Chapter 3 Notes

Notes on Chapter 3 - The Teacher's Role: Strategies and Management

The Teacher's Role
-Guiding students to create and appreciate
-Create a positive climate for inquiry, creativity, and individuality
-This requires purposeful, consistent, and time-consuming effort
-Try all projects/techniques first
-Learn about pop culture and use as motivation
-Guide students to consider aesthetic choices
-Use audiovisual aids as much as possible

• original art
• reproductions - include artist's names
• films (i.e. Art Babble)
• photographs
• slides
• video recordings
• magazine articles
• colorfully illustrated books (have an art book corner)
• show examples of student work
• kinetic displays

Have a Positive Personality, Build Rapport, and Respect
-Be positive, cheerful and outgoing
-Be patient, calm, resolute, and firm
-Listen to children's descriptions of their experiences, real and imaginary, with sympathetic interest
-Avoid a detached, keep-your-distance approach
-Commitment, concern, and excitement for project must be evident in actions, words, and facial expressions
-Develop empathetic rapport
-Respond intelligently, sympathetically, and purposefully to children's creative efforts
-Evaluate students' work seriously and objectively
-Take students seriously as artists

Get Off to a Good Start

-Begin with a serious, organized approach
-Make classroom orderly, yet inviting, visually stimulating, but not chaotic

• attractive bulletin-board exhibits
• found object displays
• plants
• art-book displays
• hobby collections
• antiques
• original art works
• have non-breakable things kids can touch

Strategies for Teaching Art
-Teach nonverbally

• use written and display materials
• use whiteboard to outline specific project objectives and motivational presentations
• post evaluative criteria in the form of questions
• perfect "the look"

-Plan the distribution, collection, and organization of materials

• Establish procedures for everything
• Review procedures often
• Stay consistent
• Include students
• Supply adequate materials for the project at hand
• (You are NOT the maid!)

-Begin the lesson: Get their attention

• Greet students at the door
• Start with a smile
• Calm students as they enter
• Have all eyes before speaking
• Don't start class the same way everyday

-Keep motivation brief

• 3-5 minutes
• bring students back with a pointed question, reprimand, or a pause with a meaningful look
• distribute materials after discussions

-Get design off to a good start

• first 3 minutes is crucial
• give specific tasks to hesitant students

-Nurture creativity during the working period

• look for examples of creative uniqueness
• model, instruct, reinforce, question, and explain strategies for thinking in new ways
• show student examples, but don't single out one student or constantly interrupt a working class

-Foster perseverance

• let projects stretch out over multiple classes
• continue to make students aware of project objectives
• create rubric with students

-Combat lagging interest, stimulate extra effort

• keep students involved-make assignments personally meaningful
• post process and evaluative criteria on the board
• encourage students to go further
• combine praise with suggestions
• use in-progress work as examples of compositional requirements and variations in expression
• write brief constructive comments to older students

-Clean-up and evaluate

• plan procedures in advance
• use time after clean-up for evaluation or summing up

Manage Class by Teacher's Presence
-Be aware of what is going on in room and move strategically at critical times (never turn back to class)
-Move among students during studio activity
-Make clear that unruly behavior will not be tolerated
-Be serious
-Discipline and Redirect

• admonish student and tell them that infraction will be discussed after class
• use redirection and positive reinforcement to calm a talking class (i.e. hold up a student's work, emphasize an aspect of the project that needs amplification)