energy comes out in the form of frustration and anger and then it becomes almost impossible to work with him. I believe that Student K would greatly benefit from supports and services in order to keep him focused and engaged during academic instruction. Even supports as minimal as movement breaks and seating near the center of learning to remain engaged would greatly benefit Student K’s performance in the classroom.

 

Reflection of Student K:

                  Student K was able to find success in the art classroom. It took a bit of getting to know him, his characteristics, and his abilities in order to work towards that success, but he was capable of it. Every student is different and it is important to know that changes in instruction, goals, and objectives sometimes have to be made in order for every student to find success. With Student K, I found that he required a great deal of communication in order to understand where he was coming from and what he need in order for him to not get frustrated and give up. I had to be patient with him just like he had to be patient with my project. In the future, I will be very vocal with students to let them know that I am there for them and if they need anything, whether it’s a question about the project or a possible modification, I would be more than happy to welcome the conversation and possibilities. Every student has the right to learn, be challenged and find success.