There are many aspects of preparation that go into teaching. In my teaching, I focus on basically two main areas. What I want to teach, and what is going to teach it to them. As a teacher, I believe that if you are unclear in your head about what your objectives are and the most effective way to present this material, it will be unclear in the final artwork. In assessing what the students need to learn in the class, I first review the state standards and find out what the students are expected to learn, and then spend the rest of the time thinking about how they would want to learn it. Independent of what lesson it is, I try to put myself in the student’s shoes and think, “what would I be interested in hearing and seeing if I was a student this age.” This drives my creativity for lesson plans.

Deciding what I want the students to learn is always my first step. This is usually in the form of an overall question that I want to students to use critical thinking to solve. For example, in my Photography class, it had started to become routine to show a slideshow with "master's" work when introducing a new unit. I started to question what the definition of a "master" was and came up with the answer - it was different for everyone. Then why was I still showing the students what I thought were the best photographs? Since I had already taught them the tools of photography that make a work more interesting, they should be able to come up with their own examples of "master" work. That led me to use the guiding question, "What Makes A Masterpiece?" for a lesson (which fulfilled a written critique requirement).

Artifact 2 Commedia Del'Arte Masks

If I can, I try to use a guiding questions in my lessons, as opposed to leading questions. I find that this provokes more interest, personal opinions and requires the students to really use their brain more. In order for the students to answer this guiding question, they had to critique so called "master photographers," and also current photographers of our time. I thought the quickest way to access this large amount of information was doing an Internet scavenger hunt. I first taught them what a photo BLOG site was and then had them search the Internet to find photographs that used the tools of photography that we had been learning. They they each put together a Power Point Presentation to share with the class what they considered a "masterpiece." I learned so much about each individual student from this project, which was much needed insight before starting their next personal project assignment.

In planning my lesson objectives, I usually combine the school/state standards for learning the elements and principles of design with ones that promote real life skills. I find that the students in my class are not only there to learn about art, but to experience art. What I mean by that statement, is that students gain not only artistic and fine motor skills from art activities, but collaborative, organizational and communicative ones that they can use outside the art classroom. I also try to keep my objectives very simple so that students have room to meet them in multiple ways. For example, for a photography critique, one of the objectives would be for students to address some of the aspects of photography or compositional devices. Another objective would be for all students to have equal participation throughout the entire critique. To meet the first objective, students were given verbal prompts to choose from when describing their work. To meet the second objective, students signed up for one of 4 committees that required them to actively participate in the critique experience.

Artifact 6 Group New Species

I spend a good portion of my planning time trying to think of activities that will help students meet the objectives in a way that is interesting for them. This usually involves creating lessons that promote student choice and ones that vary in ability level. In the heterogeneous art classroom, it is important to make sure that the lessons are challenging enough for each student, but not too overwhelming. For example, the 4 committees that students had to pick from varied from bringing in and arranging refreshments (low level) to the installation committee where students had to decide how and where the work would be presented and labeled with each student’s name (high level). In this way, students that were interested in social skills could choose to organize the food and students that had good spatial organization, could arrange the work for presentation. These are just two of the examples, but it is easy to see how the activities were geared toward the interests and ability levels of the class, as well as meeting the subject area requirements. While this may take more time upfront and out of the classroom, the overall experience during the class is much richer. I feel that my students learn more from an environment where they have active decisions in their learning, then one where they are just carrying out what I have told them to be the "best" solution.

If I plan lessons that require active participation on the part of the students, and then give them choices that they are interested in, it leaves me more time to talk to the students during the class about what they are doing - where I believe it really matters most. This process leaves me more available to work ohne-on-one, assess individual progress and adjust the class pacing if necessary. This idea of pre-planning in the design world would be referred to as the “conceptual development” phase. This may sound like a very business-oriented way of thinking, and it is. As a graphic design professional in a creative director role, this is what I was used to doing. Without a dazzling idea, I knew that the final product wouldn’t stand out from the rest, no matter how well it was produced. Similarly, without a plan that looks well thought out, the students will be more likely to jump on board and believe in what you want them to do.

Another aspect that has carried to my teaching from my professional experience, is my appreciation for strong presentation and the impact that I know it has on people. I will most likely be teaching a visual arts class. So my lessons should always come prepared with visual examples which could be anything from slides of the masters work and an outline on the white board, to visiting artists and field trips to museums. I also believe that my curriculum should be documented in a visually consistent way. If I expect my students to be graded on their presentation of work, I believe that I should be a model for them. I take great care in making sure that the materials that I provide from them, of course with some limitation, show consideration and attention to consistency and are visually pleasing. You will not see my binders with lesson plans of 100 different fonts and sizes. This may not directly make my lesson better, but it is something that I firmly believe in and by modeling consistent presentation, my student may indirectly pick up on these social cues.