Today was a nice slow day after having to teach 3 lessons in a row. Today's lessons had a prep block between and I feel like it made a lot of difference and helped me re-center my thoughts and prepare for the next class. The grade 5/6's are onto lesson 3. We talked at different types of anime clothing, as well as Chibi and Mecha styles. I handed out my drawing guides for the lesson as well as an assignment criteria sheet because this is the first assignment I'm taking in for marks. The criteria is out of 5. They have to take up the whole page, use what they've learned about drawing anime faces and human bodies, create clothing or costume designs, and draw an environment for the character. My TA liked that I had a Powerpoint rotating at the beginning of class as an attention-getter while I took attendance. This way, the students were quiet and engaged even before I said too much about what we worked on today. I asked helpers to help me hand out papers while I talked a bit about the assignment. For the most part, they listened very well! I always wonder if having people passing around papers while I talk will be a disaster but it worked out alright. Once everyone had the required papers, I went over the assignment and asked different students to read out the criteria and answered questions as they arose. Students were really excited to be able to create their own characters. Even the student that my UC had previously identified as a potential problem was engaged. He needed some guidance but when I went and talked to him I discovered he has really good observation skills with his figure drawing. He wanted to draw a figure in a specific pose and I asked him how the body would look and he figured it out by talking about it out loud. Originally I was going to make the assignment due next class (on Thursday,) but I decided to give them an extra in class period to work on it, assuming students wouldn't be doing their homework no matter how fun it may be. I managed to circulate through the whole class and saw a lot of good ideas taking shape. One student told me he's drawing himself as a Japanese cowboy from Russia. How creative is that? It's awesome! My timing estimations were spot on this time. It impressed my TA but it surprised myself as well. My TA's suggestions were with regards to making sure the quieter students are contributing to discussions as well. Next time I think I'll ask them to do a Think-Pair-Share type activity or just ask the quieter students to answer. Also, I timed my slideshow to automatically change every 5 seconds and she thought it would be good if I could make it pause as I was talking about it. I'm not sure how to do this in Powerpoint, or even if it's possible to have it automatically change AND have the capability to pause. I'll have to take a look.
The other class I taught today was the 3/4's. Their results for the Power Ranger lesson weren't as good as the 5/6's, but they still got the basic concept. There is a table of boys I will have to think about separating because they got nothing done even though I kept trying to refocus their attention. Although I don't feel like all the students managed to successfully complete the exercise, I want to forge ahead and hopefully get them more engaged with the creation of their own characters and stories. I can always remind them of the techniques and concepts we went over previously while they work on their assignments. I considered giving them another day to work on their power ranger pose pictures, but the majority of the class was finished except that table of boys and a few others.
I witnessed the difficult Grade 9 student challenging my TA again in the last block of the day. His defiant attitude seems to be an issue that has lasted several years. He'll be in my art class tomorrow. I hope he'll be in a better mood and more pleasant to work with!
The other class I taught today was the 3/4's. Their results for the Power Ranger lesson weren't as good as the 5/6's, but they still got the basic concept. There is a table of boys I will have to think about separating because they got nothing done even though I kept trying to refocus their attention. Although I don't feel like all the students managed to successfully complete the exercise, I want to forge ahead and hopefully get them more engaged with the creation of their own characters and stories. I can always remind them of the techniques and concepts we went over previously while they work on their assignments. I considered giving them another day to work on their power ranger pose pictures, but the majority of the class was finished except that table of boys and a few others.
I witnessed the difficult Grade 9 student challenging my TA again in the last block of the day. His defiant attitude seems to be an issue that has lasted several years. He'll be in my art class tomorrow. I hope he'll be in a better mood and more pleasant to work with!