‘Year 2 - ED6358 School Placement 2’ Reflections

Weekly Reflections

March

Journey from classroom to online. 

9th-13th March
Weekly Reflection

First Year:

The first year students have been exploring the world of mixed media collage this week, there have been a lot of classes missed due to school activities. so the work has become somewhat start again stop again. but we have been looking at the work of Megan Coyle and learning how to paint with paper. i feel a lot of students made great strides through this task, locating a colour they wanted to use.. gathering and collecting then carefully placing the pieces together like a puzzle. some students found it more challenging than others but just needed more direction with placement and cutting techniques. 

I made sure each student brought home their sketchbooks by the end of the week due to school closures. 

Second Year:

The second year students are in the middle of their CBA 1, they are creating primary source object drawings around their theme. their final piece is going to be a Lino print based around their chosen theme. I ma trying to get them to focus on line weight/cross contour line direction and dark and light in their pieces.

Of course with the school closing this week a lot of project dates will be up in the air. the students will not be able to finish a Lino piece from home but they will be able to practice their primary source object drawings and maybe even compose a final composition with some help.

Fourth Year: Fourth year students are out on work experience.



16th-20th March
Weekly Reflection

First week of online teaching:
The main priority for me in this time is to make sure every student gets the opportunity to keep up with their assigned tasks and work and to keep in contact to make sure everyone is enrolled on google classrooms.  I am very lucky that the staff within the school are all communicating well.
Here is a look into the first week of online teaching.


First Year:

The first week of setting up online teaching through google classrooms has been a lot of back and fourth between me and the parents/guardians sharing codes to make sure each student is properly signed up and receiving notifications of work.



Second Year:



For the first week of online schooling for the second year students I asked them to continue on with their CBA 1 object exploration. I had a few messages of worry from students on them finishing their projects but i assured them, they would be alright with what effort they were making now.

When i hear more conformation on this situation I will let them know, but as we have been planning for a lino print that is not feasible for everyone to do at home.

Fourth Year: 




 I have been in contact and managed to get most of the students online for the fourth year class, we are starting by doing a quick observation of the face and using any media we can to create a portrait.

I am hoping engagement with tasks will be better next week as this week work flow was low, but i spent most of my time trying to contact students parents to make sure they had codes. The school has given the advice to keep trying to contact if there is no answer because it is of the biggest importance now to get every student the codes for every class.


23rd-27th March
Weekly Reflection

First Year:

The First year group have been making great strides in uploading work in their "club liniochta" i wanted to make sure they were all still sketching everyday in their sketchbooks so I have been giving them set tasks to make.  simple tasks such as "Drawing your favourite animals" but the task will be set around focusing in on one element. so for an animal it was texture, for something they see in their kitchen it was form. 

Participation in classwork has been high yet there are still a number of students yet to join. The school is aware of this. 




Sample of  students work looking at their favourite animal and focusing on the element of texture.



Samples of students work looking at "something i can see in my kitchen" and focusing on form.

I would like to keep the upcoming work upbeat and lighthearted, so the students have a distraction from the current situation. So creating drawings based on fond memories or heroes was a thought.

Giving them resources i had made on portraiture the students finished off the week by creating a portrait of their hero.

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I am very happy with the participation and that the students are using their time creatively.
I feel they are taking to the online setting quite well.



Second Year:

As the chosen MRB final piece was a lino print the students work had come to a halt, i decided to give tasks tasks that would develop from prior knowledge in the year. until a decision would be made around MRB work. 

A few of them had messaged me worried about the work and if we would get to complete it. I decided to assign a light upbeat task to take their minds off CBA 1 and the school closure. these students have a great skill around portraiture and observing so i decided to shake it up and give them a lesson based on caricatures. I assured the students that the work they have done for the CBA would be accounted for at a later date.

It was a lesson for them to explore exaggerated features and comedy in drawing. 
Here are samples of the students recreations. during these tasks there are no specifications around what media or where they can create these pieces..





I am really blown away by the creativity of these students and how hard they are working in these circumstances. 

Fourth year:

I was quite happy to give the fourth year group a written task that has a small bit of practical work as they have not done a great deal of art analysis this year. The task was to choose a portrait out of the 12 in the resource answer the questions then create a small portrait. here are some samples



The engagement and work flow this week has been fantastic, really motivational to see what creativity can come from working at home through online schooling.

30th March-3rd April


First Year:

This week the first years had two tasks. One was a simple "what is the view from my window drawing task" and another was " my favourite food. I have been giving these simple tasks to keep up with drawing and use of their sketchbooks. For Easter I assigned a theme based project as that was my plan for them in the future if we were still at school. 




Second Year:

The second year students were given a choice of themes to develop through their own ideas and sketches. Before we left I was really promoting the idea that the development of your ideas is the most important thing you will do, to try and try again. rather than choosing one thing and settling. 

I feel this groups engagement with the work has been fantastic and really will help them going forward when they return to school. 

Here is a sample of a few images of work a student produced. 








20th-24th April

Final Reflection: 
On reflection of the last few weeks teaching online, I am very grateful of this platform i can use to connect with the students and to try and implement routine and normality into their lives. This sense of normality most certainly has a ripple effect onto their parents/guardians as i have received many parents reaching out to thank me for the support. In times like these that sense of community is one of the most important things we can have. Unfortunately this has ended our time at college in a very strange way, Our collaborative seminar group has also been able to meet as a group virtually and hand up work.

The work the students have been submitting have really cemented how important the Arts and creativity are in our lives. even if we are not outwardly creative or think we are.. Art has really proven to be of major importance in these difficult times.

First Year:




The first Years were exploring the process of theme work. Choosing a specific theme and trying to create a bit of work around it. I found that they seem to work better with shorter tasks that have a very structured beginning and end. I gave them alot of freedom with this and there were alot of questions and uncertainty around if what they were doing was right. I gave them 3 very simple steps to follow, but i feel giving more advanced tasks like this could be too complicated as enagagement was lower than usual.
Even when feedback and questions were answered i could still tell that simpler tasks were working better for this group. 



Second Year:

To start to connect back with our CBA 1 i decided to ask the students to take their object and start to look at it through contoured lines. I wanted to to connect with a particular artists way of looking and working. The artist is called Augast Lamm and she creates drawings that are based on contoured lines and forms.
Here is some of the work that the students produced.. I am really seeing a advantage to the use of any resources they can use around the house. Giving them any option to create an image with has really produced some interesting work.



 


Fourth year:

After the easter break i decided to give the fourth year group a short Still life task. They had just completed a project where they choose a theme and create a series of work around their own personal brainstorm. This was a great success for the students that engaged. I really tried to push the importance of personal style and influences here so that the students could really motivate themselves. Looking at the process of an idea to paper also was the aim. Here is one example of the work one student produced over easter. 










I feel that projects based around personal interests and hobbies could be just the route to take now as we have all of this time for reflection on our interests. 

Obviously resources and motivation are two fighting factors here for all the work the students are completing, but in my experience they have been doing an excellent job staying on track and motivated.


On reflection I feel I have been giving a lot of work that has been keeping the students busy over the last month. For this last month before they break I would like to make sure they keep up with engagement. The last month I have not been sticking to my original scheme due to the lack of resources availible to the students at home and school closures. I have been recommended also to keep tasks light and fun due to the nature of the situation. 

This of course is a very strange way to be ending the school year, but i am very hopeful this well not affect the students motivation in any way.

I have been using google classrooms as my platform to teach now for the last few weeks and it has been a great way to connect with the student and give feedback. Going forward i would like to become more visible on the platform through videos i can create to show students helpful tips around tasks and alternatives to resources they may have or not have already. I have started doing this but I would like to push it further so that the students feel more supported. 

short demo video on an eye study:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ULNK6lbCESCWcc2RjQRbSiv47tttaWN1/view


Going Forward I am going to be giving more structured tasks I am wondering what will happen with end of year assessment for my classes or if there will be any. The management board have not decided on any course to take as of yet, but i will make sure I have each student ready for some sort of task of assessment. I have found that short tasks seem to be working very very well, as opposed to longer tasks.. i have found a drop in work and engagement. Any questions on any of this work or the reflections let me know.

I am also willing to give the codes for my google classes ranging from First to Fifth year if you would like to see what tasks I have been giving out.  Just let me know.

Thank you for your time.