Survey of school/lesson plan

School/Community:

Characteristics: MESA is trying to portray students and teachers who are integrous, trustworthy, respectful, leaders in the community. At MESA students mostly meet these expectations. There are students who lack the parental figure in their lives who can represent these characteristics to them daily. I believe the teachers truly are trying to do represent these as best as possible. I believe it is struggle also with administration not having certain disciplinary actions in place to help students with behavior. The discrepancies would be there is an allusion with the school acting with student’s behavioral issues, but there are definite factors opposing this.

Socio-Economic, Class, Race, Culture of School. Teachers, and Student experience:

Socio-Economic/Class: There is a definitive divide between students and teachers concerning economics. Most of the student body is middle to lower class. The teacher population being upper to middle class. This affects the students with trust and continually comparing with their peers and teachers. I believe there is pressure from the students to their parents to acquire certain attire or items to “maintain” a social status amongst their peers.

Race: Most of the teacher population is white. This affects the student population regarding trusting the teachers. I know this should not be a factor, but not having a teacher from the Latino community is difficult for them. Their trust should be based on factors other than race. I think they have been mistrusted by the others in the community or some of their family members have communicated they have mistrust with the community.

Culture of the School: The culture of the school is unique because the students interact well with one another despite high school drama and awkwardness. There are a great deal of students dealing with family life that is not conducive to learning. This creates either a hostile or persevering environment for the student. I would say most persevere through the trials in their lives. The curiosity, love of learning, and achievement is often hindered by their outside lives. The life outside of school is a concern for the teachers and administration at MESA. Overall, Parents of the students do not seem to care about attending any meetings or functions for their child. I believe this example to the students is carried over to the student with learning and attending school. I was told that the teacher’s lounge could be a toxic place and it is true. This is not constant, but I need to be careful about when I eat in there with other teachers. I do not want to become a “bitter train”. I find a distinctive disconnect with the SPED teachers and other teachers. This disconnect solely deals with communication. The core and elective teachers seem to rarely communicate what is happening with the SPED students. The other disconnect is between all teachers and the administration with behavior management problems. I have seen this repeatedly every week with the teachers airing grievances. These grievances are communicated, but not truly dealt with the student’s actions.

Students: The student’s population of MESA is 80% Latino, next is white, and African American. The class sizes for Freshman and Sophomores is 30-40. For Juniors and Seniors, the size is 15-20. The art classes are 20-25 students with combined grades in all classes. These students have art five days a week, one time each day. Concerning SPED, there are three classrooms devoted to teaching SPED students. I could not find any rates concerning SPED. The graduation rate is 72 and the percentage is 88.9%. The dropout rate is 2.9% and they had 553 students from 2016-2018 dropout. The safety at the school seems high. I did speak to two students and they thought it was weird to have cops on campus. One of those students mentioned how he felt safe, but at same time did not feel safe. There are routine lockdown drills that happen twice a year. The quality of life within the school is a tough question to answer for me. I think it is a school where most students have school spirit. This is harmful because a fair number of students are apathetic towards learning. “Children could not learn optimally unless they were active, using their hands and engaging in varied sorts of experimentations (Boisvert, p.10, 1998).”

Behavior Management Plan:

Discipline: The discipline of the classroom is more loose than other classrooms. The looseness refers to what language is allowed or not allowed. The teacher does not allow anyone to speak poorly of one another, but cussing is tolerated to a degree. Students can go to the bathroom or another teacher’s room with permission. Disrupting or interrupting the class in any way or the teacher is not allowed. If students are not doing their work the approach is not to become irritated, but to be gentle. Gentle with asking them, “We would like you to see you do some work today” or even beginning with “How is your day going, do you have anything to work on?” “Hardly anything we do is done solo (Perkins, p.13, 2009).”

It is routine for the students to enter the classroom, say hello or just sit down and work. Sometimes the students wait until the bell rings to begin to work or until the teacher has returned to the room. Occasionally the students need to be reminded to begin their work. The students know where items are in the classroom, but sometimes need to be reminded. Students sit at the same table with the same students. There are no assigned seats, which I believe works well for the student population at MESA. Students know where to put their work at the end of class and most of the time they know to clean up after they have used materials.

Much like routines the norms is the students know and understand the teacher has certain expectations for them concerning work ethic, demeanor, and communication. The students in the last period know they need to stack the chairs at the end of the day. Students are chill while in class working or talking with classmates. The room is conducive to learning and most of all, a calm environment for students to learn. I believe students feel accepted in this space. The layout of the tables and chairs allows a good flow of the classroom. There is plenty of natural light for the room, which allows the fluorescent lights to be off. I know and believe students feel safe in the classroom with being themselves.

There is a great deal happening with these students and cultivating this safe place for students to reside is crucial. Teacher-instruction and student-discovery are balanced well with challenging the students to think and not solely produce work. I believe the teacher front-loads the students effectively for this to happen. There is definite individual work versus collaboration. Overall, the relationship between student to teacher is healthy and student to student is dependent on grade usually. The healthiness of student to teacher relates to the teacher being there for six years and building a relationship with the students. Student to student relates to crew. Crew is like a homeroom with the purpose of knowing each other and being accountable with a teacher about grades and life. I would want to build trust to be accountable with the students. I think the transparency and vulnerability starts with me. I also would have the students interact with one another like the teacher does currently within Crew. Something I would strive to not do is being consistent with doing work every day regardless of how I am feeling. The students need to have a great work ethic and how to grow in this area. “While at the same time fostering not only thinking skills but alert proactive attitudes toward thinking and learning (Perkins, p.150, 2009).” “Vygotsky considered the source of change to be the individual, although within a social community (Samaras, 2002).”

Significance and Implications:

Since knowing the students these couple of weeks, I have found they are all struggling with where to find their place in school and most of all, life. This made me think of the idea of identity. This idea then was brought to fruition through a course I had at Metro. This was a painting course and we were to create a glitched painting. I used a website that has many filters and chose one. This is what I had the students eventually do. Within the TWS, I will emphasize what identity means to us. I do think I will dig too deep with them unless they are doing it themselves. I will need to make modifications for the SPED students that are in the classes. The modifications to make a self-portrait which is altered, but they do not have to use the website to do this task. I need to make these modifications so they will be able to learn. I think I will need to be more specific with directions and goals of the exercises and the final project. I believe more scaffolding could be done next time I do this unit or any unit. I think will need to be more mindful ELL and cognitive needs with students.

Part B:

The big idea of this unit is Identity. The connection is finding out who we are and becoming. What is identity? It is who we are. The students are in phases of learning about identity in various forms. The vision for the lessons is see the students realize how they are influenced or not influenced by how they look. I believe these students truly struggle finding their identities in multiple ways. This is okay but having too many non-concrete sources is detrimental. Using a filter to alter their faces to eventually draw an abstract self-portrait is the goal. On the hard skill end of the lessons, I want them to learn and understand value, shape, positive and negative space, texture, and balance. Also, how to use a pencil is vital because most use the pencil with too much pressure. The two main points would be pencil control and knowing about their identity.

Students will be able to will discuss and write down what identity means to them, what a selfie means to them, why it means this, significance of selfies and identity, and importance of facial features. How does this relate to our personality? The students will share with one another what they have written down. I should show/be true with myself while being at MESA. You I cannot come into a classroom and expect the students to respond to me right away. “I have found that when I try to consider the perspectives of others it helps me see the aspects of a problem that go beyond my own needs. This is no easy task, but it is made easier by listening to the stories students tell us (Samaras, p.46, 2002).”

The unit/lesson and pre assessment begins with having a large sheet on the table with the word ‘identity’ written on the paper. The students used post-it notes to write down what identity means to them. We had a discussion concerning what they wrote and why. We then discussed what identity means ‘who you are’. After discussion, they put post-it notes on the paper relating ‘who they are’. After they did this, we discussed what they wrote down.

The evidence of student’s learning will be the post-it notes, exercises concerning colored pencils, value and shading the sketch of their first drawing, periodic discussions, one on one help and encouragement, and final drawings. Lastly, they will fill out a rubric/post assessment which reiterates the big idea and hard skills concerning art they used.

Lesson: Glitch Yo’ Self

COLORADO STANDARDS:

Observe & Learn to Comprehend:

Visual art has inherent characteristics and expressive features

Invent and Discover to Create:

Demonstrate competency in traditional and new art media, and apply appropriate and available technology for the expression of ideas

Colorado Math Standard:

Given a geometric figure and a rotation, reflection, or translation, draw the transformed figure using appropriate tools (e.g., graph paper, tracing paper, or geometry software). Specify a sequence of transformations that will carry a given figure onto another. (CCSS: HS. G-CO.A.5)

Colorado Literary Standard:

Examine the nature of diverse aesthetic experiences to build a language of representation that can be used to respond to the world.

Students Can: Interpret how meaning in works of art are related to the materials and process chosen by the artist.

Personification: The attribution of human figures or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.

Big Idea:

Identity: Who we are.

Main Question: Does a glitched photo change who you are within(character)? What about the glitched photo makes you think differently? Why? Does your identity lie with many and various variables or just one or two? Why?

Conceptual Idea: This idea is one of great importance to me. The importance being how we identify ourselves and with what do we identify with or not with. I personally struggled with where I was finding my identity when I was engaged, and it ended. I was finding my identity in a relationship that could end and it did end. This is especially crucial for high school age students because of what they are currently experiencing. Students are bombarded by media mostly, but also their peers at school with how to live their lives. This Unit will be based on students exploring identity through a glitched self-portrait to show their individual identity. They will discover using a glitched photo does not change who they are within. A glitched photo will change the facial structure of the person, but what the person believes and what they may do from day to day. It is imperative for today’s student to be encouraged in what he or she is making. I desire to promote individuality, but not independence necessarily. This project should promote how individuality and dependence are essential for their identity to be whole. In my coursework the act of making was essential for the brain to function more accurately. My coursework also gave me insight with how each student will make uniquely.

General questions to ask students:

• How does identity impact your life?

• What about identity is uncomfortable or not uncomfortable? Why?

• Does knowing who you are change anything about yourself? Why?

• Many of you have said you do not care what people think about you. What is the relation with this and identity?

• What is the difference between how you are perceived from others and your identity? Do they relate? How? Why?

The first lesson was a drawing including value, line, and texture. The drawing needed to reflect the personality of the student. This is a continuation of the first lesson (9th grade). This first lesson was taught by Kunk.

The self-portrait will be drawn from the glitched photo using proportion, space, line, value, and composition. Photomosh.com is used to alter an image through loading a file or using a webcam. The color and shape can be altered through this website. Students will take five glitched photos and choose one from the five. After they choose the image, they want to draw they will begin their self-portrait. Students will know how to set up the image, i.e.: make-up or basic photo that has been altered.

Objective:

Students will be able to will discuss and write down what identity means to them, why it means this, significance of identity, importance of facial features, how to use shading, line, space, texture, and perspective to create their composition. The students will the Photomosh.com to glitch their faces for their self-portraits.

Vocabulary:

Shape: geometric or organic that are asymmetrical or symmetrical

Proportion: refers to the relative size of parts of a whole (elements within an object).

Line: used to define shape, path between two points, straight, curved, or broken.

Value: lightness or darkness of a color

Composition: a product of mixing or combining various elements or ingredients

Materials:

• Computer or phone

• Pencil

• Paper

• Ruler

• Stump

• Eraser

• Colored Pencils

Artist References:

• Matthew Jorde

• Alan Payne

• Justin Bower

• Jarid Scott

Modifications:

• The modifications for ELL and SPED:

• Clear visuals for each step of the lesson.

• Use even more accessible language for ELL and SPED students.

• Take time with each ELL and SPED student, possibly one on one.

• Ask the students if they feel comfortable doing a self-portrait, if not then make a modification.

• The student will be allowed to use a photo of someone else to alter.

• Students will be able to use pencils instead of colored pencils.

• Students will be able to trace the altered image printed if needed.

• If student is not able to draw, they will be allowed to color a B/W copy of the altered image.

• Students will be able to use 5x7, 4x6, 8x10, or size of their choice for their portrait not exceeding 9x12.

• Students will be able to use a grid, if needed.