I’ve finished my field work for this semester! I had an awesome placement this semester at a local high school. I worked with a teacher that taught ceramics, which was beneficial for me because my concentration is in ceramics. I was able to observe an advanced ceramics class, three beginning ceramics classes, and a portfolio class. The students really seemed to like their art teacher, only a few students acted out in class. It was interesting for me to go to a high school other than the one I attended to watch the students’ behavior. In general the students were really interested in their projects. The beginning ceramics class was working on a whimsical fish lesson. This project was really fun and I for a moment wished that I was a student in the class, because I would love to make a whimsical fish! I feel like the school that I was in this semester had a lot of supplies in the room for the students to use. There was a wide variety of tools for working with clay, nicely organized and clean too. I graduated from high school three years ago, and I can say that the school I attended definitely did not have nearly as many tools, nor were they organized. Also, this classroom had an assortment of glazes and under glazes. The teacher made test tiles and hung them up on a chart for the students to look at and feel before they applied them to their project. I think that this was important especially for the students that never worked with glaze before. For the whimsical fish project, a lot of the beginning students chose a turquoise glaze that was matte. They looked at the test tile, but did not notice that it was matte and not glossy. In general, the students that used this glaze were not satisfied because it looked very uneven and it was not shiny. During the final critique, their teacher pointed this out to the class and told them to get up close and actually feel the tests so they know exactly how it will be on their piece, she also stressed how important the application of the glaze is.
I think that I will take some of the techniques that I learned from my mentor teacher this semester and use them in my classroom. I liked that she had the students work with clay on a canvas covered board. This way, the clay did not stick to the table and it was easy to clean up. I really admire her level of organization in the classroom, I feel like this is an essential aspect of teaching. She had all of her lesson plans neatly typed in binders and everything was available for viewing at any time. She also had her lesson objectives posted in the classroom along with the due dates. She put her due dates up for her lessons so that the students had no excuses for not having their work turned in on time. She also went over how she grades using either a four point rubric or a six point rubric (for her advanced portfolio class). I feel like I really learned a lot from my fieldwork placement this semester, and I am one step closer to student teaching!
