At York Community High School in Elmhurst, I had the opportunity to work with Rich Edgley, my cooperating teacher who was teaching in a hybrid situation for Drawing 1, Drawing 2, Photo 1, Photo 2 as well as his AP 2D and Design class. As his student teacher, I had the ability to fully take on his classes and start projects well within the first 2 weeks of my 8-week placement. I taught the Drawing classes and Photo classes, then observed and talked to students in his AP 2D class. He let me teach very independently, and we would debrief between classes or at the end of the day for things that went well, what I could work on next, and working on what projects and skills he wanted students to develop.
With his hybrid schedule, we had A and B days, meeting with each class twice a week but with A and B group students switching for in person classes. Students were either fully remote, in-person or home/hybrid and having the option for either. Classes were 75 minutes long, and Wednesdays were reserved for full remote days where students can use that time to catch up on work, or ask questions and periods were shortened to 45 minutes. Going into this placement I had no idea what to expect, as the pandemic is in full swing, and I was unsure of how to teach photography classes, which was completely out of depth for me. Luckily, with the guidance from my cooperating teacher, I was able to think of projects for students and learn alongside them as I was creating different teacher examples and practicing my own photography skills to be of better help to my students. I was figuring out how to teach on Zoom, adjusting to schedule changes and building rapport with students some of which I never got to even see in person, relying on individual Zoom meetings and check ins. I mainly used Google Classroom to post all my projects and materials, designing my lessons so that students at home can get engaged and involved even if they only had a pencil and paper. From this placement I was able to talk about complex issues such as mental health, the pandemic, and staying motivated through this time. I designed lessons for students to allow them to think deeply about the why they were creating artwork as well as making open-ended projects for students to interpret how they see it. I gave feedback to students through Google classroom, emails and in-class individual meetings. Doing this allowed me to develop relationships with my students and letting them know how much I truly cared about their progress and supporting them with their art. From my placement at York, I was able to do multiple projects with the photography classes due to the scheduling and nature of the medium. In my Drawing 1 class, we were focused on skill building through self-portraits with value, volume, and observational accuracy. My Drawing 2 class project was a mini sustained investigation by creating a triptych series, with an open ended prompt and focusing on adding deeper meaning to our artwork through brainstorming and discussing the meaning behind our work. |