Alanna Gaylord's Art Education Portfolio

Introduction:

           In this section I will describe, analyze, and reflect upon my abilities to work as a team member and to advocate for students and families. I will start by describing my experiences working in collaborative relationships and explain how they have helped me provide support for my students’ learning and well-being. I will then analyze the skills and knowledge I have gained from working in collaborative relationships, as well as I will reflect upon my collaborative experiences and discuss my strengths and challenges when working in a team. Then I will describe my experiences with advocating for both students and the art program. I will discuss my experiences with communicating with parents, classroom teachers, and special educators as well as my initiatives to promote the art program; I will then analyze my experience as an advocate, including skills I have gained from advocating and what influences on students and the art program are important to understand when being an advocate; and finally I will reflect on my strengths and challenges as an advocate for students and the art program.

 

Description of Collaborative Experiences:

           The ability to work in a team with colleagues is an important skill in the education field. When teachers work together as a team, students experience and recognize two role models working together, and they gain an understanding of the importance of working collaboratively and the power of respect amongst peers. Also, when teachers of different subject areas team up to teach an integrated lesson, it allows students to make broad, cross-disciplinary connections that help guide students to understanding universal concepts. During my student teaching, I teamed up with a science teacher to teach an interdisciplinary lesson. The lesson began as a science project where students were required to choose and research a microorganism and learn about how their microorganism physically moves, how it eats, and about its habitat. In their first assignment, the students were asked to provide their research and sources on a digital poster using Google Chrome’s program Drawings. Then, the science teacher contacted me and we worked together to create a lesson that would enable students to demonstrate their new knowledge of their Microorganisms in an artistic way. We designed a lesson where students would use Google Chrome’s program Stop Animation to create stop animation videos that portrayed the characteristics of their microorganisms. After we designed this lesson, we planned a day where I came to her classroom to introduce and demonstrate this project. In the end, this interdisciplinary lesson allowed students to make vast connections between science and art and also helped students realize that art, in one way or another, can always be used as a means of presenting information. Without collaborative interdisciplinary lessons, students would lack experiences like these where they are able make broad, cross-disciplinary connections that help them better understand the world around them.

           Throughout my Student Teaching in the art classroom at ADL, Tina Logan and I worked together as a team to plan lessons, co-teach classes, and work collaboratively to help all of our students find success in the art classroom. Having two minds facilitate the classroom allowed for our students to connect with two different teachers and learn from two different teaching styles. Our co-teaching also allowed for more opportunities for small groups and one-to-one learning as well as it helped create a positive learning environment and increase community involvement. Our co-teaching experiences encouraged us to constantly share ideas with one another in order to design the strongest and most creative lessons and most importantly, it allowed us to increase our students’ achievement by discussing our students and identifying their individual skills, challenges, and needs in our classroom.

                 

Analysis of Skills and Knowledge Gained from Collaborative Relationships:

           There are many factors that contribute to successful collaborative relationships. My experiences of working with my colleagues have allowed me to gain important perspectives, knowledge, and skills that are necessary for working in teams. Collaborating with colleagues requires teachers to be open-minded, patient, and understanding. Everyone has their own unique set of philosophies, opinions, and teaching styles, therefore it is important to be open to all ideas that are brought to the table. In my experiences, I have found that success is less dependent on similar philosophies and is more dependent on open-mindedness and the willingness to compromise. Additionally, working collaboratively heavily relies on a teacher’s ability to communicate with others. Whether it’s discussing ideas for a lesson or it’s reflecting on students’ learning, open communication is the key to successful collaborative relationships. In order for students to successfully learn from collaborative teaching, teachers must work together as teams and possess the same mature, respectful, and responsible characteristics and qualities that they encourage among their own students.

 

Reflection of Strengths and Challenges in Collaboration:

           Although team teaching has many benefits, it also has its challenges. One of the most common of these challenges is the difficulty of working alongside someone whose teaching style is very different from your own. However, these moments of difference in approach to teaching provide great opportunities to practice open-mindedness and patience. These are two important strengths I have gained from my experiences of working with colleagues. In addition, I have discovered that being organized, thorough and quick with ideas are also important attributes to successful collaboration. From my experiences with collaborating with colleagues, I have learned that sharing the same goal of student success overcomes any challenges that may arise.  

 

Description of Experiences Advocating for Students and the Art Program:

           When teachers advocate for their students, they go above and beyond to support and provide for their students. Advocating for students involves establishing relationships with colleagues, parents, agencies, and others in the broader community to support students’ learning and well-being. Throughout my student teaching, I found that there are many ways that teachers can advocate for their students. Some of the overarching methods include creating curriculum that is student centered, making decisions that are in the best interest of the students, and representing the special needs of all students. This includes planning creative and dynamic lessons and teaching students in a variety of ways in order for every student to be successful. Advocacy also includes seeing things from students’ perspective, standing up for students’ rights and concerns, creating an environment that students can focus on their interests and strengths, being a good listener. Through my experiences, I had the privilege to support and advocate for my students in ways that benefited both their performance in the art classroom and outside of the art classroom. In minor instances in the art classroom, I made sure to always compliment my students’ work and provide thought-provoking feedback, as well as always encourage students to go further with their work. In other instances, when students received project assignments from their other classes, the art room was constantly opened up for students to come in to use materials and the space. This often meant that my entire day, even during my prep time, consisted of different students passing through at one point or another to use materials and equipment that they wouldn’t otherwise have at home for projects that had nothing to do with art class. In addition, we also held two different art clubs, Art Club and Doodle Club after school once every other week. Here students who wanted even more art experiences in their day came to make art in one way or another. Also, during parent teacher conferences I felt that it was important to proudly show off my students’ work to their parents as a way of not only praising the students’ work to advocate for them as artists, but also to advocate for and validate the art program itself.

           Advocating for the art program at a public school is primarily based on the art teacher’s well-defined personal beliefs. From the moment a teacher begins teaching, they become a spokesperson for art education. The art teacher needs to use every opportunity they find to show colleagues, parents, and administrators the importance of art. Art teaching is not just a job; it is a serious commitment. Art teachers need to hear from all their constituents—from students, parents, and other teachers, including those with opposing views—to find meaning that carries them through an art-teaching life. Through my experiences advocating for the art program, I found that one of the most important ways to advocate for the art program is simply to understand your own advocacy position and having the ability and confidence to state my opinions and beliefs about the art program. I have also found that writing informative rationales for lessons is very important for advocating for the art program in order to explain why students are learning and doing what they are in my class. Another important advocacy tactic I used was to simply display students’ artwork. I was sure to have artwork up during parent-teacher conferences and open-house, as well as I displayed artwork throughout the hallways of the school including informative text to explain what the students are learning.

 

Analysis of Experiences as an Advocate:

           Throughout my student teaching, I found that advocating for my students was beneficial in a number of ways. For instance, when I complimented students’ artwork, it strengthened their confidence about their artistic abilities. Additionally, when I provided them with thought-provoking feedback and encouragement to go further with their artwork, they were given a slight push to stretch and explore and learn to reach beyond their capacities. In addition, by opening the art room for students to work on projects for their other classes, this allowed every student the equal opportunity to create interesting and creative projects, without the stress of having to go out and buy materials. During parent-teacher conferences, when I met with students’ and their parents, I was able to praise my students’ artwork to show their parents that I was proud of what they were doing in my class. Additionally during parent teacher conferences, this also gave me the opportunity to explain specific art projects and their benefits. Hosting Art Club and Doodle Club after school allowed students to focus on the artwork that they were interested in creating. These experiences gave students the opportunity to strengthen their artistic abilities and creativity while simultaneously working towards developing a style outside of the usual teacher-directed lessons.

           In addition, I also found that the ways in which I advocated for the art program benefitted the ways in which colleagues, parents and students viewed the art program at ADL. The first advocating technique I found helpful was simply working towards an understanding of my own philosophy of art education. This allowed me the ability to comprehend as well as express my opinions and beliefs about art in education and thus advocate for it. I also found that by writing informative and understandable rationales in my lesson plans they provided me with clear explanations for colleagues and parents for why I was teaching my students specific content and media. The advocating technique that I found most beneficial was simple displaying students’ artwork. When colleagues and parents see their students’ artwork hanging up in the halls, and are even able to read a little blurb about the artwork, it allows them to see what students are doing in my class and can even be impressed or interested in the artwork. I often received many compliments from other teachers about how cool students’ work looked or about how impressed they were that middle school students were able to do the artwork that they saw. These advocating techniques not only presented students’ work, but they also provided explanations for colleagues, administrators, and parents as to why art is important for the students at ADL.

 

Reflection of Role as an Advocate:

           The ways in which I advocated for students and the art program significantly benefitted ADL. I helped students develop artistic skills and confidence in their artwork; I provided opportunities outside of class time for students to work on their art: I displayed student artwork to both praise students as well as present to colleagues, administration, and parents; and I took any opportunity I could to explain why it was important that my students were making the artwork that they were making. As a future art teacher, it will be my job to constantly be the spokesperson for art education and use every possible opportunity to show students, colleagues, parents, and administrators the importance of art in our students lives. I will go above and beyond to advocate for every student and every element of the art program in order to preserve art in my students’ lives.