Ok, so I already posted some final thoughts about this semester, but I read an article this afternoon that I absolutely must share: NASA's dwindling budget: Why has America stopped reaching for the stars? "Space travel inspires us to dream about tomorrow, says Neil deGrasse Tyson. So why did we give up?
The space shuttle Endeavor made its way to NYC yesterday. My mother watched its televised progression up the northern seaboard with such delight, you would have thought she was actually on board the spacecraft. We had a brief phone conversation about how her generation was much more enamored of space travel than mine is. This afternoon I was flipping through The Week magazine and stumbled upon this article, and it flipped my opinion of the necessity of the space program. I love when something stops me in my tracks and makes me think.
Dr. Tyson's article will naturally appeal to astronomers, science and mathematics enthusiasts, economists and politicians. But educators? And me, the pre-service art teacher? Frankly, anyone who cares about the future success of the USA should read Tyson's article and reflect on where they stand in regards to space exploration.
Scroll back up, click the link and read the article. It's not that long, and Tyson's writing style is enjoyable.
Creativity. Imagination. Innovation. Those are three things which Tyson claims will propel our country not just into space, but back into economic stability and growth. Those three qualities are why we live the way we do today in regards to technology and media. Those are also three things that the arts cultivate intrinsically - the ability to release the imagination in order to come up with creative ideas which become innovative possibilities and realities.
Share comments on how your subject area supports the future of our country!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Final Thoughts
Spring 2012 has been a busy semester of growth and progress for me. I feel prepared and excited to begin student teaching in September. I know what I want to improve upon or explore further over the summer regarding education and lesson planning, and I'm looking forward to having time to resume my own art production which has suffered greatly over the past few years.
Last week I was revisiting the teachings of Sir Ken Robinson (check out the link if you are not familiar with him!), particularly thinking about creativity and how our students will be living and working in a future we can neither see nor imagine, yet we are responsible for training them now. Technology is already an integral part of our daily activities and social lives. No matter how tricky it may be to incorporate it meaningfully into the classroom, we would be doing our students a disservice by failing to do so. Essentially, we would be denying them tools for a successful future of their own. I hope we will use our training and creativity to make public education everything we wish it had been for us.
Some of us have come to support and/or respect each other's ideas, and I've started a blog so we can share student teaching experiences, remain networked for the job hunt, and generally help each other out.... keep in touch and good luck!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Environmental Art & Technology
I was recently searching the internet for a safe, exciting method for students to create bas relief sculpture for an 8th grade lesson plan I was writing. I came across the attached lesson plan during my search, and decided to share it with all of you art education majors in CURR 316. While I did not choose this method for the lesson I just wrote, I really liked how the plan incorporates environmental awareness, sculpture and technology in the form of digital cameras and usage of Photoshop. The teacher also created a slideshow of completed student work, but I would change that and have my students create the slideshow themselves. Using Google Docs, each student can upload the digital photo of their work and design their own slide, then the full class slideshow can be viewed in class for critique, feedback and discussion. It was nice to find that real working teachers are finding ways to incorporate technology into their art classes.
ENVIRONMENTAL ART & TECHNOLOGY LESSON PLAN
ENVIRONMENTAL ART & TECHNOLOGY LESSON PLAN
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Interactivity #5
For this interactivity I interviewed my cooperating Fieldwork teacher, who teaches preschool through fifth grade art in the Rockaway Township district. She said she had heard of the NETS, but was not familiar with them herself. Her school has not yet implemented the NETS, and she did not know whether or not her district had begun to. She had no idea how the NETS would be used since she had not seen them prior to looking at the material I had provided for her, but she thought professional development would definitely be necessary for implementation.
While I was conducting the interview, an Assistive Educational Technologist (A.E.T.) for the district came into the room to fix my co-op's computer. She overheard our conversation, volunteered that she was familiar with NETS due to the nature of her job, and offered to be interviewed as well! She verified that NETS had neither been implemented in that school, nor anywhere the district, but she did not know whether or not implementation had begun in the state at that time. When I asked how she thought the NETS will be used when they are implemented, the A.E.T. said that the curriculum will have to be entirely rewritten to include them. The Rockaway district just finished rewriting their curriculum to reflect the newest NJCCC standards, so she said that resources needed to include the NETS will definitely be professional development, funding, access to necessary equipment, but mostly time. Since she has been involved in revamping curriculum at the district level, the A.E.T. said the time investment of the re-writing process and training educators is commonly underestimated. She did not expect her district to accomplish integrating the NETS until at least 2014 or 2015.
Rockaway school district does not offer technology initiatives for student media literacy at the elementary school level. Most of the technology that exists in the school supports teachers rather than students, with the exception of iPads for some students with learning disabilities, and those are used only in occupational therapy according to the A.E.T. I was not surprised at my cooperating teacher's responses to my questions, since I knew from spending time with her that she does not use much technology in her classes, with the exception of her computer and digital projection equipment. I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak with the A.E.T. about the NETS, and was surprised at her concern with the time required to implement major curricular changes. I never would have considered how long it takes to successfully integrate new standards if I had not spoken with her.
As a future educator, I would encourage my fellow staff members to become familiar with the NETS-S and NETS-T. Knowing that they will be implemented in the future, it makes sense to learn them now. I have seen faculty members organize mini workshops, for example, Rockaway elementary teachers held a workshop on Pinterest recently. I would look for a colleague to conduct a NETS workshop with me, so we could all look for ways to begin incorporating NETS sooner, using the link below as an example.
Click here to see my Interactivity #4 Spreadsheet with NETS-S included
While I was conducting the interview, an Assistive Educational Technologist (A.E.T.) for the district came into the room to fix my co-op's computer. She overheard our conversation, volunteered that she was familiar with NETS due to the nature of her job, and offered to be interviewed as well! She verified that NETS had neither been implemented in that school, nor anywhere the district, but she did not know whether or not implementation had begun in the state at that time. When I asked how she thought the NETS will be used when they are implemented, the A.E.T. said that the curriculum will have to be entirely rewritten to include them. The Rockaway district just finished rewriting their curriculum to reflect the newest NJCCC standards, so she said that resources needed to include the NETS will definitely be professional development, funding, access to necessary equipment, but mostly time. Since she has been involved in revamping curriculum at the district level, the A.E.T. said the time investment of the re-writing process and training educators is commonly underestimated. She did not expect her district to accomplish integrating the NETS until at least 2014 or 2015.
Rockaway school district does not offer technology initiatives for student media literacy at the elementary school level. Most of the technology that exists in the school supports teachers rather than students, with the exception of iPads for some students with learning disabilities, and those are used only in occupational therapy according to the A.E.T. I was not surprised at my cooperating teacher's responses to my questions, since I knew from spending time with her that she does not use much technology in her classes, with the exception of her computer and digital projection equipment. I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak with the A.E.T. about the NETS, and was surprised at her concern with the time required to implement major curricular changes. I never would have considered how long it takes to successfully integrate new standards if I had not spoken with her.
As a future educator, I would encourage my fellow staff members to become familiar with the NETS-S and NETS-T. Knowing that they will be implemented in the future, it makes sense to learn them now. I have seen faculty members organize mini workshops, for example, Rockaway elementary teachers held a workshop on Pinterest recently. I would look for a colleague to conduct a NETS workshop with me, so we could all look for ways to begin incorporating NETS sooner, using the link below as an example.
Click here to see my Interactivity #4 Spreadsheet with NETS-S included
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Making Activities Meaningful
In my TFL1 course this week we had the rare opportunity to talk with, among other people, the Principal of the middle school where our class meets. He told us that the greatest challenge teachers face is constantly adjusting to meet the needs of all of the different students in their classes. The ability to do this does not come naturally - it requires major preparation, and even seasoned master teachers who have more experience and isight will continue to try to accommodate all of their students throughout their careers. He was kind enough to share many of the things he looks for when interviewing candidates for teaching positions within the school. A huge deciding factor for him was what he called the "big three" factors in lesson planning and alignment: 1) Goal; 2) Activity; 3) Closure. I'll summarize his description for those of you who are in different TFL sections.
1) GOAL - Lesson plans must have a specific, measurable learning objective, articulated clearly to students.
2) ACTIVITY - Engaging learning activities that keep students focused, make sure students know why you are having them do the particular activity. If you don't know why you included an activity, it is meaningless (and should be omitted from lesson!)
3) CLOSURE - Always, always, always effectively close the lesson and align it to the goal.
Now that we are approaching the end of this semester, lesson planning and assessment are definitely starting to come together for me. Alignment is a huge percentage of a unit's success. But what actually caught my attention was the principal's discussion about activities. Art lessons can have any number of engaging activities, and through CURR-316 we are asked to find meaningful ways to incorporate technology to support learning objectives. Believe me, I have found some really incredible technologies that will have applications in the art classroom. However, the selection of any learning activity must make sense to the students - they must be able to understand why that activity or technology is helping them reach their learning goal. In short, listening to this principal speak gave me the motivation to make sure the activities I build into my lesson plans are always meaningful, whether or not they happen to incorporate technology. It was a welcome and relevant reminder that in the end, we must both set and plan how to achieve the goal!
1) GOAL - Lesson plans must have a specific, measurable learning objective, articulated clearly to students.
2) ACTIVITY - Engaging learning activities that keep students focused, make sure students know why you are having them do the particular activity. If you don't know why you included an activity, it is meaningless (and should be omitted from lesson!)
3) CLOSURE - Always, always, always effectively close the lesson and align it to the goal.
Now that we are approaching the end of this semester, lesson planning and assessment are definitely starting to come together for me. Alignment is a huge percentage of a unit's success. But what actually caught my attention was the principal's discussion about activities. Art lessons can have any number of engaging activities, and through CURR-316 we are asked to find meaningful ways to incorporate technology to support learning objectives. Believe me, I have found some really incredible technologies that will have applications in the art classroom. However, the selection of any learning activity must make sense to the students - they must be able to understand why that activity or technology is helping them reach their learning goal. In short, listening to this principal speak gave me the motivation to make sure the activities I build into my lesson plans are always meaningful, whether or not they happen to incorporate technology. It was a welcome and relevant reminder that in the end, we must both set and plan how to achieve the goal!
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