Reflections & Going Forward

Approaching the end of the school year has given me time to reflect on what worked this past school year and what didn't work...........

First of all I LOVE teaching art. It is what I have wanted to do since I was in elementary school. However, I make no secret how I feel about all the changes in education that has happened since I first started teaching.

Next week Tuesday-Friday I will be giving the End of Course Exams to ALL of my students. I tested my Monday students last week. The only exceptions are the students with accommodations, they took them with a resource teacher. My students are in kindergarten to 5th grade. They get enough tests throughout the school year. So why is it important to test them in art? When I tell people I am expected to test my students, they laugh, they want to know what I could possibly be testing them on. I seriously wonder as to whether they are being tested or I AM being tested. I feel confined when I look through my scope and sequence, it's not the order in which I want to teach my units. And I don't feel it covers enough. Anyway students are tested on the standards or in other words what they learn about the art vocabulary as it relates to the elements and principles of art.

My principal had me doing quarterly assessments with my students, in which I strongly rebelled, but am stuck with regardless. Oh, and did I mention I have to write them? I still consider myself to be very lucky as I read through the Art Teacher Facebook posts.

Which brings me to this wonderful video on how technology makes us feel insecure. Mr. E from Art with Mr E. posted it and I shared it with my daughters.  It's called Mom's Crush.

Basically it's how we as moms feel inferior to the perfect moms who post on social media. Well, I took that video in a whole new direction as I applied it to myself as an art teacher.

Just because I blog does not mean I'm perfect. I still on occasion have lessons that just don't work. I read through social media and think about how my lessons could be better if I remembered to include something cool I read about 2 years ago, 2 months ago, 2 weeks ago, but I forgot or just got overwhelmed......

I feel I should push my students harder, then I remember that they are just little kids exploring their creativity, so I try not to overwhelm them and I grade them according to their abilities. Rubrics be damned. Students are absent, they miss art, there is no room in my schedule to figure out how they can make up what they miss. So I improvise. So they didn't get to mix the color brown for their tree house project, they can cut out a tree and glue on a tree house. Students go on field trips, we have hurricane days so not everyone in the same grade gets to make the same projects. In the grand scheme of things is it really important?

 

 For Tree house blog post click here.

We tell students to do the best they can do. Shouldn't we follow that advice and stop second guessing ourselves? Each new school year I make a list of lessons I want to do with my students along with the media I want to use. I try to include vocabulary, I create step by step power point presentations. Then the technology fails........ and class management goes to hell......... I try hard to think on my feet and always have a plan B, but that doesn't always work.

However sometimes Plan B works out better then expected. I recently decided instead or along with  a power point, I would do a storyboard presentation. It showed the steps with actual samples of what the students should do. And I saw students bringing over their classmates and explaining everything to them.  I am planning to do this for next year, I think it will help students to be in charge and make them more independent.

Students had a lot of fun earning Depp $. I saw the power it had in terms of classroom management. The down side was when it came time to shop many of the students couldn't find their $ or they brought them home..... students had been told they go in the class box or their folders, not home. Next year I decided I will make index cards and stamp them with a dollar sign. I will have cards handed out when they come to class and collected before they leave. I will have a self inking stamp made if I can't find one already out there.

This past year I tried to keep pace with the majority of students that finished up early or on time, by assigning more projects. But that left 75% of the class doing a new project, 20% doing the last project, 3% two projects behind and 2% not knowing where to jump in..... Again because of absences, or because they just moved here. Perhaps a few one day projects in between longer projects for others to catch up.  I really just don't know........

All I know is in 2 weeks I'll have more time to think about all of this and prepare for next year!

I would love to hear about your school year!             Thanks for Reading!!

As I plan my blog posts for the summer and upcoming school year, I am curious as to what you hope to learn when reading an elementary art teacher blog? Please let me know. Thanks.

Testing 101

I had the opportunity to be included in a workshop that analyzed the elementary End of the Course exams or E.O.C.'s. I was thrilled to be able to see the inner workings of this test. Last year my principal insisted that the team of specialists give the test even tho it wouldn't count, he wanted a base line. 5 out of 6 grade levels were in the green. Fourth grade was in the yellow. Here is my blog post from last year: E.O.C. Survivor. The art exams had the best overall scores. PE's weak link was that the older students needed to know about pool safety and since we don't have a pool the coaches never did any lessons on that topic. The test results for Music were very low and made our Music teacher seriously upset. We did not know until this year's results that the music test results were low throughout the district and had nothing to do with the teacher as much as it had to do with the test.

But because the Music test results were low and this year I became team leader we agreed to write tests for a mid year assessment.  Having no training in this, and no real knowledge on how to use the computer program to enter the test into, WAS crazy. I don't think any of us were happy with the scores from those tests.

And then I went out on medical leave........... So I was really concerned with how my students would do on the E.O.C.'s. 5 out of 6 grade levels were in the green. Fourth grade was in the yellow. Just like last year....... How is that possible when last year's 3rd graders passed and now that they are 4th graders they didn't do well? And last year's 4th graders who are now 5th graders were in the green???

Well, that is one reason there was a workshop to analyze the tests! And LEARNING what I did over the 2 days I sat with other elementary art teachers was incredible!

Okay, I signed a confidential agreement so I can't get into the questions on the exam, however I got  permission to share with you slides from the training that I had. Thank you Amanda!!

When you write a question with multiple choice answers the distractor is the answer that seems like it could be correct. Not necessarily the right answer but close enough to ring a bell in your head like you heard it before. More about this after few more slides.

 In other words in a multiple choice question, what was the break down of answers? Was there one answer that NO ONE picked??

Armed with this information we went though every question and the breakdown of all the answers.  We did our best to clarify the questions, adjust some answers and change out some photos. Hopefully next year's results will show some improvements. I thought what I learned during those two days was pretty amazing stuff! ALL useful for writing tests in the future. And along with the slide below I should "Master" this in no time!

How do you go about writing a test for the classes you teach? And while I would like to debate the logic for testing elementary students in art (there is none), it would be pointless, as it is here to stay.

Anyway......... Thanks for reading!!!!