Today was the final day of grouping the students by their understanding of perspective. The majority of students have moved to the middle group which means they will get a B or C on their mid-unit assessment. They still have not started working on their final drawing so they will continue to learn and hopefully grow beyond that. There are still some students that are in the low group but it is mostly an issue of motivation which has posed a real challenge for me. There is a good handful of students that just do not care and have not all year.
I had two major victories today! One was during fifth hour. I have student that likes to blurt out whatever comes to her mind and distract her friends. She uses art as a social hour. Wednesday I made a deal with her that she could sit by her friends if she worked and did not distract them. She did pretty well but still did not accomplish a lot. Today she didn’t sit by her friends (by choice) and she did so well! If she does the things she did today on her mid-unit assessment she will get a B whereas she started out very low. I told her I was very proud of her and we highfived! Corny, I know…
My seventh hour class has been a real issue with talking and general disrespect as well as one female student particularly. For this class I created a new seating arrangement just for the day since we are still doing groupings. They were all spread out and were not with their friends. At first it was an issue because the students with autism were a bit frustrated but the aides said it was a good experience for them because life is not always predictable and some of the other students were just mad at me for separating them. Once they gave up fighting me the room was very calm and many of them were actually working. My particularly challenging student had her cellphone out and refused to sit in the right spot. I took her cellphone and asked her why she wouldn’t move. She told me it was because of the girl I sat her next to. I really just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t because she was sitting next to one of the students with special needs. If it was that I would have addressed it right away, but the issue with the other girl was something probably better left untouched since it was just for one day. That sounds insensitive, but with this student I have to pick my battles. I told her that since the table was vacant due to absences and if she was productive I would let her stay there. She ended up doing really great work and asking me for a lot of help which she has never done! My cooperating teacher and I were so excited!
It was a great Friday!!!
Art Ventures 