Reflection

My action research work has focused mainly on encouraging my art students to take responsibility in the art classroom.  Throughout the past few weeks, I have been creating classroom routines with each group of students that I see - grades five through eight.  I am beginning to see students adapt to these routines including multiple cleanup routines, conducting pair share discussions and checking artwork with self assessment checklists.  One additional task I will be starting with students is to have them photograph their artwork (whether at the beginning stages, in progress, or finished) and email their parent(s) with a description about what they are learning in art and what the project is that they are working on.  My goal with this activity is to encourage students to take ownership of the work they create as well as providing important information about the art classroom to our middle school parents while opening up lines of communication for parents to discuss talk about their child(ren)’s work.

I am feeling very good about the work that is going on in my art classroom.  I do realize that it will take some time to continue to make our new routines a part of our everyday procedures, however each day we are improving and it is getting a little bit easier each time we go through with these classroom routines.  I am very hopeful that parents will enjoy hearing about what their students are working on in class, as well as seeing pictures of their work in class.