The mocks started this week, I had known that the hall and some classrooms would be taken up, and there would be subsequent classroom reassignment. However I had not anticipated that the art room would be affected with this but I soon realised when I got into school Monday morning that there would be a sixth year exam centre set up outside the art room. Learners had to go out and around the building and come through the emergency door of the art room. Learners got confused and looked at the relocation list and seen the name Ms. Morrin and thought that was me as such learners were late getting to class, not the best start to the week but it was a once off and understandable. On Monday learners who were cutting worked really well today and got a good amount of work done which I am delighted about and now over half of the class is either printing or almost ready to print. I worked with learners who were still cutting more one on one than learners printing as I felt it was more paramount to work with them and get them onto the next stage. One thing I was really pleased with was how multiple learners experimented in the printing process. This self-motivated engagement demonstrating active learning and in doing so promoted learner autonomy in their work and across this project.
On Tuesday my LCA class had their very first task interview today; as such my host teacher didn’t have to take any learners out of class like the last two weeks. I used today’s class to get learners got caught up on any aspect they missed from the previous lesson. As this was only a single this still wasn’t completed due to one learner being absent since lesson one and another learner who had missed all of the lessons thus far. Learners are finding using the wire challenging however they are a very determined group and push themselves where needed. I had written up on the board what each learner had to have completed for Thursday, this worked well as it provided a check list for learners on what they had to make sure they had done-it also allowed for them to take ownership over their own work which is really central to the successful operation to the LCA programme. I do this for all my class however I think it is especially important in addressing the needs of the stronger learner in terms of knowing what is next and for the weaker learner in terms of keeping them focused on the task. I am a little worried that a few learners are getting frustrated with the project however I feel when they move beyond the key components to make up the skeletal framework they will enjoy it more. At the moment some of them can’t see everything will come together and are losing focus so I really need to push them next week to get as much work done as possible as I really want them to decorate their birds by adding in elements of nature and creating patterns that evoke mindfulness and tranquility through referencing zentangle drawings.
Last Wednesday and this Wednesday after my Art History class I went over to the art room that I would be in tomorrow morning and set up the night before. I think this is especially important as the stage the learners are at involves a lot of prepping the classroom-most of the class are taking prints of their lino tile. As such I need to cover the tables with newspaper, have a variety of material available, and set up the area to take their prints with drawing boards and registration sheets. I have learners for another double on Monday afternoon so I have adequate time to set up whereas Thursday’s class is on first two in the morning and often the building the classroom is in is locked until a later stage than the main building. I feel strongly that the overall success of a lesson lies heavily on the preparation that went into it, in order to get as much work produced in a class the classroom needs to be as prepared as possible prior to the start of the lesson.
Wednesday saw my first class on the Iron Age. I again wanted to introduce the element of a working notebook however as discussed with my host teacher, she wanted them to go back to their hardbacks and become familiar with using them again. I decided to follow their wishes but as an added element I created little min notebooks strictly for homework sketches. Again I made the booklets for learners so as not to take up any additional time, I did however warn the learners that if they lost their artefact booklet they would have to make a new one for themselves and fill all the information back in it again. This is important as for the last unit of learning I had to make additional notebooks for learners due to not knowing which learner got one and who didn’t. This time I wrote the names of the absent learners on the booklet to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
On Thursday I had my 1st years again who are printing. A few learners have created prints with the Ombré effect really effectively; I would like more learners to create a print doing this technique as it brings in layers of colour theory and promotes exploratory learning which I feel is essential to the printing process. I will discuss more about colour theory in next lesson as there will be even more learners printing. As printing requires a strategic clean up I will aim to have learners who haven’t done or only have a few prints to really get working and get a variety of prints done. I will get stronger learners to really consider their placement of chine collé technique-I also need to work one on one learner who is quite weak and cut out too much of their design that their hybrid has gotten lost. Also the chine collé technique could be combined with learner working back into print with a black fine liner/ coloured markers. This learner has a lot of prints so they have a lot to work from. Learners really improved on getting a clean good quality print, there were a lot less ink smudges on pages than the previous lesson. I will keep encouraging this as I feel this is just as important as the process. Learning to be neat and clean is a life skill that translates outside of the classroom walls.
On Friday I had my other group of 1st years who are making masks. Learners used a combination of cotton wool and sponge to build up their masks, this worked really well, and learners’ masks are really starting to take shape and become unique. Masks is quite a long process and I feel because I don’t see learners often (Once a week) progress feels very slow however I am finally starting to see their learners’ designs coming to realisation. I have spoken very little about colour theory with this group of learners as I am focusing on form at the moment and feel strongly that it is not in the best interest of the lesson to discuss colour in detail however learners have been advised that once form is built up they will be moving onto painting their mask. I didn’t get to do the front and side profile resource as I wanted to get as much building up of the mask done as possible-I will however do this in Wednesday’s class. For the evaluation I went through aim of lesson with learners and learners had to establish themselves if they succeeded (Setting their own success criteria in an aim to promote learner autonomy). I also got learners to suggest additional ways they could make their masks more 3D which allowed for weaker learners to get ideas to add elements to their mask.
-E. Moran
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