observing a local school board meeting

"A board of education or a school board or school committee is the title of the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or higher administrative level. The elected council helps determine educational policy in a small regional area, such as a city, county, state, or province. It usually shares power with a larger institution, such as the government's department of education. The name of the board is also often used to refer to the school system under the board's control." (Wikipedia)

      I was required to attend a Saint Louis area school board meeting during my certification course work. Below you will read the list of questions I was given to answer during that meeting by my professor. It is important for preservice teachers to learn just what is involved in the practice of maintaining school policy so that they will be better prepared for their future employment.

School Board Meeting Report

1.     What is a school board and what is its purpose? A school board is a policy making body of the school district that performs many services such as: hiring school personnel, determining administrative policy and also raising money for schools through taxes.

2.     Explain the general structure of a school board. A school board consists of a president, a vice president, a secretary, treasurer, and two or three directors.

3.     How are the members of a school board selected and when does membership end? School board members are most frequently elected by the citizens of their local district. Members typically serve either a two-year term or a four-year term, depending upon the district they serve in.

4.     How does a school board make decisions? They must review data and make informed decisions based upon that research. Policies may only be instituted when the majority of elected board members have agreed upon them.

5.     What types of questions are discussed and decided upon by a school board? The salaries of educators, tax revenue, how to balance the district’s budget, property management and the kinds of programming offered by the district are just a few of the kinds of questions discussed among board members.

6.     Indicate date, place, and time of the meeting and the school district. I attended the school board meeting at Lindbergh High School, 4900 South Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Louis, MO. at 7:30 p.m. in room 323 on March 10, 2009.

7.     What is the specific make up of the school board of the school district you attended (i.e., how many members; gender and race distribution; general professional background of each member; etc)? There are seven members of the Lindbergh district school board, two of them are women and all of them are white. I was unable to find specific information of their previous experience on the school district web site.

8.     What issues were discussed and what decisions were made during the school board meeting? The issues covered a wide agenda during this particular school board meeting. Topics such as student awards, payroll warrants, revised budgets, budget cuts, local merchant tax laws, the sale of real estate and Lindbergh building programs were all a part of the discussions through out the course of the evening. The board decided which of two bids from food suppliers to accept for 2009. They agreed to cut back on summer arts education programs. They decided to flip an architectural draft of a new building proposal and where a new parking lot would be in relationship to the changes made in the plan. Board members also agreed not to give teachers the salary increases they were asking for. I believe also that the sale of several bonds was agreed upon in order to avoid budget problems for 2009.

9.     To what degree was the school board complete—were any of its members missing? There were two school board members absent.

10.  Estimate the size of the public that attended the school board meeting. There were approximately seventy five people in attendance, many of whom were teachers.

11.  Briefly describe the level of participation of each school board member in the general discussion of the agenda items. At the start of the meeting, all board members seemed to participate together in order to welcome the teachers and public. As the meeting progressed, budget adjustments became the second of three major topics discussed at length by the board. During this discussion, the treasurer, Mark Rudoff discussed budget cuts, food service bids and the sale of bonds for approximately an hour. During the third hour the board listened and questioned a representative from an architectural office. The architect was primarily questioned by President Kenneth Fey. Their discussions concerned energy initiatives and building plans. During these resolutions the rest of the board members quietly listened to the conversation.

12.  Briefly describe the level of participation of the public in the school board meeting. The public came to this particular meeting to celebrate the awards given to local students through “Glory of Missouri Awards,” to discuss and show their concern for the continuous support of gifted education programs and to support their local teachers from Lindbergh High School protesting the nominal salary increases for 2009. The meeting was heavily attended for approximately an hour. The board members were polite and gave the public ample time to voice their opinions. Although the meeting lasted approximately three hours, the general public did not stay for the discussions involving budget agendas and the interview with an architect, who came to propose two possible rough drafts of a new building project (Prop-R 2008 ECE Flipped Design Review).

13.  Was the school board meeting and its outcomes covered by the local media (i.e., print, radio, TV)? I believe newspaper reporters were present several rows behind myself. I sat next to the reporter from an internet media resource, watched her take notes and made casual conversation with her.

14.  Do you think that it is important to become a member of a school board? Explain. I do believe that it is very important to serve on a school board if you are politically minded and understand the issues and needs of your education community. School board members must be trained in specific interests, however, not every person is qualified to be a school board participant.

15.  Would you volunteer to be a candidate for a school board? Explain. I would not volunteer to be a candidate for a school board because I feel my skills are that of an artist. I do not believe that I would have the qualifications needed to be an excellent school board member.

16.  Do you think that it is important to attend school board meetings as a member of the community? I do think that it is very important to attend meetings both as a teacher and as a member of the community in order to better understand the policies and needs pertaining to the education of your community’s children. I might also add that it is also important to know how your taxes are spent on local education. If you attend a school board meeting, you will better understand how all of these issues are affected by legal obligations and why particular choices concerning teachers and students are made.

Professional Development and Reflective Practice

      I believe that a professional art instructor uses a wide variety of resources to improve both their own personal skill/knowledge base and the abilities of their students. In order to accomplish this, an educator must maintain high ethical standards, expect to keep his or her resources current, and reflect upon his or her successes/failures realistically. Collected under this Mostep, are several  reflections I developed during my student teaching experiences in both high school and elementary school. Most of these lesson plan artifacts maintain the desired content and interests of the school districts I served during my state internship. The lesson plan prototype I use most frequently in this portfolio is the result of collaborative efforts made by my professors at UMSL University. UMSL professors require their students to develop lesson plans according to age, skill and state/national standards.

      During the first week of my student appointment to a local high school, I soon discovered that my cooperating teacher had a great deal of enthusiasm and interest in teaching art. She spoke candidly and openly with her students about their personal interests, homework and family life. Most of her instruction was based upon the state GLEs that identify the development of principles and elements of design in student art projects. Although she seemed very enthusiastic about introducing additional resource material to her daily teaching routine, she had very few written documents describing lesson plans with this kind of attention to detail. The art staff employees at this high school  were in the process of writing new curriculum online for the Fall Semester of 2011. I studied their curriculum software during weekly teachers' meetings. This particular program was designed to organize lessons into semester plans, not to describe specific daily activities. Therefore, the following eight lesson adaptations included below were based upon my own observations and a variety of classroom experiences. I also adapted the lessons in order to improve them for my own future use with students of similar age and skill level. There were four additional lesson plans covered during my student teaching at the high school. I have included these under different Mostep Standards.

1. “Surreal Dreamscapes” Lesson Plan.

      The objectives introduced through the original collage project were based upon the GLEs for space and shape. The theme of the original lesson, the “artistic landscape.” During this lesson I was allowed to give a demonstration of collage techniques. Five or six students from each class actively observed and spoke with me during those demonstrations.

      I altered many of the elements of this lesson plan. I changed the theme of it to surrealist dreamscapes, added a Power Point about Salvador Dali and the surrealist movement, and developed an additional activity for the assignment that involved small group readings of dream accounts. I kept the former standard requirements of space and shape and added art history, artist biography, vocabulary, alternative methods, and literacy standards.

2. “Just Duckie” Lesson Plan.

      In the original color-mixing project, students were expected to learn about principles and elements covering tone, shading, and a value scale. The students rushed through this complicated assignment; they did not appear to enjoy the prospect of painting their paint bottles. During the assignment I spoke with every student about the proper way to mix paints. I also included information about adding complimentary colors into each other in order to mix more complex variations of their color choices. The students did not appear to have prior knowledge of this color-mixing technique.

      "Just Duckie" is the written result of my adaptations to those problems surrounding required methods that are not always enjoyed by students. I switched out a few of the elements and principles and built a lesson plan based upon the concept of mixing complimentary colors and the art history standard involving important 20th century American artists. Color mixing projects are best suited to the inclusion of more interesting materials like an unusual object. I also developed a Pop Art slide show and a Power Point introducing 1960s cultural images for the lesson.

3. “Graphic Graffiti” Lesson Plan.

      The one point perspective project I call "Graphic Graffiti"is an adaptation of a word art project frequently taught by my cooperating teacher at that high school. During this project I spoke personally with all of the students and sat at their tables to hear their conversation while drawing my teacher examples. I discovered their fondness for the assignment had to do with their love of graffiti artists.

      I determined that this project would be well suited to a lesson plan based upon cultural imagery. This lesson could also help faculty to discuss teen issues surrounding city lifestyles in a creative forum. Topical discussions about violence, government, law, and human rights could be introduced under the study of this rich cultural art form. I developed a slide presentation about graffiti artists, purchased a film called, "The Outsiders" and included appropriate graffiti vocabulary in the curriculum. I also created a Power Point about fonts and some of the original uses of decorative lettering throughout history. 

4. “Ghost Town” Lesson Plan.

      During the two point perspective project that immediately followed after the one point perspective word assignment, my CT built onto the students prior knowledge of word art by introducing the concept of drawing their words on a brick wall. She came up with the idea after our discussion about my ideas for the graffiti related lesson plan. Even though many of the students completed their two-point perspective project as a wall representing graffiti, many other students had grown bored with using the same concept of word art twice under that topic. So, I suggested to the CT that some of the kids could create optional two point perspective artworks illustrating ghost towns just as I had done when attending junior high many years ago. My former teacher, Lee Woods, taught two-point perspective concepts while introducing old west building prototypes and legendary, ghost villians/heros.

      I developed a Power Point introducing the alternative lesson to the students, demonstrated in class “how” to draw an old western ghost town, and rewrote my own adaptation to the original lesson again. For the Power Point I was able to access many historical photo references of black cowboys who lived in the old west from government resources. I included these in my Power Point. Students were amazed with these pictures because their experiences of the old west were heavily influenced by 1950s film, not real history. I believe these seldom viewed photographs of black cowboys in the wild west of America helped to entertain student imaginations during our project adaptations.

5. “Non-Objective Abstraction” Lesson Plan.

      During the original lesson, my cooperating teacher played music to inspire her students in the painting of non-objective imagery. She also introduced the work of Jackson Pollock by projecting a single image of his work on the board. Her students enjoyed this lesson’s concept tremendously.

      I decided to create a more elaborate slide presentation of both Jackson Pollock’s work and many other non-objective abstract expressionists to accompany my own adaptations based upon a similar art assignment. I included basic vocabulary terms and added an additional step to the studio agenda for the project, after observing some of the difficulties students had in orchestrating compositions for their oil pastel paintings. With the addition of masking off small areas with shapes cut from masking tape, I was able to demonstrate to the students “how” they could effectively develop more elaborate spaces without subject matter. Students when challenged to produce non-objective works have a tendency to fall back on the use of basic symbols. Symbolic abstract painting is actually a different subject under the heading of abstract artwork and it is not considered to be non-subjective by art historians or professionals. However, this is not the kind of discrepancy that art educators make if they have not been formally trained to do so. With this lesson plan I also have determined to find a greater variety in music than what was originally played in my CT's classroom. I think it would be an extraordinary opportunity to expose students to music that they may never have heard before during this lesson.

6. “A Cultural Heritage Cubist Portrait” Lesson Plan.

      The original cubist portrait lesson included a nice variety of vocabulary and a very brief introduction to cubism as a movement. I observed the painting students while they designed rough sketches of their chosen subjects and spoke with them at length about the artists who first developed the concepts behind modern fragmented space.

      In addition to the vocabulary list that I thought most suitable for the topic, I added a few ideas of my own. I demonstrated a contemporary technique used by mixed media artists while painting my version of a “cultural heritage cubist portrait.” I also felt the lesson an excellent opportunity to include cultural history and a study of ancient artifacts. So I painting both the fragmented illustration of a Mayan Indian, the carvings of ancient Mayan natives, and an abstract interpretation of contemporary, native, Mexican weavers into the cubist portrait collage.

      I chose my portraits’ subject based upon the cultural heritage of one student who attended more than one of my classes regularly. In the future my students will need to be given extra time to research their choices in a library or computer lab. I will also need to add a worksheet to aid in their research as well.

7. “Maori Design” Lesson Plan.

      The Maori lesson was taught in order instigate the painting standards outlined in Missouri GLEs. Although I thought the cultural subject an excellent choice, the studio project seemed lacking in formal substance. Students were originally required to paint a swirly designs using smooth, painterly strokes. I felt that this sort of assignment was better suited to younger students. During the introduction to the lesson, my cooperating teacher asked me to explain the connections between the Maori, their way of life and the symbolic designs they create to tell stories about where they come from and what they practice.

      I developed a simple worksheet for the lesson illustrating the symbolic elements of popular Maori designs. For my own resources, I also designed a different Power Point about the Maori that showed a variety of their design work in architecture, textiles, tattoos, and fashion. I also created an alternative studio project that used GLE standards for drawing and design instead of the original painting standards. Color theory and historical symbolism standards are also a part of my new version for this lesson. 

8. “African Masks” Lesson Plan.

      The mask studio project in my high school classroom, utilized recycled milk cartons, cardboard and also a few formal worksheets that had been professionally written by a third party on the internet. My cooperating teacher did not know who wrote the materials but these were very useful tools for aiding our students in their own research on the web. This was the first and only time that our art class visited the computer lab to research their assigned topic. For most of the students, it was a very positive experience.

      I was asked by my cooperating teacher to lead in the studio portion of this lesson. My experience in technically crafting three-dimensional masks, sculpture, dolls, and puppets is intense. She was happy to stand aside and learn these methods herself during remainder of my internship. These students had not been trained to use textile-sculpting materials. These methods are not frequently taught in American public schools. For this part of my lesson adaptation, I taught students some very old methods of applying paper pulp to wrapped paper armature. They appeared to enjoy the processes greatly!

      In sharp contrast with my experiences at high school, my elementary cooperating teacher spent much of her time minutely describing how I could improve upon my teaching methodology. Semester outlines and daily lesson plans at her district were entirely intact. This enabled me to focus much of my accumulative efforts on the literal teaching of my students from day to day.  I have included here three sample lessons about printing, drawing and collage assemblage from her art classroom. These daily lesson plans are written by me but also directly interpret the ideas/content of that particular district's art curriculum. In the printing lesson I reflect on the preparation of materials and the practical struggles students encounter with those materials. In the drawing lesson, I've included a worksheet that I developed for that specific assignment in order to teach a "big concept" or "big idea." The worksheet stimulates reflective process on the part of my students concerning "how" landscapes are interpreted by a wide variety of artists. In the third collage assignment, I introduce alternative fine arts materials, namely music, to the classroom environment and ask both my cooperating teacher and my students to reflect upon "how" one artist, a musician, may have felt about another, a painter, in order to create an alternative art form about the artist Van Gogh. McClean's interpretation of "Starry Night" reflects his ideas about Vincent Van Gogh just as our students at Ellisville Elementary interpret the art of Van Gogh by creating their own versions of "Starry Night." All three lessons use the methodology of reflective practice, but each process is uniquely different.

Ethics, Relationships and Communication

Choose age appropriate music for the classroom that will
reinforce lesson plans.

 "He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own vies." William Congreve

      Pre-service art teachers can foster their relationships with school colleagues by keeping resources at hand that enhance the collective necessity of educating children according to state mandates. I keep within my computer files and on my bookshelves useful resources that may be used to further educate my students on many topics covered in art that are not always apparent to those people who are unfamiliar with art history. Topics such as history, culture and life science are all very important to the development of an artistic mind and the study of these interests reinforces education on many different levels. I attended a teacher’s meeting at my assigned high school for the state, during my student internship in the Spring semester of 2011. At this meeting the art staff met with the English teachers to discuss the possibility of integrating their subjects. I developed a new lesson plan during this meeting that included the elements of text features within its objectives. I would never have thought to do so, if I had not attended this meeting and learned that students attending this high school experienced significant difficulties identifying text features. When I was asked if I could realistically create a lesson plan that would teach text features; I enthusiastically obliged my colleagues.

      I can also expound upon alternative fine art subjects related to my own field of study through the school of humanities. Subjects such as music and theater can be addressed so easily within the fine art classroom.  I often play select music that directly reflects the culture or time period of those artists my students are studying. It is a simple and appropriate addition to my curriculum that is encouraged by Missouri state GLE standards. I’ve listed here just a few music selections that I keep on hand in my classroom for cultural lesson plans.

      While student teaching at my assigned elementary location, I introduced to my cooperating teacher and her small charges to a music selection about Vincent Van Gogh. Our students were painting starry night cityscapes when I first played the song to accompany their experience. I’ve linked to our favorite youtube version of Don McClean's, "Starry Night" included the cityscape lesson plan here.

      As an art teacher, I can also design lesson plans that reinforce important learning practices such as: following directions, remembering facts, and comprehending previously taught information on a deeper level.  All three of the above points are important in the fostering of relationships with other educators because the learning that students do in my own classroom then reinforces the learning practices of my colleagues. Ultimately, students do test better under conditions such as these.

      Being an excellent teacher also requires that my education be very practical. I must learn to maintain my own understanding of current health issues that if otherwise ignored may result dire circumstances for those young people placed under my care. I’ve included an artifact under this Mostep that I wrote concerning bloodborne pathogens so that administrators can feel confident that I am aware of issues relating to public health awareness.

      I can also foster relationships with administrators by consistently attending collegial activities such as school board meetings. I attended a school board meeting at a local high school district in order to better comprehend their necessity in my future career choice. I learned that being a school board member requires excellent management skills. There are so many details and complicated pieces of information to take into consideration when developing policies and balancing the budget. The meeting that I observed lasted for three long hours and was attended by approximately 75 people through out the course of the evening. High School teachers protested low raises to their incomes, students and teachers from an area elementary school were recognized formally for excellence, one child in a gifted program read aloud a story, bond issues were resolved, cafeteria programs were switched, and a new building for preschool and gifted education was approved all in one single solitary evening! The whole event was exhausting. I learned to respect the amount of time and energy involved in running professional education programs from this experience.

      Art teachers should also foster relationships with parents and guardians of students through current technology whenever possible. Many schools today communicate with parents and students online through both private and public software programming. I have developed a variety of blogs where I can post assignments live. I can control what my students see and how they interact with that information by developing the internet resource myself. I actively develop projects and procedures that enhance my ordinary classroom curriculum in advance through these free interactive resources.

Communication Skills

The quote above the door of the classroom where  I taught for nine weeks reads, "The goal of  learning is not just to acquire knowledge, but to use  that knowledge in a variety of settings."

        According to Adler and Rodman, "subjects spent an average of 61 percent of their waking hours engaged in some form of communication." I believe art teachers can and should model effectively verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques to students in the classrooms, parents and custodians in the home, teachers and administrators in the workplace, and to the larger community that supports the education of young people. Such activities help foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in all groups of people for the unified support of the arts. There are basically five types of communication. Although, all five of these share common attributes, the following types each occur in a different context inside to the art classroom. 

More student work from Ritenour High School.

      Intrapersonal communication is by definition about "self talk" or the internal conversations that people have with themselves.  I sometimes include directions on the board for students to refer back to during a studio activity. By these means students can retrace their steps and ask themselves if they have followed the directions correctly. This is a introductory way to teach self-assessment to a very young student. I often include self-assessments along with a rubric. Students must fill out a brief questionnaire in which they retrace their activities in order to check on the inclusion of all the required processes or elements in a studio project. I use this intrapersonal communication technique with older students who are encouraged to develop discipline/focus in order to make higher grades. I also promote internal conversations through the practice of journaling in many of my classrooms. 

      Dyadic/interpersonal communication is the most common form of communication in my art classroom. Dyad, meaning “two” occurs when two individuals have a conversation. I spend approximately seventy-five percent of my time communicating one-on-one with each of my students. As they work, I circulate around the room to answer questions, give personal presentations and make positive observations about their work. Dyadic communication is often referred to as interpersonal communication. The difference between these two forms of communication is a simple number. Interpersonal communication usually involves three or more people speaking to each other face to face. When students are seated by twos or threes at individual tables in an art classroom, interpersonal communication is also occurs naturally inside of most art classrooms.

Another mural size painting from Ritenour High School.

      In small group communication the dynamic changes dramatically. A small group has a well-defined majority or minority depending upon the members of the group. In many cases the majority will determine how that small group functions. Small groups can also change in function according to who is most dominant inside of its makeup. If a classroom of young students is led by an older teacher, the majority of members do not rule but decide that the oldest single member should be obeyed for reasons such as: experience, strength, inheritance or knowledge. Peer pressure can also change the way people behave inside of group. Sometimes all members of a group may be equal, however, one member may have superior skills. In the cases of sporting events, one member who is exceptionally talented may be elected the head of that small groups' agenda. Families, classrooms and athletic teams are all different types of small groups. I frequently assign small groups inside of my classroom in order to ad new interest to the method of conducting class. I do not generally assign the prospect of earning important grades to small groups because students have a tendency to become dependant on only one or a two of its' members to carry most of the workload. I assigned discussions/observations to small groups in order to promote social interaction. Students need to learn how to engage each other actively in academic conversation, polite conduct and appropriate discussion long enough to understand what is socially acceptable. The art classroom is as good a place to begin this part of their education.

In the display case above are paintings 
by students at Ritenour High School.

      Public Communication happens when small groups get so large that not all of their membership has time to participate equally in all circumstances and discussions. At this point, one or two individuals are usually appointed to communicate ideas and opinions to the larger group. The audience is then given opportunities to express themselves at the end of a discussion, through written comments or body language. When I lecture to a large group of students, I do so in brief fifteen to twenty minute intervals at the beginning of a larger assignment. Aside from lecture, I frequently communicate with the public on the behalf of my students. I've listed below the most common occasions in which I anticipate art teachers to participate in a public forum.

• Student art exhibits on school grounds or in community centers such as: libraries, conventions, malls, or other public buildings are traditionally hung by art teachers. These kinds of public exhibitions promote student self-esteem and also share the progress of art students with their friends, teachers, and parents.
• Art teachers sometimes give interviews to the local press in order to promote educational programs.
• Art teachers help homeroom teachers communicate through art everyday by sharing ideas for classroom bulletin boards and displays.
• Art teachers also contribute to cross-curricular agendas established by administrators and their fellow educators. I've included many samples of this type of work on my education blog.
• Art teachers are often asked to contribute to local community events in order to promote the education of the public as well.
• Art teachers can improve the visibility of their programs by actively communicating with the community.

       Mass communication happens when I send out information via the e-mail, through newsletters, or over the internet through a blog. I also will use whatever software programs school districts have acquired for these communication purposes. I have worked on the internet for eight years now in publishing and I do not find these technologies intimidating. It is important, however, to conduct oneself formally as a responsible participant on the web because it is a public forum where many eyes can view/read about your conduct for many years after the fact. Teachers should be selective about the resources they use over the internet. I discuss these resources in detail under MoStep1.2.11: Instructional Technologies.

Artworks by students at Union Elementary. The principle 
at this elementary school chooses one painting a 
year from all of the art classes to frame and install in the 
hallway permanently.

Artworks by students at Union Elementary.  
These permanent choices are hung directly on the 
concrete wall above. The temporary student 
artwork is pinned to the cork strip below and removed 
throughout the school year as new creations are produced.

This display is among several student art 
installations at Ellisville Elementary School.

My cooperating teacher was in charge of enlisting many of her own
students to decorate the public spaces in her elementary school.
This fountain's tiles were painting by her students.

A student textile mural from Ellisville Elementary.

Above and below are photos of the "trees" with ceramic
leaves decorating a hallway at Ellisville. The leaves
were sculpted in my cooperating teachers art class
by dozens of her young students.

Curriculum and Planning

3D poster about local architecture created by D. K. Grimm in "Art At The Museum" This poster also comes with a hidden compartment containing Art Card Games about architectural elements and their definitions. Photography by Grimm.

"Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up." A. A. Milne 

      Effective instruction is sometimes dependent upon the way in which curriculum is communicated. Individual needs of diverse learners can be addressed through the following variety of traditional lesson plan models. Each of these lesson plan models encourages the growth of particular content knowledge standards. I will include a link to both a lesson plan prototype and an example of how I used the prototype in my own pre-service experience.

1. The cooperative Learning lesson plan emphasizes the importance of group activities. Students must, in fact, work in a group in order to complete the task given them. Ideally, students will not be able to complete the lesson unless every student does his or her part. Cooperative projects are very challenging for teachers and students because the teacher needs to develop aspects of a cooperative project so that one person does not do the work of many and also so that the excellence of one individual is not “down graded” because of team members who refuse to participate. My ATC lesson plan is developed especially for the purpose of supporting a community effort among my art students but, it also flatters the talents of uniquely talented individuals. I will link to it here in the near future.
2. A direct instruction lesson plan is developed for the primary purpose of teaching a skill-set. I've included under this category a lesson plan about slab construction in ceramics. Art teachers develop specific demonstrations for the introductory activity instead of using a lecture. In contrast, direct instruction lessons do not use inquiry-based learning until after students observe and discuss the formal demonstration. 
This lesson plan type is a kind of  "methods" lesson plan.
3. Presentation lesson plans showcase the practice of informing, persuading and encouraging students to establish a form of trust in the instructor. Presentations may be delivered as interviews, reports, encounters, training sessions, and my favorite, storytelling. The teacher has many possible scenarios to choose from in order to develop this kind of a lesson. The presentation artifact that I will include here in the future is based upon my reading of "The Village Basket Weaver."
4. While developing concept lesson plans, I wrote a lesson about abstract and realistic portraiture. I had to provide examples of portraiture, urge my students to ask themselves questions about those examples, teach them to define images by sets of ideas, compare other sample artworks to those they understood already, and then help them to assess their own learning process. All of these processes will in time develop the higher-order-thinking skills that the state of Missouri requires it’s teachers to cultivate in the minds of their students.
5. In the writing of sample discussion based lesson plans, I learned how to share objectives about the story with attention gaining methods and how to prepare students to participate in both small and large groups. In “” I wrote questions that would help students to describe the legend and lay a foundation of literary observations around inquiries about Native American folklore. I also described how I would monitor the student interactions, keep records of their participation and enforce ground rules when conducting the discussion. I also had to describe how I would summarize the discussion at the end of the session. Questions about limiting negative responses from inappropriate remarks were also included along with even more class discussion based upon each student’s individual examination of the materials.
6. In the sample problem-based lesson plan,”” I learned to provide materials to my students that would help them accomplish research using both technology and cooperative small groups. Advanced planning was necessary in order to teach the materials and methods that each group of students would need to research in order to make presentations of the topics assigned to them. The methods of research and the content of those presentations are both important to the growth and development of art students. The greater the ability a student has in discovery and problem solving, the more likely he is to produce artworks that are both meaningful and relevant to his own culture and time period.
7. In my Theory To Practice, I learned how to develop lessons around objects, themes and visual culture. The lesson called "" is my example of a typical object based lesson plan.  It is important for art students to be inclined by natural curiosity in order for their enthusiasm to feed art in practice.  By selecting an object that is a toy, I automatically establish a common interest between two groups of children who live half a world apart. I believe that teaching art many times is more successful when educators lean towards subjects that are naturally pleasing to their young students.
8. Thematic lesson plans are constructed around a central idea or message. The message could be about society, human nature, or important life topics. These ideas/messages are usually implied rather than stated in an obvious fashion. The theme that I chose to build a lesson around was recycling product and conservation.  The aim of the lesson is to teach students to portray the environment (a landscape) with the very material that would normally be disposed of in the environment. 
9. Visual culture lessons usually include a combination of several academic subjects such as: cultural studies, art history, critical theory, anthropology and/or philosophy. All of these subjects are somehow related to visual images that are consequently explored, analyzed, and manipulated by the students who study the significance of a people's particular attachment to the visual images being studied. I include in this set of artifacts a visual culture lesson called, "." I later taught the lesson at a state high school when my cooperating teacher asked that I include a lesson based upon film. The lesson connects the interplay of satire/parody in our contemporary American teen films.
10. "American Children of The Great Depression" is a collection of sample lesson plans I developed for elementary students integrating American history with fine arts. In integrated studies, teachers design lesson plans that combine two or more subject areas. This kind of formulation uses art to reinforce memory, knowledge, and comprehension skills by more than one method. Students learn a broader spectrum of information about a particular time period in history as well. Integrated studies lessons are among the very latest innovations being introduced to American public education programs today.
11. The studio methods lesson plan focuses primarily on studio processes. Unlike direct instruction lessons, these are not based upon a teacher’s demonstration but upon the principles of constructivist practice. Although, the teacher may ask questions of very young students in order to stimulate their curiosity in some cases. This kind of lesson focuses on self-teaching activities and small group explorations. Teachers guide the learning experience but do not dictate to their students “how” the end product should look. The teacher may apply an underlying theme but he or she does not insist that students should look at a teacher sample and develop a similar product.
12. Lesson plans emphasizing principles and elements of design are used to teach specific singular practices used in the manipulation of materials. As student artists mature, more than one principle is combined together to enhance the quality of the art assignment. This is also a kind of  "methods" lesson plan.

        Art classes that are subject specific and designed for entire semesters need also to include a class syllabus that includes an introduction to the course. Goals, objectives, an outline and project descriptions should also be a part of an attached schedule. I also include information about the books that are used in my courses, e-mail contacts, disciplinary measures for tardy work, and point values for papers, tests, sketchbook and art project assignments in the artifact demonstrating all of these specifics for a fashion design course that I wrote during my Fall Semester at UMSL in 2010, a curriculum unit that may be viewed through my private livetext account. This kind of information will keep students on task and help eliminate confusion.      

      Tactile and visual information to be produced by art students is taught through teacher demonstrations and by observations of those materials and teacher samples made available in the art classroom. Below, I have included many photographs of my teacher samples that demonstrate my interests in including many visual and tactile references in the art classroom.

      Curriculum resources like slide shows/power points, films, art reproductions, time lines, art posters, bulletin boards and classroom literacy center displays are a big part of the visual curriculum that I develop for my classroom too. Above, I have included a architectural elements poster that I designed for my "Art At The Museum" course in the Fall Semester of 2010. I have included many more photos and descriptions of these curriculum resources throughout this portfolio as well.

Red felted wool sample, simple loom weave for young students

Blue abstract artist quilt with butterflies and hand-dyed fabrics

Fancy paper mache' bowls for high school textile course

Sample of portrait drawn with a #2 pencil

Teacher sample drawing of hands, #2 pencil

Teacher sample of colored pencil technique for the classroom

all articles, photographs and lesson plans are copyrighted 2011 by Grimm

Human Development and Learning

"Art has a way of getting around man's intellectual and emotional prejudices. This is because art always speaks indirectly--whether in being the vehicle for delivering a new answer, or in causing a new kind of question to be asked that must be asked before any new answer can make sense." Robert L. Short.

      I think teachers should incorporate the knowledge of student development into their curriculum and provide innovative learning opportunities that support the intellectual, social, and personal development of all their students. In the article, Safe and Accepted In The Classroom, I write about how Maslow’s human developmental theory influences my choice of curriculum and strategies in the art classroom. Maslow, like most respected theorists, does help us to think about “how” we teach. We can definitely improve the health and welfare of our students by adopting and adapting some of his principles. It is possible for students to be nurtured in a pro-active environment and to be given safer communities to live in. As an art teacher, I hope to successfully fulfill those necessary practices that build self-esteem/character appropriately in my own students.

      Every experienced teacher builds upon the prior knowledge of those students who have attended public or private institutions before entering their classroom. One method of building upon prior knowledge of a student while introducing new information can be demonstrated through the application of curriculum that is designed to integrate more than one subject. I've included a set of lesson plans that integrate Botany/Zoology studies with art practices in my private portfolio. I wrote this curriculum during my pre-service studies. These lessons cover grades k-12 and expand upon both of the grade-level expectations present in the Science and the Fine Arts curriculum taught by Missouri public schools. There are so many ways to mix the fine arts with other subject areas and I indeed do this automatically with subjects like: Art History, Literature and Communications. However, I thought it would be a greater challenge to integrate science and the fine arts. I keep a larger portfolio of this ever expanding project at home; interested parties may request to view this collection in it's entirety during a interview.

      An additional way to build on a student's prior knowledge is to determine from their previous accomplishments, the level of achievement they have mastered. After doing this, a professional artist may then apply more or less challenging assignments to either an entire group of students or adjust the complexity of predesignated work within a lesson, according to the special needs of a particular student. In order for these methods to work with young people, one must be well informed about artistic methods and age appropriate child development. I've included a simple developmental grid here that demonstrates my comprehension of Piaget's age appropriate stages of cognitive development, because most teachers are familiar with his work.

      Because I comprehend/study the many processes of child development, I can and should create curriculum that challenges my students through the use of age appropriate materials/strategies on many different levels. During my student teaching at a local public school, I gained much experience in determining what methods worked best with broader skill sets of high school students. Included here is a chart I developed representing some Depth Of Knowledge suggestions for my high school drawing classes. This chart will serve as both a reminder and an abundant resource for drawing objectives in any lesson plans that I may develop for future applications in the classroom.

      Art educators also build upon the knowledge base of their students by incorporating their own experiences and academic education into the classroom environment. It is very necessary for a 21rst Century art educator to be familiar with a wide variety of techniques and philosophies. He or She may need to teach students who are different from one another in their personal development, habits, and culture. I have painted in many different styles throughout my career as a studio painter. Cubism, Expressionism, Impressionism and Photo Realism are just a few of the techniques that I have become accomplished at within my lifetime. I can demonstrate through my professional portfolio, extensive painting acumen during a private interview should a administrator or colleague need me to do so.

article copyrighted 2011 by Grimm