Summer Adventures!

As a part of our SMU experience, we were challenged to be adventurous this summer.  I absolutely LOVE adventure, but that doesn't necessarily mean I've done everything and I don't have fears :-)  Recently, my husband, Brandon, and I took our fourth trip out West to Wyoming (we love it there!).  We spent most of our time exploring in the Big Horn Mountains with our 4-wheeler.  We were able to see some excellent sights; driving upwards of 70 miles a day!

One of our day trips took us to the ghost town of Kirwin - A very neat place!  This town was once a busy gold and copper mining town, home of close to 300 people in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  We knew that in order to get to Kirwin, we would have to do some water crossings - I am not much of a water person - so this had me a little...nervous.  With the winter that we all had around the nation, we knew that Wyoming had a lot of snow, meaning also that they had a lot of snow melt for the spring and summer.  This did not help to make me more at ease about having to take our 4-wheeler through rushing river crossings!

We gave it our all and trudged through the river crossings - and made it across without being carried downriver!  It was actually quite exhilerating going through each crossing and I found myself having a lot of fun - it had pushed my fear for the water aside so I could thoroughly enjoy the experience :-)

Kirwin, Wyoming

Although not the area of the river we crossed (this is much lower) this was only accessible on foot and there was a bridge to cross :-)

Another adventurous experience that also had me feeling the nerves a bit was riding on top of 10-15 feet of snow at about 10,000 feet in the Big Horn Mountains!  Despite the sunny days, the snow was sticking around and was quite hard so it was holding us up - I was a little skeptical at first, but once I made my way around a few times, I was having a blast!

That's me!  Taking the 4-wheeler out on the snow :-)

 Our trips always lead us on some great adventures - I feel that I am constantly testing my "adventure skills" wherever we go!  One of our final adventures - more like totally nervewrecking moments that Brandon and I took part in, was exploring the Tongue River Cave near Dayton, Wyoming.  We had read about this public access cave in one of our Wyoming hiking guides and thought it would be fun to check it out, so we packed up a lunch and donned our headlamps and the camera, of course, for another exciting adventure.

The hike to the cave is a quick 3/4 mile, with a quick elevation gain, so it was pretty steep.  Once at the entrance of the cave, it was very hard to ignore (as we were warned about in the book) the spray paint graffiti on the rocks, both in and outside of the cave.  We explored approximately one mile into (and who knows how far down) the cave!  The pitch blackness was very intense - after all we are usually led through caves with a tour guide and multiple lights!  There was quite a bit of extremely fine dust and eventually water, which made for some slippery walking.  Simply put, I was terrified as we began to explore the cave, but once we made it back to the entrance, I was so glad we had done it and we are looking forward to going back and explore it some more!

Here I am in the cave - we used the flash on the camera and it really lit up the space; but don't let that fool you, it was completely pitch black in here without the lights!  Notice, the spray paint...

Here is Brandon, and although it's a little blurry, I wanted to show more of the darkness of the cave - I had my headlamp shining on him as I took this photo :-)

Needless to say, we had a wonderful time once again in Wyoming!  We are already planning out our next trip West to see what other adventures we can plan for next summer!

Art Education Blogs

One of our recent SMU assignments is to share educational blogs that we are using for our summer action research.  The research I have been conducting so far is focused on assessment in visual arts and although these blogs are not specific to only assessments, they have been helpful in my research so far!  Happy blogging!

One blog that I follow fairly regularly is The Art of Ed.  This is an organization that offers relevant professional development for art teachers and have daily posts by various art educators on multiple topics.  Examples of recent topics include: 9 Steps to Efficiently Rewrite Your Students Learning Expectations; Easily Organize Your Standards with a Planning Matrix; Is is Appropriate to Use Social Media During the School Day?.  I enjoy reading this blog to see what teaching techniques other art educators are currently using. You can visit this blog at www.theartofed.com.

Another Art Education blog that I have recently started following is The Teaching Palette.  One of the recent posts that really caught my attention is Design Thinking Through STEAM Education.  I have attended a keynote addressing STEAM and know a little bit about implementing it into a school, however I would definitely like to learn more.  We currently have STEM classes at Byron Middle School and there has been talk of moving into the concept of STEAM, so this post will be a good one to read.  There are also a multitude of topics on this blog consisting of art classroom management techniques, using iPads in the art classroom, iBooks in Art Education and many more.  I am excited to continue searching on this site in preparation for next school year! you can visit this blog at www.theteachingpalette.com.

Action Research Reflection

Action Research Reflection

My mini action research question was: How can I create more meaningful assessments in my visual arts classroom?  As I began my research on this topic, I soon realized that there are so many variations of assessment and I really had my work cut out for me!  The first change that I made in my classroom was to provide my students with more formative assessment - I had been doing this beforehand, however, once I learned more about formative assessments and how to use them effectively in my classroom, I began utilizing them more often.

Some examples of formative assessments that I have begun using throughout my research are: exit slips, table/group worksheets, partner questions, group discussions, fist-to-five, among others.  With the use of formative assessments, I am able to gain important information about my students in a rather short amount of time.  I have started using a worksheet with my fifth grades students to complete in their table groups during our color theory unit.  I introduce and review a lot of material in this unit and I was searching for a way to help students through this learning process.  I use the worksheet to get students thinking and talking about the material with their peers, without the pressure of answering questions out loud in front of the entire class.  I purposefully added questions that force students to really think back on the material discussed the previous day, and ensure to them that if they cannot answer all of the questions, that’s okay.  I am able to see what material students are struggling with by looking at the questions that they are unable to answer.  I have found it very beneficial to use formative assessments with my students so that I can learn where they are at: what they still need help with and what they know well, in a short amount of time (not to mention I don’t have to add another grade to the grade book!).  

Summative assessment is also an important aspect of the art grading process and I spent a lot of my time researching various ways in which to do this in my art classroom.  One way I attempted to make my assessments more meaningful to my students was simply to explain the grading rubric to them and allow them time to ask questions.  There are times that I forgot to do this step and if students had had at least one rubric explained to them prior, they understood it better.  On the other hand, if they did not have a rubric explained to them prior, they didn’t understand it as well therefore it didn’t mean much to them.  Based on a student survey I gave to one of my fifth grade classes, 85% of the class found it helpful to hear about the grading rubric ahead of time; 10% of the students didn’t mind either way, and 5% of students did not respond.  

Data collection was a struggle for me during this research, so this is an area that I would definitely like to improve on in the future.  I plan on continuing this research topic into the beginning of the 2014-15 school year and I would like to continue to collect data with all of my middle school classes (grades 5-8).  One way in which I hope to collect data from my classes is to get their input on what type(s) of summative assessment they prefer (percentage, total points, letter grade, checklist, rubric).   I will need to decide what other data I will collect throughout a more extensive research on this topic as well.  Another aspect of this research that I would like to explore more deeply is the importance of formative assessments - I did not conduct much research on this topic of assessment, however I feel that it is a very important type of assessment to use in my classroom, so I would love to learn more about specific formative assessments in the art room.

Although I feel that I learned a great deal about creating more meaningful assessments for my students, I have decided that I will continue with this topic for the upcoming year.  I have been doing a lot of reading on this topic and have learned much more since the completion of this mini action research and I am looking forward to taking time this summer to conduct additional research on this topic and create some surveys for the kids to get their input.  

Community Art

I have been working on a very exciting collaborative project with Matt Weyers, a sixth grade teacher at BMS.  Sixth grade students have been very busy creating sculptures for Byron businesses.  Students chose an area business and called them to see if they would be willing to display a hand-made sculpture for approximately two weeks.  They were very nervous but excited to contact businesses and start getting the okay to start planning and building their sculptures.

Students began their planning process with a pencil sketch of their sculpture.  They then had to decide what materials they would like to use to create their 3D sculptures.  Materials used included: wood, wire, chicken wire, paper mache, clay, cardboard, paper, paint, and so much more!  We all learned a lot while going through this process and the end products show how hard these kids worked to complete their sculptures for our Byron businesses!  

Two students work on their clay sculpture for the Bear's Den.

These ladies are working on their toothbrush and toothpaste sculpture for Byron Dental Group.

This group of sculptors are busy preparing their mailbox for the Byron Post Office.

These gentleman are preparing sculptures for Gamez & More and Ace Hardware.

Students created "Spot" the dalmatian for the Byron Fire Department.

Here is the whole group with all of their fabulous sculptures!!

Making Changes in the Classroom

Apply a strategy you picked up from our f2f collaboration time - From Tates's 20 Strategies

Brainstorming and Discussion - I always allow time for students to brainstorm their ideas and often require students create a sketch of their work, whether it’s 2D or 3D.  What I have started to incorporate more into my teaching is student discussions about the concepts they are learning.  Recently I have implemented this into my fifth grade classroom; students were instructed to get with a partner and show each other their one-point perspective drawings.  Each student was then to point out where the horizon line, vanishing point and orthogonal lines.  They were also instructed to find evidence of areas that their partner used a ruler in their drawing.  The last question I asked students to discuss with their partner was why it is important for us to learn about perspective drawing, what does it help us do?

The conversations that students were having during this time were fantastic!  After their partner discussions I brought them back together in a large group to review what they had just talked about.  I noticed a large increase in student participation during our large group discussion after they had been given time to review the information with a partner.  I will definitely be using this brain-based teaching strategy for more assignments and classes.

7 Principles to Inspire Success

1.	Believe in yourself. Always stay true to what makes you unique and trust your gut. See your differences as strengths rather than handicaps. And, instead of comparing yourself to others…be inspired by them!
2.	Work hard. Pure and simple. Ideas aren't worth anything unless you put them to work. You have to be responsible, dependable, disciplined and never stop learning or growing.
3.	Take risks. It's O.K. to be afraid but you just have to plunge in anyway. This isn’t easy, especially when it feels like the tide is against you, but it’s just necessary to take risks in order to stay fresh and relevant. You will make mistakes but your efforts will also make a difference. Just take a deep breath and step out of that comfort zone!
4.	Keep an open mind. Be willing to adapt and change when you need to. Adjust your sails to catch that wind. Be strong…yet flexible and resilient…like bamboo…and bend rather than break.
5.	Accept your limitation. Be willing to ask for help…and be able to say “no”. There’s no way you can be everything to everybody all the time! Surround yourself with good people and enlist their help when you need it most.
6.	Treat others with respect and kindness. That golden rule never, ever goes out of style.
7.	Never stop dreaming. Your visions can guide you to great things…but you need to be patient and don’t give up on yourself or on an idea that might seem slow in coming. It just might need a little more time to germinate and become strong. I have chosen to include all seven of the "Principles to Inspire Students". I feel that they each bring something very important to my art classroom and I try hard to incorporate each of the listed principles into the lessons that I teach. So many of the principles listed are what I tell many of my students on a daily basis! I love to see them on one comprehensive list!

Spring Conference - Action Research

2014 Spring Conference

The sessions I attended at the 2014 Spring Conference were about the following: Standards Based Grading, Providing students with more choice in the classroom, Providing students with choice in their writing, Classroom management, and Differentiation.  I was excited (and maybe a little nervous) to finally attend this conference to see what the process was like for the second year students presenting their action research.  After reading their abstracts and action research papers I began to feel a bit of relief; I was going in the right direction after all!  

I thought it was very interesting to see how each student began their presentation - I learned a few new 'ice breaker' activities and it really got me thinking about what I will do to introduce the people in my group next year, as well as some activities to use in the classroom to introduce students or just move around!  Some of the sessions I attended had folders with paper copies of the information, while others provided us with a link to their presentation online.  It was nice to have the information right in front of me, however I really liked having access to the online information because there were links available to access some of the resources they used and it was very helpful to be able to go right to it and save it for later reference.

Reflecting on my experience at the conference, I think I am going to create a more detailed action research question/goal.  The action research I am working on right now is 'how to create more meaningful assessments in the art room'.  I think this will be an ongoing research topic, as grading practices seem to change all the time.  After attending the writing session I did at the conference, I would like to research about how to incorporate more writing into my middle school art class.  During that session I wrote down quite a few ideas just based on what the presenter had tried in her classroom and it really got me thinking about what more I could do.  I was also very interested in the session I attended about providing students with choice in the classroom (choice seating, writing activities, etc.).  I may also look into providing some choice in my classroom.

Action Research Update

My action research goal is to create more meaningful assessments for my students.  I have been doing a lot of research on the standards-based grading process as well as creating more meaningful and effective rubrics for the projects I teach.  I have been updating my grading rubrics to focus more on the standards and power targets, according to my ELO's.  I have been sharing the rubrics with students at the beginning of projects so that they know what they need to do to fully complete an assignment.  One thing I have started doing with my fifth grade students is showing them each grading rubric on the board and going through each part of the rubric; I go into detail about how students can show proficiency, and what might warrant lower scores in each category.  I have noticed that students ask a lot of questions during this time; in the past I had assumed that students knew how a rubric worked and hadn't given them this important opportunity to ask these questions.  In addition, when students receive their work with the rubric they are very eager to see their points and I have noticed fewer questions about why they received a score they did.

I have always struggled with 'data collection' as well as showing data.  I am trying to figure out how I want to show the data I have collected and will collect in the future.  Reading the action research reports for the upcoming Spring Conference has been extremely helpful in the planning and writing for my own research report.  I will be attending a few sessions that focus on standard'based grading so I am hopeful to learn a lot more information about this grading style.  It has been very helpful to read the review of literature as well; I have found a few books and articles that are very helpful!