As an educator having the school year draw to an end is always exciting. It feels good to know that your job has been done well. Having students submitting good work and following the guidelines is the kind of evidence that proves you have done a good job of reinforcing and communicating those rules. It is also pretty exciting knowing that each day you are just a little bit closer to Summer where time will soon be your own.
However before you pack your bags for that summer trip. Let’s think about what you need to consider to bring this school year to a successful end.
1. Checklists: This is the time you want to remind your classes of all the things that must be completed. Late work cannot be accepted as school is out after this deadline. I enjoyed the use of checklists for each class. Developing a checklist of what is needed for the end of the year is helpful for both you and your students. Making one for each class that you teach will make your life easier when it comes time for the students to turn in all of that required work. My checklists also gave the number of points that each project was worth.
2. Portfolios:Secondly,making a container for all of the work for each student was helpful to have the students begin filing their work into folders, or paper portfolios large enough to house all of their work. Placing projects into a folder as you check it off is calming and gives you a feeling of completion.If students were continuing their study of art in school or college, I encouraged them to put their work in a safe place so they could refer back to it. If you happen to teach technology like I did for a portion of my teaching life, students can archive their works electronically and present to the remainder of the class as end of the course exams.If you don’t they can simply share work or create slide sound shows which was one of my favorite things to do to send of my seniors.
3.Reflections: Allowing students the time to “reflect ” on what has been accomplished is another teaching practice that always served me well. I gave the students a writing assignment to answer a couple of questions. What project did you enjoy most? least? What did you learn about yourself in this class? What else would you like to tell me? I told them that “in order for me to get better as your teacher, I must know where to begin. Your comments are important to me.” I always enjoyed reading written reflections about the projects and the school year as it gave me input as to what the most popular projects were and on the others I could perhaps improve upon how I went about teaching them. The other wonderful discovery that comes out of written reflections is that students sometimes say the nicest things about something in the class they liked or disliked ( that you would not have had a clue about) and it simply helps me to make things better as well as know more of how the students felt.
4. Teaching Portfolio:This is also an ideal time as work is left behind to pull together a strong teaching portfolio. As many students will not want to take their work home. Grab the good teaching samples so you can use them next year. You might even get some samples of how not to do the project. Chances are one student may have misunderstood the instructions or followed their own creative muse. If your teaching portfolio is in good shape, you will be ready to begin the next school year with great teaching samples.
5.Clean up: It is imperative that students assume part of the responsibility of getting the room back into the best order possible to end the year. This requires cleaning and storing art supplies and materials back into their proper place for the closing of school. Part of my end of the year procedures involved all of us taking some time to get things back in order. We would play some upbeat music, put on aprons and gloves and get to work.Teams of students took assigned jobs and upon their completion, I checked that it was done to my specifications and that job was then scratched off the list. Good citizenship in the classroom sometimes involves taking some more challenging tasks and less favorable chores and as the Nike ad says,”Just Do it!”
6.Conclusion:as the teacher, I always thanked my students for the time we spent together and encouraged them to continue to follow their dreams, keep the positive mental attitude and to stay in touch letting me know where they were in the world and what they were doing. If they were a class returning the next year, I gave some fun yet challenging summer assignments.
When this is all said and done, the bell rings, summer arrives, and students go barreling out the door. I can sit back and know we did all we needed to bring another good year to an end. You can now think about those summer plans.
How about you? Do you have any great ways to end the year? Let’s talk!
Visit Flickr to see slides of student art work from the ArtWorkBook Series.
http://flickr.com/photos/coolartwork/
show/with/2307559911/
Also the second site a ROUGH DRAFT of My Virtual Art Room has some examples of what the membership site will offer.
http://web.mac.com/jmh5/_My_Virtual_Art_Room/
Welcome.html
This watercolor is one piece of work seen in the BONUS E-Book: Notes on Painting in Watercolor which you get for signing up for this site. If you liked it then pass it on to others and if you did not tell me so that I may improve upon it. Thanks!
Ideas are wonderful things with a life of their own. Speaking of—my revision of my current site will be followed by a NEW membership site. This next major project’s intent being that the experience will be like walking into an art room. You will find resources organized like an art teacher like myself may have had them in their class room. File cabinets will overflow with lesson plans and handouts, a screen will show presentations and slide shows, a radio will have podcasts on various motivational topics, a library will house books ( for purchase) and just viewing. It will eventually have a place for other art teachers like yourself to publish your favorite teaching ideas.Sharing ideas is what makes connecting with other art educators fun.
It will be a place that art educators and students alike can find all that they need to have an easier time in their art making classrooms. It is also possible to have more time to “play” in your studios too. The other part of this site will be offerings of “hands on training” where you can meet with other art teachers in a relaxed retreat like setting and make art, share ideas, and go away refreshed and rejuvenated. I look forward to meeting you online or in person.
You may have noticed that I am doing things faster and allowing assistance to get more things done ( sometimes in less perfect states). I have come to realize that I can revise gradually improving on all items. It is like reworking a piece of art, it is what we do. Just as Eugene Delecroix said,”Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.” Let’s help each other remember that.
The months spent learning how to do all of the things needed for creating a functioning web site have been a combination of FUN and FRUSTRATION. There are indeed challenges which require that you are moving beyond your comfort zone to try something new. Some people would call that THINKING OUTSIDE the BOX, well, I have enlarged my living space of my comfort zone. It has offered a great deal of time for introspection and some ephiphanies. I discovered that I find it difficult to ask for HELP from anyone. Then one morning I had an intuitive nudge to call on others that I know that know how to do these things that have been difficult. I have just experienced a BREAKTHROUGH in asking experts to assist me in getting my web sites where I want them so that they can be useful and fun to others like YOU! By allowing others to assist, I can get back to the details of everything.
It came to me that I have always enjoyed helping others and probably others also enjoy being ask for their expertise. So this Blog is a result of that kind of time and talent, the web sites are about to look and sound different and new offerings are about to come your way. It will happen faster and Dr. Joe Vitale says, ” the Universe likes SPEED.” I know I like to see things come to fruition so that I can get on with some new ventures and other grand ideas, How about you?
Sarah Ban Breathnach says,” By paying attention to details—your authentic gestures—you give expression to the most personal of all the arts: your own imprint on life.”
Wonders never cease! Another day was spent working at the list of technological challenges and more things have been resolved.I built another web site using IWeb so check it out at: www.myvirtualartroom.com. The Shopping Cart is now on the site with shopping available at the click of a button on the ArtWorkBook page. I sent a gift of a calendar with some of Hannah’s portfolio on it and it was sent out automatically to each of you who signed up to receive extras.
I consider myself a “girl geek” and once this site is automated, OH MY! I know I ‘ll love communicating with all of YOU art teachers out there.My husband tells me my e-books may have to be done in other languages. Now that is a cool idea, I will claim it! I keep getting new product ideas and have so many in progress. So I must focus my time on the completion of the projects that are in various stages of completion. Having your computer CRASH, like mine did, when you are in the middle of a zillion things just isn’t my preference. A dear friend told me that metaphysically, when that happens, GREAT things are coming your way—ok by me!
Today I am going to mix business with pleasure and work on some FUN things, mixed with some challenges, just downloaded some new freeware to make forms on my site for people to respond to, and had to create a database, this is all so that I can be informed of what my subscribers want.
Dr. Joe Vitale and Ronn McCann wrote a book called, The Joy of Service, it says,” To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything be more fun?” Isn’t that the truth? Check out one of my ebooks called “Art Careers: Living the Life You Love. it is all about that and helping young people find livelihoods they could enjoy for the remainder of their working life. You can find that at: (http:www.artworkontheweb.com/artworkbook.htm ) Novel idea, huh? It would be a happier world if everyone did what they loved, we might create only happy people on the roads. IMAGINE that!
It has been nearly two years of working on this web site so that it can be useful to both educators and their art students. For me it will be such a relief to have all of the lessons and images archived so that I can say that I have done it. Who was it that said,”Anytime you say Let it be! something happens!” Well, plenty is happening each and every day and I am happy to say that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I love the creative possibilities of technology as much as art and am thrilled each time I jump through a hoop to complete some other daunting task that makes having a web site easier. The word is “automation” and it allows you to set up in advance ways to communicate with other like minded individuals and share common concerns and successes.
I really look forward to hearing from others.Tell me what concerns and successes you are having. I began setting up this blog forever ago and it is now finally linked to my site.. 2008 is the year that the WAIT is over! I look forward to hearing from each of you.
Welcome to the ArtWork on the Web WordPress Blog. This is my first post on my site’s blog while still construction my web site. I am new to this way of communicating and I just will practice by my start at blogging! Let’s get on with it! Let me hear from you!