This week I am continuing my process of reflecting on the concepts we are talking about in class. In doing so, I am also continuing to #rethread the strands of my first weaving. Last week, I sewed together strips of paper on which I wrote any big ideas and words floating around in my head. This week, I wanted to further that process by recording questions that I have been pondering throughout the week.
Using the same strips of paper from my first week's weaving, I wrote down some major questions that have come up through class discussion and the lesson planning process.
Questions:
How do you connect lessons in a unit plan to make it meaningful?
How do you question students effectively during critique?
How do you question students about their art without forcing your opinion on their artwork?
What are effective critique strategies?
What do you do if students are not engaged in critique?
How can teachers effectively implement technology when they are not fully adept at the technology themselves?
Most of my questions stemmed from our reading assignment in the book Talking About Student Art. While reading the examples of 1st Grade art discussions, I was impressed with how the facilitators were able to guide discussion through questioning so that students made meaningful, thoughtful comments about the artwork they were observing. In several situations, I was confused how exactly the teacher transitioned form one question to another, because we could not actually see what was going on in the classroom.
My other questions came up while writing lesson plans and thinking about the lesson my partner and I will be teaching to our peers. My partner and I have some concerns about how we will teach about a technological tool when we both have limited knowledge or experience using most technology. Nevertheless, we will work on answering that question in the weeks to come, and hopefully we learn valuable skills that we can apply to our future classrooms!