TA week 2 Reflection (30th – 3rd April)

This week’s TA task focused my observation on the motivational and lesson enactment strategies employed by my CT, which makes up one of the 4 teaching processes under the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP). In my observations, I saw that my CT packaged the art experiences in a way that allowed students to connect their learnings. This helps sustain their learnings as students drew on their prior art experiences in making sense of the new activities introduced. For one, she often provided a prelude to the following week’s art lesson by giving students a brief overview of what they can expect within the closure segment of the previous lesson.

For instance, in hyping the Primary-1 students up for the texture painting activity the following week, she invited student to actively source for and bring in recyclable materials such as bubble wrappings and old toys in preparation for this week’s activity. At the same time, she also recapped on the texture exploration activities that students had experienced before, such as tree-bark or coin rubbings, which activated students’ prior knowledge and kept them excited for the upcoming art lessons. This allowed students to relate the new content back to their prior learnings, strengthening their art knowledge!

In preparation for the P1’s texture painting this week, my CT tried out the activity herself and made a teaching sample that allowed her to foresee and plan her step-by-step instructions. Resultantly, her explanations were short, simple and crystal clear for the P1s. The clarity of her instructions allowed the P1s to engage with the art activity with minimal hiccups, and even when unforeseen situations arose, she was able to address them flexibly with the clear structure she had set in place.

I especially enjoyed how she carried out her lesson demonstrations, where she weaved in behavioral expectations through the modeling of thought processes. For instance, she led students to consider their courses of action if they wanted to change colors using the same tool but did not want to mix the colors. Students then saw the need to wipe off excess paint on the rags provided before changing color. By verbalizing her thoughts as she demonstrated, students also learnt to mirror her thought-process as they worked. She also took the demonstration as an opportunity to activate students’ prior knowledge on warm and cool colors, which they used to create their artworks for that lesson.

For the P2’s class on half-half imagination drawing combined with magazine cutouts, my CT’s demonstration included trigger questions that stimulated students’ thinking and engaged them in making decisions along with her. For example, students were prompted to imagine the setting - “where do you think the cut-out figure could be?”, “What background should I draw for him/her?”. In encouraging students’ inputs and sharing the rationale for artistic decisions made, students get to practice considering different factors involved in the art-making process. This questioning strategy aroused student interest and encouraged learner engagement with the art-task at hand as it sparked their imagination on the various possibilities they could create in their own artwork!

Apart from using art demonstrations to arouse students’ interest, I also observed how my CT used novel art-making tools and activities to sustain their interest. For the P1’s texture painting activity, they were provided with novel materials such as sponge-tools, print rollers, forks and strings to paint. These tools provided novel experiences for the P1s and they were engaged in tactile and visual discoveries as they dipped the materials in paint and watched as they created lines with unique qualities on paper.

As for the P2s, their art-task this week was scaffolded from the previous week’s collaborative art-making activity. In sparking students’ imagination, collaborative learning was utilized as a strategy that facilitated the generation of individual ideas through peer-support as they worked in groups of 3s. Each student imagined and drew a part of the creature’s figure (head, body, legs), which joint together to form a new creature altogether! Students loved the surprise element in creating their collaborative work and enjoyed deciding on the colors and details for the artwork together.

This exciting collaborative exercise served as a lead-in to this week’s individual art-making activity where students created their own half-half imagination artwork. In arousing students’ interest, they were first engaged in art discussions that utilized the visible thinking routine of “Think, Pair, Share” to communicate their observations of artworks related to the theme of half-half. After that, students were shown possible artworks made by their peers from other classes who had attempted the art-task. I noticed that students’ interests were piqued by these sample artworks as they ‘wowed’ at their peers’ works. Not only is that an excellent strategy to sustain students’ interest as a visual stimulus, it also allowed students to gather ideas for their own works, keeping them excited for the art-task!

I realized that art lessons naturally allowed for differentiation, which is a strategy that encourages students’ participation in class. During the artmaking, my CT and I walked around the class to check on students’ progress. We could offer personalized guidance for each child. This was made possible by the enabling constraints set in place for each art tasks that allows for flexibility and student choice in deciding and working towards their final artwork. Hence, I found that we could give individualized feedback and assist students in achieving their goals, based on their present levels of interest, skill and artistic development. For instance, students who were interested in showing naturalism and depth received guidance from my CT on perspective-drawing tips and readily employed them in creating their visual story. On the other hand, students who were not yet ready were quick to reject my CT’s suggestions and vocalized their preference for a more symbolic drawing style. I recognized that a crucial factor that allows for differentiation in meeting students’ diverse interests and needs lies in the Arts’ openness to student input and an encouragement of varied outputs and art styles.

I observed that my CT used closure to formatively assess students’ learning while doing a quick wrap-up for that lesson. For instance, the P4s were engaged in an SLS package that they completed in class with Ipads. After the self-paced SLS lessons on the Elements of Art (EOA), my CT got each table to list an EOA that they had learnt about, and to provide explanations of how it could be represented in art. The questions she asked ascertained if students had learnt the intended content, and if not, it informed her on the planning for future lessons so as to close those identified gaps.

Through the conversation with my CT, I learnt that closure should be done flexibly. Depending on the lesson content and its relation to that term’s art-task and learning objectives, closure need not happen all the time. In the case of the P5s who are constructing their axel-cam-cam automaton, the hands-on art-making component spans over three lessons and having a closure in between would not value-add to their experience.

However, she also mentioned that closure can happen as a lesson on its’ own. For instance, at the end of the whole module, closure could comprise of a gallery walk, followed by peer and individual reflection. This would help students build up skills in analyzing and providing constructive feedbacks for their artworks. Students will also be encouraged to share about the intentions and processes behind their artwork, which would allow them to better understand and respect each other’s’ viewpoints. By considering these various factors in the lesson enactment segment so that art lessons could be framed cohesively, my CT kept the students engaged and interested in art!