Feb 28, 2011

It’s Professional Development Week!

What are some topics and things you are interested in regarding Professional Development for Art Teachers? I am will do my best to answer them in a Q and A later this week. Ask away…. I will answer!

I can’t wait to share my passion for Quality Professional Development with all of you.

Andrew

Hi Jessica,

I am fairly new to your blog but have been enjoying it. I am an art ed instructor at UNI and I’ve brought in a few of your posts to my students. One of the things
I struggled with teaching at the K-12 level and therefore still struggle with implementing at the pre-service teacher level is “reading across the curriculum.” Especially at the secondary level, we have a huge push to embed reading in the art classroom.

I can always have my high school students do reaserach and write about their findings, have them read some articles about the content we’re covering… but I lack the background in reading strategies to reallly help struggling readers in art room. Any tips or resources for content literacy at the secondary level?

Thanks,
Andrew
- http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
  
  Andrew- Great to meet you! I know your colleague, Wendy, she and I are on the Art Educators of Iowa board together. I hope to work with UNI in the future in some capacity to help your preservice teachers in any way I can!
  In regard to your question, in the future, I hope to do some art/literacy connections and possibly guest posts from secondary teachers that could answer some of your questions. Keep following and Thanks!
Eric Lowe

Yes PD,
PD must be meeningful and teachers must be able and feel comfortable implimenting new concepts or ideas.
Speakers are great but teachers need to be imspired and given instruction and dirrection for the implimentation process.
Down to earth grassroots type, so that the pie in the sky idea seem s or appears to be homemade and “eattible”.
Eric Lowe
Tammy

Jessica, this couldn’t have come at a better time. I am an experienced homeroom teacher, but have recently made the change to teaching rotary visual arts Grades 1-3. I am having a lot of difficulty with the classroom mananagement part. Especially kids wanting every line validated and constantly thinking it’s recess. Not to mention, when it’s clean-up time, they don’t want to stop their work. Ahhhhhh! I’m not sure if I have unrealistic expectations of teaching art compared to homeroom. It’s just managing over 300 kids seems overwhealming at times. Please Help.
- http://susanrileyphotography.wordpress.com susanrileyphotography
  
  Tammy,
  I teach music at the elementary level and totally understand your dilemma. Do you have a lot of structure in place? I tend to only give one or two tasks at a time for the younger kids. Otherwise, they get overwhelmed and the creativity becomes chaos. Another idea you might try is a points system. I draw an R (for Riley) on one side of a t-chart on the board and the classroom teacher’s initial on the other side. The students are essentially competing against me for points during the class and when they earn one, it goes on their homeroom teacher’s side. They earn points through demonstrating good listening skills, raising their hands, giving thoughtful answers, helping their peers, and following directions. I get points when they are showing me the opposites of those behaviors. It’s an immediate help for my classroom management. The kids really want to “beat” me, and it gives them clear expectations up front. When they “win” for 5 days, they get a “game day”, during which we play music game songs which are actually teaching them musical concepts (but they have no clue about that part). Hope these ideas help you out!
  - Susan Riley
- http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
  
  Hi Tammy!
  
  Check out my Classroom Management posts, (To find those tagged CM, go to the home page- at the top you can use the pulldown to see the categories). I think you might find some helpful answers to your questions and issues. I still struggle with classroom management, because kids and dynamics change every single day. A colleague of mine recently moved from the classroom to art and she is experiencing some of the same issues as you. For me, teaching art is all I know! I think expectations can still be high in both classrooms, but they still may look a bit different and feel different and that is ok, you set the pace. Good luck!
http://barbarasthoughtoftheday barb

My biggest struggle this year is kindergarten art-on-a-cart. I’m in a large class. The room itself is not well set up for art. The tables are different sizes, different shapes and spread all over the room. I have trouble seeing all the kids while they are working, and they can’t see me. There’s no good place to hang art examples or do a guided drawing type demo where everyone can see. It’s a 50 minute class and some kids seem to finish up and loose focus way before that. Distributing materials seems to take way too long and kids get antsy.
What to do?
- http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
  
  Barb,
  This link contains my system for art room helpers. It works really well for distributing materials and is quite efficient. I have even shorter classes and don’t want to waste any time. It’s like running a well-oiled machine. It would be so frustrating to work in a different room for each class, and props to you for staying so positive. baby steps!
  http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/a-little-help-from-my-friends/
Tammy

Susan,
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve started having the different groups competing against each other; which seems to be working well. I’m surprised at how peer presure helps. I also think I’m going to add your suggesion to the mix for my younger classes. (The peer presure for the grade 2s and 3s seems to be working, but the grade 1s need a little something different.)
- http://susanrileyphotography.wordpress.com susanrileyphotography
  
  Glad to help you out, Tammy. Let me know if you find something else that really works well for grade 1 – the little ones can sometimes be the biggest struggle! I’m also doing a PD week over at http://educationcloset.com with a podcast and worksheets. I’d love to get your opinions on those as well!
  - http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
    
    Susan- Your resources are amazing! Thank you for linking and sharing!
http://barbarasthoughtoftheday barb

Hi Jessica! Just wanted to touch base with you again regarding the kindergarten question. I came across an interesting post from a blogger with a kindergarten problem similar to mine. The post lead to a link concerning kindergarten art centers. I’ve tried centers with this group in the past, but this is more structured and I think it might work. I’m really excited to give it a try.
Here’s the URL if anyone else is interested.

http://ms-artteacher.blogspot.com/2010/12/kindergarten-teaching-with-art-centers.html
- http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com Jessica Balsley
  
  Barb- Great link! Mrs. Art Teacher is a wonderful blog and resource and this idea is a great one. It makes me so happy when we can all share and grow and learn together.