Art Educator
Altoona Area Junior High
Differentiation Within Virtual and Hybrid Formats
During my first 8-week placement, there were a lot of unpredictable challenges that came with it due to the pandemic, including spontaneous schedule changes and class layouts transitioning from fully virtual to hybrid learning. However, I had an amazing experience teaching kids in grades 7-8 with entry-level art and sculpture ceramics classes!
My awesome mentor, Mr. John King, was a great support for helping me to become more confident in my teaching abilities amidst these obstacles. With this as my first placement, I really got into the groove of my "teacher personality" and learning how to accommodate individual student needs.
From animal pinch pots, inspired contemporary artist drawings, and virtual bubble letter drawings, each of my lessons exposed students to a variety of mediums and approaches to art-making. I also conducted parent-teacher conferences and helped to organize meetings for John's Literary Magazine club. Overall, I felt like I was thoroughly connected to this placement through fostering close bonds with my mentor, fellow faculty, and students, which made this experience all the more beneficial and fulfilling!
Tell Me About Yourself Bubble Names
I started off with Mr. King's new semester classes, so my first lesson was to help me get to know student interests and personalities by having them draw or sculpt their names into bubble letters filled with things about them. For drawing, they had the option to use Chrome Canvas or materials they had available at home.
They could choose from either option, and this was when classes were still fully virtual so they uploaded images of their work to Google Classroom.
Below is a PDF of my Google Slides instructional tools and the lesson plan.
7th Grade Stop Motion Animations
While Altoona was still fully virtual, students made stop motion video animations focusing on the element of line. They used the app Stop Motion Animation or they could create a traditional flipbook, and either option needed to have some kind of transformation storyline build in the duration of the video.
Below is a PDF of the lesson plan, and it took about three class periods.
Animal Pinch Pots
Once students were hybrid, we got the chance to finally work with clay! For most of these 8th grade students, this was their first time working with the material so we started off with basic vocabulary learned through Edpuzzle on virtual days.
When students were at school they built their pinch pots into animals, or if students were fully virtual they had clay sent home to them.
Below is a PDF of the lesson plan, and it took about three class periods.
7th Grade Contemporary Artist Inspired Artworks
This was a multi-step assignment, which worked out well with the hybrid layout because students were to pick a contemporary artist and research them when they were home and create an artwork inspired by that artist at school.
The research assignment consisted of picking from a given list of 10 artists, learning more about them, and then representing that research in either a Google Slides presentation or Canva flier.
Students then created really wonderful paintings, drawings, or sculptures with inspiration tied back to the artist in some way, which they would reflect on with their assignment submission in a comment on Google Classroom.
Below is a PDF of my Google Slides instructional tool and the lesson plan, and this lesson took about two weeks to complete.
8th Grade Recycled Sculptures
While students were fully virtual, they created sculptures from trash or collected items from home. They learned about different types of sculpture and chose to either make a relief, functional, or decorative sculpture with their found materials.
Students reflected on their work with private comments on Google Classroom and a group discussion activity on Jamboard.
Below is a PDF of the lesson plan, and this lesson took about a week to complete.
8th Grade Contemporary Coil Pots
I also had 8th grade research from a list of living ceramics artists while they were at home. At school, students constructed coil pots inspired by the philosophies or methods of that artist.
